Michigan Basketball: 5 Reasons Wolverines can make Final Four

Point guard play

Good guard play is a common theme of successful teams in the NCAA Tournament and with Mike Smith at point guard, the Wolverines have that.

Of course, regular season performance doesn’t mean anything if you have a bad game in the tournament, which Smith is capable of — he was 1-for-11 in the Big Ten semifinals against Ohio State.

One of his biggest assets is his ability to create shots out of ball screens. With Livers out, he will need to take on more of a scoring role, which he proved more than capable of doing at Columbia. He’s taken drastically fewer shots this season.

The key is whether or not he can be as efficient as he was during the season with a higher volume of attempts. If he can, while keeping his turnover rate low, then Michigan basketball is going to be a really tough team to knock out.

Low turnovers were always a key under Beilein and a lot of that leads back to having a point guard who can run the show, which is Mike Smith.