Ward scored 22 points and grabbed nine rebounds to go along with Tillman’s seven points and four boards in MSU’s 79-55 victory over the Golden Gophers on Feb. 9 in East Lansing.

In five matchups against Minnesota over the course of his career, Ward is averaging 16.2 points and 9.4 rebounds.

“I just think it’ll help our team,” Goins said, of Ward playing more minutes. “When we were rotating me, (Tillman), and Nick (Ward), we were all a little fresher, and able to perform a little better without any type of fatigue. Nick is a helluva player and him being back in the rotation in general is gonna help us.”

The Gophers play two traditional big men, a bit of a rarity in today’s era of pace-and-space college basketball.

Senior forward Jordan Murphy is second to Ohio State’s Jerry Lucas (1959-62) on the all-time Big Ten rebounding list, at 1,306 career rebounds, and is averaging 14.9 points and 11.3 rebounds this season en route to being named to the All-Big Ten first team. Freshman center Daniel Oturu is averaging 10.9 points and 7.1 rebounds.

“He's a rebounding machine, you know, and I love rebounders,” Izzo said of Murphy. “He never used to be able to shoot the ball over his left shoulder. He was a right hander who shot it over his right shoulder which was weird. I think he's developing his game. I think (Minnesota coach Richard Pitino) and he both deserve credit for that.”

The Golden Gophers have dealt with their own injury problems inside, with redshirt sophomore Eric Curry missing the rest of the season with a right foot injury suffered Feb. 28 against Northwestern, and redshirt senior Matz Stockman questionable to play Saturday after suffering a concussion March 15 against Purdue. Murphy is dealing with back spasms himself, but Pitino said he would be surprised if Murphy does not play against MSU.

Junior forward Michael Hurt and freshman forward Jarvis Omersa combined for 14 minutes off the bench Thursday against Louisville, and they will likely be the only two frontcourt players to see any action off the bench Friday for the Gophers.

With Ward having missed nearly a month of games, the biggest challenge for him has been getting back in basketball shape. He said he thinks he’s almost back to 100 percent.

“My conditioning has come along,” Ward said. “I've made great strides. Last week wasn't the best. This week I'm starting to feel normal.”

Pitino was very complimentary of MSU’s bigs.

“There is not a lot of front courts with that size and that physicality and as relentless as they are,” Pitino said. “We're going to have to do a great job on those guys. That's extremely important when you're playing Michigan State.”

Oturu said the effort from the bigs is what impressed him in the regular season game between the teams.

“They play really hard,” Oturu said. “I feel like we play hard too, but they play really, really hard, and just being able to match that is a big thing for us — being able to play hard for a full 40 minutes.”

The team that won the rebounding battle has also won the game in three of the last four matchups between the conference rivals.

The game tips off at 7:45 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, and the winner advances to the East regional semifinal next Friday in Washington, D.C. to face the winner of third-seeded LSU and sixth-seeded Maryland.