With no offense to UConn and Illinois, one of the things the Lunatic always marvels at is how the conference champions rise to the top. So, in the nightcap, we have the Big 10 champion against the Big 12 champion, with a trip to the championship game being on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arizona (36-2, 1 seed in the West)<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n STARTING LINE-UP (based on last game)<\/p>\n\n\n\n KEY BENCH<\/p>\n\n\n\n HOW THEY GOT HERE<\/p>\n\n\n\n CURRENT KENPOM STATS<\/p>\n\n\n\n COACH – Tommy Lloyd<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freshman Koa Peat was the most outstanding player in the West region. He was able to drive to the lane at will and dominate the boards. But he wasn’t even Arizona’s leading scorer this season – that was Braylon Burries, their best three-point shooter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just because Burries is good from outside though doesn’t mean that is where he scores all his points. Arizona lives in the paint, with all five players being capable of driving the lane and scoring on their drives. And then they crash the boards leading to lots of tip-ins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One factor that might matter is the fact that Arizona does not shoot a lot of three-pointers. Over the season, Michigan shot 300 more three-pointers than the Wildcats. The only time Arizona shoots from outside is when they are completely wide open – and they are normally deadly when that happens. The reason I mention this is I just watched Illinois struggle from three, something that occasionally happens when teams play in these football stadiums with unusual site-lines for the shots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Arizona wins their games by scoring in the paint and then smothering you on defense. And with their physical driving, they get you in foul trouble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michigan (35-3, 1st in the Midwest)<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n STARTING LINE-UP (based on last game)<\/p>\n\n\n\n IMPORTANT BENCH<\/p>\n\n\n\n HOW THEY GOT HERE<\/p>\n\n\n\n CURRENT KENPOM STATS<\/p>\n\n\n\n COACH – Dusty May<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michigan looked so dominating through the year. The Big 10 was the best conference in basketball this year, and they went 19-1 in the conference normally winning by double digits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They are led by Yaxel Lendeborg, who has the ability to score from anywhere. It is crazy tough to guard a 6’9″ guy who can also hit three-pointers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michigan statistically has the best defense in college basketball. This is because their big men don’t tend to give a lot of offensive rebounds – they control the boards. With a 7’3″ rim protector and four athletic players roaming the perimeter, they can guard both drives and three-point shooters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the day, we are looking at the two best defenses in college basketball, and the 4th vs 5th best offenses in college basketball. Both the Wildcats and Wolverines are extremely efficient in what they do. Whoever wins the paint, something both teams are used to winning, will likely decide who moves on to play UConn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should be a fantastic game between the Big 10 and Big 12 champions, and it is almost ready to tip off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With no offense to UConn and Illinois, one of the things the Lunatic always marvels at is how the conference champions rise to the top. So, in the nightcap, we have the Big 10 champion against the Big 12 champion, with a trip to the championship game being on the line. Arizona (36-2, 1 seed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2026-blog","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3661"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3670,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661\/revisions\/3670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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