Michigan Gets To The Final Four Thanks To Defense

That game has summed up the 2018 NCAA Tournament quite well. Sloppy, not well executed, bad officiating and entertaining as hell because it’s close. More importantly it was one that Michigan will take because the Wolverines are heading to the Final Four thanks to the 58-54 win over Florida State.

That score is one that will likely surprise people who are used to Michigan basketball over the last couple of years. Even more shocking is doing it while not even being efficient offensively and relying on its defense. That’s what makes John Beilein just one of the absolute best coaches in America. He adjusts to his team and roster arguably better than any other coach in America. This time it was getting Zavier Simpson back to being a starting point guard, using Matthews/Livers/Robinson in the small ball four lineup and continuing to run the 2-guard offense.

Tonight though showed how important Charles Matthews is. He led Michigan with 17 points and 8 rebounds and was one of the guys who really looked to attack off the dribble. He got Michigan off to its start by getting an and-1 and following it up with a big time block. That sort of set the tone for an early 10-4 lead for Michigan. Then late in the game he got a big bucket by driving to the lane from the right wing and hitting a little fade.

For Florida State, it was all about Phil Cofer, who is a terrible matchup for Michigan. He took advantage of running multiple positions, even seeing some time as a true small ball five, to go for 16 and 11 while Florida State shot just 32% from the field as a team.

Oh, if you had Michigan -4.5 and watched the last 15 seconds of the game, I’m so sorry. That was horrendous and I have no idea how Florida State didn’t foul with 10 seconds left. Not to mention Michigan is just an awful free throw shooting team and left 5 points on the table over the last 90 seconds of the game. What was Florida State’s bench doing here though? Remember the play happened right in front of the bench and Leonard Hamilton started walking down the sidelines with 6 seconds to go. You have to foul there (line regardless) because of how poor Michigan is at the line. That’s something to keep an eye on at the Final Four. It feels like at some point Michigan will hurt itself with the poor free throw shooting, especially with this being the 2nd close game in the NCAA Tournament for the Wolverines.

Michigan moves on to San Antonio to play Loyola next Saturday because Dave just hasn’t had enough luck yet.