March Madness comes down to one final game: the NCAA championship game on Monday night at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
Both teams have solidly earned their way into the championship game. Michigan head coach John Beilein will need to come up with a great game plan to put his Wolverines in position to win it all.
So far in the 2013 NCAA tournament, Peyton Siva has shot 1-of-12 from beyond the arc in five games, with his worst long-distance shooting episode coming in the national semifinal versus Wichita State.
Backing off of him when he is away from the basket is a wise move. No need to apply pressure on someone who can't consistently hit shots.
Keeping Siva out of the lane is the best strategy for Michigan to limit his productivity. He just isn't a good outside shooter.
In the first four games of March Madness, the 6'1" junior went to the line an average of 10 times per game and hit 32 of his 40 free throws (80 percent).
But, you might be thinking, "Didn't Smith struggle from the line against Wichita State?" If you thought that, you would be right. He only made five of his 12 free throws.
But I wouldn't bank on that kind of FT futility to continue. If Michigan puts him on the line on Monday, I would expect that he will resume his season's accuracy and make them pay for putting him there.
Luke Hancock and Tim Henderson came off the Louisville bench on Saturday night to hit 5-of-8 three-pointers at a critical time in the second half.
After they hit one or two, you would have thought that Wichita State would have either denied them the ball or been near enough to close out on them when they were getting ready to launch another long-range shot.
Rather than respond after they knock down a couple of threes, the Wolverines should deal with these two sharpshooters before they have enough opportunity to gain confidence by hitting a couple threes at the beginning of the game.
Very few players have made as dramatic of an improvement moving from the regular season to the NCAA tournament as Mitch McGary.
McGary has effectively more than doubled his regular-season production during the first five games of March Madness.
The 6'10" PF is averaging 16 points and 11.6 rebounds per tournament game, while shooting 37-of-53 (70 percent) from the field.
One of the reasons that McGary is contributing at such a higher level is because he is staying out of foul trouble and staying on the floor. This year, McGary played roughly 19 minutes per game. So far in the tournament, he is logging 31 minutes per game.
McGary will be challenged by Louisville's athletic center Gorgui Dieng. This will be a pivotal (pun intended) matchup that will influence the outcome of the title game.
If McGary continues to produce like he has been, not only is that good news for him, but it very well could be the tipping point that gives Michigan its second NCAA championship in school history.
How great would it be to actually have a Neuralyzer like Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) or Agent J (Will Smith) in Men in Black?
Even if Michigan coach John Beilein doesn't have a Neuralyzer available in Atlanta, he needs to find a way for Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Nik Stauskas to not recall what happened offensively in the Wolverines' national semifinal game.
Michigan's top three scorers collectively scored 20 points and shot 5-of-29 (17.2 percent) from the floor, including 4-of-18 (22.2 percent) from beyond the arc.
If someone told me that this is how these three were going to play in the national semifinal game, I would predict that the Wolverines would be back in Ann Arbor in the wee hours of Sunday morning.
The best thing for this trio to do in preparation for Monday's championship game is to take a "What's done is done" attitude and move on.
If Michigan is going to win it all, these three players need to be on the top of their games from the time the ball goes up in the opening tip until the final horn signals the end of the game.
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