The 3 players in the Midwest Region that should scare Michigan the most

Michigan slipped to the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament after its Big Ten Title game loss to Purdue, but that didn’t prevent the Wolverines from getting their preferred region and an ideal path to the Final Four. Dusty May’s team will go through Buffalo for the first weekend before, presumably, heading to Chicago for the Midwest Regional. 

The Wolverines may also have been gifted the most favorable draw of any No. 1 seed, with multiple top contenders in the Midwest battling injuries or unexpected legal issues this March. Put all of that together, and you have the most upset-proof No. 1 seed in the Big Dance. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t players in the region who are making it tough for May to sleep at night. 

It’s pretty easy to make an argument that Joshua Jefferson is the best player that Michigan could face in the Midwest Region. He’s a second-team All-American, and at 6-foot-9, 240 pounds, he’s a physical, do-it-all front-court hub, averaging 16.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 4.9 assists with over a steal and nearly a block a game on the other end. 

However, just because he’s the best player the Wolverines could face doesn’t mean he should scare them the most. Michigan has a stacked front court with Aday Mara, Morez Johnson Jr., and Yaxel Lendeborg. Dusty May has plenty of options to throw at Jefferson to overwhelm him with size, especially because Jefferson isn’t an impressive vertical athlete, so Mara and Johnson will be imposing forces on the interior. 

His passing out of the short-roll and the post could be problematic for Michigan’s defensive rotations, especially with Milan Momcilovic, the nation’s best shooter, roaming beyond the three-point line. Still, if Michigan can shut Jefferson’s water off as a scorer, Iowa State doesn’t have enough reliable playmaking to pull the upset, if the matchup were to come to pass in the Elite Eight. 

Labaron Philon Jr. is the fifth-leading scorer in the NCAA Tournament, and he’s the type of attacking guard that Michigan has struggled to find a solution for. At times, May has sicced Lendeborg on opposing point guards, and that’s likely what he’d do against Alabama, especially with Alabama’s second-leading scorer, Aden Holloway, out for the tournament after a felony drug arrest. 

As a pull-up shooter, Philon could give Mara issues in drop coverage, as Braden Smith did in the Big Ten title game. However, the Alabama guard does so much of his damage at the rim, where 32.3 percent of his field goal attempts come from, and with Nate Oats’s analytically-driven style, he won’t be content to take pull-up shots in the mid-range. This season, Michigan’s opponents are shooting under 60 percent at the rim, and for every shot Mara and Johnson block, they deter a few more. 

The Christian Anderson-JT Toppin pick-and-roll combination was one of the best in the country, and like Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn from Purdue, would have been incredibly difficult for Michigan to defend. With Toppin out for the Tournament, the task is considerably easier, but Anderson’s prolific pull-up shooting numbers will make him an even tougher potential matchup than Philon. 

Anderson’s effective field goal percentage has dipped slightly since Toppin went down, but he’s been as prolific and nearly as efficient. For the season, 58 percent of Anderson’s shots are above-the-break threes, and he’s shooting a ridiculous 41.3 percent on those attempts. For the year, Michigan defends the above-the-break three well, but over its last five, opponents are shooting 36.6 percent, and in the Big Ten Tournament, that number climbed as high as 39.1 percent. 

Teams have begun to hunt Mara in the pick-and-roll to take advantage of Michigan’s drop coverage, and no guard is better equipped to do that, at least as a shooter, than Anderson.