With six days between Sunday’s win over Detroit and Saturday’s game against No. 1 Kansas, Michigan coach John Beilein is splitting the week almost in half.

Use half of the time to improve glaring issues on his 5-4 team. Use the other half to deal with the nation’s top team in one of the most famous settings in college basketball.

Michigan coach John Beilein said his team will concentrate on improving its defense during a six-day break between games.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

“Most of our week will be getting ready for the longer run,” Beilein said during the Big Ten teleconference Monday. “We have one more period like this after Christmas where we have four or five days before our Big Ten opener.

“So the first part of the week will be more about Michigan than it will be about Kansas. The latter part of the week will be about trying to defeat a great Kansas team.”

Beilein said Sunday his team will likely be taking Thursday off as the NCAA’s mandated off-day. But what will Michigan work on?

Defense, Beilein said, is where he’s going to focus the next few days.

Michigan has allowed opponents to shoot 44 percent from the field and 30.3 percent from the three-point line. The Wolverines have also been outrebounded by 3.6 boards a game.

“There’s a lot of issues that we just have to clean up and get better at,” Beilein said. “In my mind mostly are the easy baskets we’ve given up this year. Just kind of cut down on a number of those and sometimes just staying focused throughout the defensive possession and then in transition.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.