The national title game is set, as UConn and Michigan are ready to battle for all the marbles on Monday night in Indianapolis. Both teams have had very impressive tournament runs in different ways and have different things on the line on Monday.
UConn has had to battle for a lot of its wins, even coming from far behind at times to get to this point. The Huskies won a couple of ugly games in the first weekend against Furman and UCLA before entering a gauntlet of a second weekend in the East Region. In the Sweet 16, UConn saw a 19-point lead against Michigan State disappear before holding on to win a very close game in the end to get to the Elite Eight.
In the regional final, Dan Hurley and company were on the other side of the 19-point deficit against top overall seed Duke. However, the Huskies clawed their way back into the game before Braylon Mullins drilled a long 3-pointer to send his team to the Final Four in an epic comeback. In the Final Four, UConn played an excellent defensive game to take down Illinois and get to the title game.
On the other side, Michigan hasn't had to deal with nearly as much stress to get to this point. The Wolverines rolled over Howard, Saint Louis, Alabama and Tennessee in four blowouts to get to the Final Four and set up a challenge against fellow No. 1 seed Arizona. While, on paper, the Wildcats seemed to match up with Michigan enough to give the Wolverines a real test, that didn't come to fruition. Michigan jumped out to a 16-point halftime lead and never looked back in a 91-73 win that wasn't as close as the final score.
That sets up a title game between a Michigan team looking to cement itself as one of the most dominant teams of this era and a UConn team looking to become the first true dynasty of the NIL era with its third national title in the last four seasons.
Michigan comes into this one as the sizable favorite, but UConn has all of the championship experience with Hurley leading the way and Alex Karaban serving as a second coach on the court. But even that mettle isn't enough to overcome the Michigan machine, and here's why.
UConn must make 3s as Michigan can take Tarris Reed Jr. out of the game
Despite being a historically dominant team, Michigan still came into the NCAA Tournament with three losses on the season. Those defeats came against Duke, Wisconsin and Purdue.
The loss to Wisconsin is the only time that the elite Michigan defense has ever felt like it had no answers, but Wisconsin has what UConn doesn't: a big man that will step out and shoot from the perimeter.
Don't get me wrong, Tarris Reed Jr. is having a historically great NCAA Tournament and will be remembered as the star of this run for the Huskies along with Mullins for his heroics against Duke. But Reed isn't going to be able to overwhelm Michigan on the interior with neither his size nor his physicality, and he can't step away from the basket and space the floor from the outside.
Teams with non-shooting big men have had very little success against Michigan this season because of the presence of Aday Mara in the middle of the defense alongside both Morez Johnson Jr. and Yaxel Lendeborg inside. Mara is arguably the best rim protector in the sport, and when he doesn't have to step out and defend away from the basket, it becomes nearly impossible to get anything easy at the rim.
Take the Arizona game for example. The Wildcats had arguably the best front court in the nation with Mo Krivas, Tobe Awaka and Koa Peat, but Mara stifled all of them inside because Awaka and Krivas aren't big threats from the outside. With Reed on the floor, he will be able to camp in the paint and take away drives all night from the UConn offense.
While UConn has some good 3-point shooters, such as Karaban, Mullins, and Solo Ball if he is able to play through a foot sprain, the Huskies are only an average shooting team in terms of both 3-point rate and 3-point percentage. Scoring inside the 3-point line is a very difficult task against Michigan, as Arizona learned the hard way on Saturday night, so UConn will have to get hot from deep to pull the upset.
UConn won't find any reprieve at the free throw line
The other way that you can get after a team that defends the interior very well is to get them into foul trouble and work your way to the free throw line. If you do that, you can get the opposing bigs off the floor and earn some free points at the line.
There are two problems with that for UConn in this game. First, the Huskies don't get to the foul line all that often, ranking just 306th in the country in free-throw rate coming into this game. While UConn has a lot of quality foul shooters, its inability to get into the paint with the dribble-drive prevents it from getting a lot of looks at the line. Reed's activity on the glass can draw fouls, but he isn't the type of true offensive engine that gets opposing bigs in foul trouble all that often.
On the other side of things, Michigan is one of the best teams in the country at not fouling and sending its opponents to the free throw line. The Wolverines enter the final game of the season allowing opponents to get to the charity stripe at the 14th-lowest rate in the nation despite protecting the rim so well. Mara's size and wingspan at 7-foot-3 allow him to play vertical without fouling and still alter shot after shot.
If UConn isn't making 3-pointers at an insane clip and also getting to the free throw line consistently, it will be very difficult for the Huskies to find consistent offense and keep up with Michigan.
On the other end of the court, UConn has played extremely well defensively and can hold Michigan down a little bit. However, the Wolverines will have a size advantage on the interior and have scored at least 90 points in all five of their games in the NCAA Tournament, so it will still take some offense from UConn to pull the upset.
Given the advantages that Michigan has on the defensive end and its firepower on offense, Dusty May and company seem poised to cement themselves as one of the most dominant teams of the modern college basketball era with a national title on Monday night.
