Michigan basketball will open March Madness on Thursday against UC San Diego with a ton of momentum. The Wolverines are fresh off the Big Ten tournament championship and have won three straight games against ranked teams.
Michigan's last six games have come against NCAA tournament teams. UC San Diego has played just one all season. That doesn't matter. Nothing does except what happens during those 40 minutes but Jalen Rose is one man who is confident in the Wolverines.
Rose doesn't just think that Michigan will beat UC San Diego on Thursday, he thinks that the Wolverines can win the whole thing, picking them to be his national champion.
Jalen Rose picks Michigan basketball to win national championship
“The Big Ten champions, No. 1, are a five-seed?” Jalen Rose asked on the air of TruTV ahead of the first play-in game. “What are we doing here, first and foremost? Second, I know y’all saw Tre Donaldson go coast-to-coast and finish with the left. I know y’all was watching. Remind me of Tyus Edney and UCLA. Gave me all confidence in my Wolverines.”
Rose also pointed out about something people about the Wolverines, which is the fact that they have a pair of 7-footers, which isn't something you see every day. UC San Diego is a tough matchup, but Michigan basketball is too in its own right.
“When you watch the Wolverines play, call an archaeologist,” Rose said. “You don’t normally see two seven-footers actually perform in the way they do. You see (Danny) Wolf dribble, passing and shooting, making people around him better. You see (Vladislav) Goldin doing old-school post-ups on the block, doing actual jump hooks over both shoulders. Teams that aren’t in our conference aren’t used to seeing that."
Jalen Rose said to "pass the scissors" when talking about Michigan cutting down the nets. He also mentioned Dusty May as a reason why.
Rose knows a thing or two about deep NCAA tournament runs. He helped Michigan basketball make the national title game in 1992 and 1993, as well as the Elite in 1994 before being selected in the first round of the 1994 NBA draft.
i don't know about his prediction but if Michigan shoots the 3-ball at a really high level and defends the way it did during the Big Ten tournament, plus cuts back on turnovers, you never know.