Indianapolis, IN— While the winner of a basketball game is decided at the final horn, the game gets decided at various points throughout. In the Final four between Arizona and Michigan, the Wolverines came out of the gates, set the tone with their physicality and never looked back.
From the opening tip in Saturday’s matchup, Michigan made it clear they were going to be in control, forcing their versatile front court on Arizona with the Wildcats providing little resistance. Even with Yaxel Lendeborg dealing with early foul trouble and eventually a knee injury, Michigan grabbed a hold of momentum early and never gave it back, knocking off Arizona 91-73.
Michigan jumped out to a 10-3 lead at the first media timeout, limiting Arizona to 1-5 through the first four minutes and those early struggles plagued the Wildcats throughout. While the paint battle was relatively even, Michigan was able to get out and run in transition, capitalizing on 14 Arizona turnovers, which turned into a 26-12 advantage in points off turnovers.
A lot was made coming into this game about the frontcourt battle between these two lengthy teams and while Michigan didn’t bully Arizona, their versatility gave them problems that they struggled to find answers to. Overall on the evening, Michigan averaged 1.197 points per possession, which in large part was boosted by 12-27 shooting from beyond the arc.
Whether it was numerous crowd engaging Dunks, their ability to cash in from three, or their ability to hold Arizona to under 50% shooting on layups and dunks, Michigan did everything they needed to do to limit Arizona and it paid off.
According to Will Tschetter, the Wolverines had the blueprint they needed to knock off a physical team like Arizona and it came from their past experiences in the NCAA tournament.
“We knew what it took. We had the blueprint. We did it vs Tennessee. So for us to come out and do it again… it was great,” Tschetter said.
While Michigan gave themselves an early jolt of energy out of the gates, they needed to find that again following the injury to Yaxel Lendeborg, as Arizona was able to cut the deficit to 5, 28-23 with 6:43 to play in the first half.
Michigan found that scoring in bunches, as outside of Lendeborg, Michigan had 4 players finish in double figures, led by Aday Mara who finished with 26 points and 9 rebounds on 11-16 shooting from the field. While Mara provided the leading effort, Trey McKinney added 16 points Elliot Cadeau battled through early struggles to finish with 13, and Morez Johnson Jr added 10.
There is no shortage of talent on this Michigan squad, however when a star player goes down, there is always a question of who will step up, or maybe even self-doubt that trickles in. For Michigan, that was far from the case, and if you ask McKinney, this team gave everything they had to finish the job against Arizona.
“During the season we have had some type of mental lapses during big games, but I think we came out, and we really knew how high the stakes were. And we just really wanted to leave it all on the floor. We had nothing left, McKinney said.
Really, we only have a couple of days left with the bonds that we’ve made throughout the summer. So I think it just really shows a lot about our team to be able to flip that switch and just push for more in the second half.”
Michigan needed a rally point and they found that through each other, looking for the best shot each possession, which resulted in 22 assists on their 33 made baskets. No system should entirely collapse with the loss of one player, even a star, and Saturday was proof Michigan’s system is translatable no matter who is on the court.
The Wolverines spread the ball around and on the other end they limited Arizona’s ability to match that, holding the Wildcats to just 5 assists on the day. With Michigan’s offense running at high speed and Arizona’s stuck in the mud, the score gap steadily grew throughout the game and even without Lendeborg at full strength, Michigan was a machine.
This squad had to dig deep to find a level of consistency without Lendeborg, and they did that, which Roddy Gayle believes came from a sense of belief in each other and desire to play for Lendeborg.
“When Yax went down, our huddles had to get tighter, he was going to be thinking about his situation and if he could go or not, so we were looking to rally off of that, to be able to play for him. In the second half, he came out and played for us,” Gayle said.
Michigan is riding a sense of belief and confidence following their final four win and they will look to put that to the test against UConn in the National championship on Monday night.
