Saturday night was supposed to be the Final Four showdown of the century. It was supposed to be a clash of two Titans, three-loss Michigan and two-loss Arizona. Dusty May turned it into a snoozer, basically from the opening tip.
Making his second trip to the Final Four didn’t cement May as one of the best coaches in the sport, but what he did to Tommy Lloyd’s Wildcats did. Now, he has to face the final boss on Monday night.
May painted one masterpiece in Indianapolis, a 91-73 drubbing of one of the only teams on Michigan’s level this season. Now the question is: Can he do it again against a coach who is on a level all his own?
Dusty May dared Tommy Lloyd to change his stripes
The best teams in the country have all gone big. The idea that May, Lloyd, and even Brad Underwood rode to the Final Four is essentially easy buckets for us, no easy buckets for them. Arizona, however, took the idea of rim dominance to an extreme.
The Wildcats basically didn’t shoot threes all year. They didn’t need to. No team could match their size and physicality on the interior. No team could prevent them from getting to the rim—no team except Michigan. So, Arizona had the third-lowest three-point attempt rate in the country. It’s not that they couldn’t; the Wildcats have good shooters, they just didn’t. So when May dared them to, rather than hoist from deep, Arizona preferred to smash its head into May’s expertly constructed brick wall.
With Aday Mara, Morez Johnson, and, at least for 15 minutes on Saturday night, Yaxel Lendeborg, the Wolverines did more than match the physicality; they threw the first punch. Yet, when it was all said and done, Arizona finished with 36 points in the paint, and Michigan finished with 36 points in the paint. The difference lies in how those points came about.
By packing the paint around Mara, the game’s preeminent rim protector, Michigan dared Arizona to change. But, rather than suddenly altering their shot diet in the biggest game of the year, Lloyd watched as his team shot 10-23 at the rim.
In a game that appeared to be a stalemate on the inside, Michigan’s biggest edge was the variability of its offense. While it’s not their primary goal, the Wolverines are comfortable shooting over the top, and did to the tune of 12-27, outscoring Arizona by 18 from beyond the three-point line in an 18-point win.
Dan Hurley won’t be so easy to outduel
Dan Hurley, while he may appear like a bull in a china shop on the sidelines, isn’t about to spend 40 minutes running into a wall, even if May has Wile E Coyote paint a tunnel on it. That’s not to disparage Lloyd. He’s a great coach who built a team with very specific principles. Hurley has his stuff and certainly knows how to dictate the terms of engagement when he can, but he’s also the best coach in the country at diagnosing a problem and adapting mid-game. Exhibit A is a 19-point comeback in the Elite Eight vs. Duke.
As a starting point, Michigan’s defensive game plan must be completely inverted against UConn. Hurley would happily run his shooters off screens for open threes if Michigan opts to go under everything as they did against Arizona. A third of UConn’s shots this season have been above-the-break threes. So, May’s best attempt may actually be to paint the tunnel on the wall.
Ideally, Michigan should want to lock-and-trail around off-ball screens, always going over the top to take away the three and invite the drive. Same with ball-screen coverage, May will likely try to funnel everything to Mara at the rim, where Michigan’s opponents are shooting 57 percent at the rim this season and 50 percent in the NCAA Tournament.
Hurley should, and probably will, attempt to play Mara off the floor. Alabama did it with pace; UConn won’t play that fast. But the Huskies pull him away from the basket by using Tarris Reed Jr. as a screener. Unlike the rest of the Final Four and most of the other top contenders in the sport, UConn plays relatively small with Alex Karaban logging nearly all of his minutes at the four. That could be an advantage for Hurley to press, and it will be a problem for May to solve.
Then there’s the looming Lendeborg injury that could throw everything for a loop. His health, or lack thereof, will make it even tougher for May to outduel Hurley. But if he does, he’ll end a 37-year waiting game for Michigan fans and thrust himself, maybe not onto Hurley’s tier, but the one just below as one of the best coaches in the sport.