Final Four 2013

The first of Saturday's pair of Final Four matchups ends with theLouisville Cardinals advancing to the national championship gamewith a 72-68 victory over upstart Wichita State, which lost a 12-point lead. They'll play the winner of the matchup between Michigan and Syracuse. Here are some photos from both games.

John Beilein was already preparing for Louisville. The Michigan coach had popped in a DVD of the Cardinals at 5:45 on Sunday morning in the team’s hotel, trying to soak in and figure out his opponent in tonight’s national championship game. He’s a basketball junkie, so a lot of it was familiar, but as he pored through his notes and glanced at the film, one number stood out.

39.2.

"The 40 is the watermark that I look for," Beilein said yesterday. "If a team has a defensive field goal percentage of under 40, I know they really guard people. I wish ours was under 40. I didn’t look at the Louisville stats until the bus going out of here last night. I said, ‘Please be like 41 or 42.’ Then I’m looking at 39 again."

It’s been a recurring theme for Michigan’s march to the championship: The Wolverines’ last four games have all been against some of the best defensive teams in the nation. If you’re measuring by defensive field goal percentage, then Michigan has beaten the No. 1 (Kansas, 36.1), No. 3 (Syracuse, 36.9) and No. 9 (Florida, 38.2) teams in the country.

If you look at the metric of adjusted defensive efficiency — an estimate of the points allowed per 100 possessions against the average Division 1 offense — Michigan’s march has been even more impressive. Florida is third, Kansas is fifth, Syracuse is sixth and Virginia Commonwealth is 32nd.

And Louisville is No. 1. So, to be the best, the Wolverines will really have to beat the best.

"Coach Beilein, he does a great job of preparing us," Wolverines freshman guard Nik Stauskas said. "We watch a lot of film and go through a lot of things in practice to help us prepare for games. … He’s one of the best in the country. His attention to detail is great. Obviously, this Louisville defense is going to be tough. We just have to execute our offense the way we want to."

Surviving for four straight NCAA Tournament games against some of the nation’s best defenses has allowed for Michigan (31-7) to prepare for arguably the hardest test in Louisville (34-5). The Cardinals’ pressure defense is considered to be the toughest to play against, because of the ease and efficiency with which they play. With the two guards at the top (Peyton Siva and Russ Smith) constantly swiping at the ball, the two forwards (Chane Behanan and Wayne Blackshear) able to eat up space and move side-to-side and center Gorgui Dieng’s shot-blocking presence on the back end, it has rattled even the best of teams.

"I’ve gone against the press in practice and it’s an almost indescribable feeling," Smith said. "I wouldn’t want to go against it. And I can only imagine how it is with the momentum shift. We’re digging in and digging in and making a run, then we make baskets and the crowd goes crazy. I’m not going to sit here and say the other team doesn’t worry about it, but from experience in practice? That bothers me. There’s nothing I can compare it to."

Michigan can. In the third round, the Wolverines faced VCU’s relentless "Havoc" defense and won, 78-53. Then, in the Elite Eight, they faced Florida’s vaunted press. Michigan solved that, 79-59.
"There’s an adjustment process that every player goes through when they’re up against a different stimuli," Michigan assistant coach Bacari Alexander said. "Louisville’s press is different than Florida’s. Florida’s is different than VCU’s. So you have to kind of go through it to come out of it. There’s a sense of confidence, only in that we’ve seen a number of things."

Over the past month, Michigan has played the grinding style of Wisconsin, 2-3 zone of Syracuse, the man-to-man press of Kansas and the full-court intensity of VCU and Florida. Now comes the final hurdle: Louisville.
Michigan has made it this far against a Murderer’s Row of defenses. It’s hoping for one more.
"I hope we can do one more," Beilein said. "Just one more game where we can put 60 to 70 points up there in these games. We could have a ‘W’ if we can put up those number of points."