INDIANAPOLIS – For two months, Michigan went unscathed, beating up opponents by double digits in 11 of 14 games, sometimes 40 or 50 points.
Eyes brows were raised in the college basketball world.
At the same time, Arizona was rolling, beating teams by 20 to 30 points on the regular, eventually going to No. 1 in the first week of December for nine weeks.
The two teams were the talk of the college basketball world.
Are these two teams really this good?
What would happen if these two titans played one another?
Well, here we are at Lucas Oil Stadium for the right to get to the NCAA championship game on Monday night.
The two teams are a combined 71-5 with Michigan 35-3 and Arizona 3-2. Michigan went 12-0 in the first two months and 14-0 before it fell. Arizona went 13-0 in November and December, enroute to a 23-0 start.
Was it destiny? We will find out on Saturday night at 5:45.
Tommy Lloyd said he did catch them on TV a time or two, but “I hadn’t (done) a deep dive into them or anything like we have now. Obviously, they beat up on Gonzaga pretty good (101-61), and that doesn’t happen very often. When they did that, that obviously got my attention.
“(But) these seasons you’re running your own race with your own team, and you just don’t have time to sit there and really dissect other teams that you’re not playing. Obviously, they’ve had an incredible season from the start to the finish.
“It’s been really impressive to watch.”
What happened at the beginning hasn’t really changed much in the last two months, losing only twice since early January.
Arizona has lost just twice this whole season.
The teams are similar – just different.
“I think you’ve just got to get on the court and figure it out,” Lloyd said of the matchup. “I think both teams are probably adept at what they do, and we’re going to get out, and I think both of us are going to try to play to our strengths and see how it feels. To me, that’s the biggest thing.
“We’ve obviously got a lot of respect for Michigan. They’ve had an incredible season and they’re incredibly well built, and we know there’s going to be a ton of challenges, and we’re going to have some moments where we have to figure some things out.”
One will be whose bigs – centers, et al – play against one another. Michigan may be the tallest team UA has faced all year. And Arizona may be the most efficient frontcourt Michigan as faced this season.
“I see so many similarities with the intangibles and the team character of both of us, and then obviously when you factor in the size and both teams get a lot of credit for how good our front lines are, but there’s some great guards and very intelligent basketball being played by both teams,” Dusty May said.
“When we watch them, we see ourselves other than a few stylistic differences. We see a lot of ourselves in them, and it’s going to be a battle. We believe it’s going to be won in the 39th or 40th minute of this game.”
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