All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Michigan Wolverines
Seed: 1
Record: 23-4
Conference: Big Ten
vs.
UCLA Bruins
Seed: 11
Record: 21-9
Conference: Pac-12
Date: Monday, March 29
Time: 9:57 pm Eastern
Region: East
Location: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
Channel: CBS
Can UCLA become the 3rd 11-seed since 2010—and 2nd play-in 11-seed—to make the Final Four?
Michigan UCLA
Power Ratings
Strength: #5 Strength: #26
Pomeroy: #4 Pomeroy: #16
Offense: #7 Offense: #11
Defense: #8 Defense: #55
BPI: #5 BPI: #30
LRMC:(pre-tourney) #8 LRMC: #47
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #247/#192 Tempo Total/Off: #337/#313
Consistency: #317 Consistency: #55
Last 3 games: #7 Last 3 games: #5
Michigan has stayed about where they started the tournament in the power ratings, in a narrow range in the top ten, even on both offense and defense, though they started #2 in Pomeroy. UCLA is all over the place: should they be in the teens, 20s, 30s, or 40s? LRMC's #47 may seem out of line but that's from before the tournament started, and the Bruins were #46, #44, and #42 in Strength, Pomeroy, and BPI at that time. Their offense was #26 and defense #86 in Pomeroy. What a difference four games makes!
Despite this upward revision UCLA's consistency rating remains high; they're not playing out of their heads, just at the top of their range; two overtime wins and beating Abilene Christian soundly isn't too far off their average performance. Though the Bruins outrank Michigan over a 3-game stretch, if we use 4-games for UCLA to include the Michigan State game they drop to #9.
Season overview: Michigan
- Wins vs. tournament teams (13): @(10)Maryland+11, (9)Wisconsin+23, (10)Maryland+24, @(4)Purdue+17, @(9)Wisconsin+8, (10)Rutgers+7, @(2)Ohio St.+5, (2)Iowa+22, (11)Michigan St.+19, =(10)Maryland+13, =(16)Texas Southern+16, =(8)LSU+8, =(4)Florida St.+18
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (1): =(4)Florida St.+18
- Losses to tournament teams (3): (1)Illinois-23, @(11)Michigan St.-6, =(2)Ohio St.-1
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (0): None
- Other losses (1): @Minnesota-18
Overview: Michigan's season is full of tremendous wins and a few inexplicably bad losses. Juwan Howard's team raced to 11-0 and became the first team ever to beat three ranked teams in a row by 19 points or more; those were 10-seed Maryland, 9-seed Wisconsin, and in-between, Minnesota, who was ranked at the time. Immediately following the Wisconsin win they played Minnesota again and lost 75-57, a 43 point turnaround from the meeting at Ann Arbor. But the Wolverines picked up right where they'd left off, beating Maryland, 4-seed Purdue, Wisconsin, 2-seed Ohio State, and 2-seed Iowa over a 7-game stretch.
Then they faced 1-seed Illinois, who was missing leading scorer Ayo Dosunmu...and got blown away, 76-53, at home. They clubbed Michigan State, but then lost to the Spartans in Lansing. They blasted Maryland in the Big Ten tournament but fell to Ohio State in a battle. So it looks like Michigan is a national title caliber team, for sure—they just have to go six games without hitting one of their freakish underperformances.
The Wolverines are led by freshman center Hunter Dickinson's 14.2 points and 7.6 rebounds; he did a great job defending against Iowa's Luka Garza in that win. On offense Michigan shoots the three at a 38.7% clip but often opts for the 2 where they are good, too. They make 78% of their free throws and rarely turn the ball over. Their defense is just as strong as their offense; they are lockdown on 2-pointers, making opponents shoot the three if they can, and rebound the misses. They don't force turnovers but do block quite a few shots.
Isaiah Livers is their #2 scorer at 13.1 ppg and adds 6.0 rebounds and might miss the whole tournament. He's important for their 3-point shooting (43%) in particular.
Guard Mike Smith led the Wolverines against Texas Southern with 18 points. Eli Brooks carried the weight against LSU, scoring 21 with 5 of 9 three-point shooting. Four Wolverines had double-digits in the big FSU win, including Franz Wagner who had 13 points and 10 rebounds.
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Season overview: UCLA
- Wins vs. tournament teams (6): (5)Colorado+3, (12)Oregon St.+5, (11)Michigan St.+OT, =(6)BYU+11, =(14)Abilene Christian+20, =(2)Alabama+OT
- Wins vs. Sweet Sixteen (2): (12)Oregon St.+5, =(2)Alabama+OT
- Losses to tournament teams (7): @(6)San Diego St.-15, @(2)Ohio St.-7, @(6)USC-18, @(5)Colorado-9, @(7)Oregon-8, (6)USC-1, =(12)Oregon St.-OT
- Losses to Sweet Sixteen (4): @(6)USC-18, @(7)Oregon-8, (6)USC-1, =(12)Oregon St.-OT
- Other losses (2): @Stanford-OT, @Washington St.-8
Overview: Like many tournament teams, it seems, UCLA started their season laying an egg or two. They lost to 6-seed San Diego State 73-58 in the opener, then needed three overtimes to beat Pepperdine. But they began playing really well after that, winning 10 of their next 11, the sole loss to Ohio State, and a win over 5-seed Colorado. Then they hit a rough patch, losing 3 of 4; won four straight; lost four straight, and stumbled into the tournament where they beat the Spartans in overtime.
What do we make of their recent 4-loss skid? Not much. They fell to 5-seed Colorado on the road, 7-seed Oregon on the road, 6-seed USC by a point, and 12-seed and eventual Pac-12 champ Oregon State in overtime. None of those were bad games, they just weren't great; neither was their performance vs. Michigan State, even though that was a win.
The Bruins leading scorer is Johnny Juzang at 14.0 points per game; #2 was Chris Smith but he was lost early in the season with a torn ACL. UCLA shoots the 3 pretty well but they shoot them at a low rate. Across the board their offense looks good on paper while the defense doesn't, and this is reflected in their results. They do rebound well on both sides of the court, though.
Juzang scored 23 while Jaime Jaquez Jr dumped in 27 to lead the Bruins to their overtime victory vs. Michigan State; Juzang had 27 against BYU in their first-round win vs. BYU, and led with 17 against Abilene Christian. Six Bruins scored in double figures in the 88-78 overtime win vs. 2-seed Alabama.
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Game Analysis: It turns out that 11-seeds in general are pretty amazing. I've spent a lot of time harping about how play-in 11-seeds overperform greatly, and they do—if you look at the full history of 11-seeds, the play-in teams do a lot better.
But if you look at 11-seeds since 2010, they're a pretty incredible group: 21 of 40 won their first game (in other words, 11-seeds are more likely to win the 6 vs. 11 contest), 12 of them (30%) made the Sweet Sixteen, 5 made the Elite Eight, and 2 made the Final Four. UCLA could make the last number a 3. So it's not just the play-in teams that overperform; you should expect 11-seeds to win four games between them each year, on average. (This year the win count is already five, between UCLA's three "real" wins and Syracuse's Sweet Sixteen run). In other words, when in doubt, pick the 11-seed to win vs. the 6-seed.
Back to the game at hand. Michigan is the unpredictable team and they will determine what happens here. Have they hit their stride, going by their beatdown of Florida State? Don't start thinking that, because Michigan can turn on a dime and have a really bad game. Or just a sub-par game. You'd think with a top ten offense and defense in efficiency they'd play at a consistent level, but somehow that's not the case. And it's not really 3-pointers making a difference; they shoot those very well but not really all that often so they're not dependent on making threes.
Both teams play a slower tempo on offense and defense, protect the ball well, rebound well, and shoot the 3 well. Michigan will have the height advantage inside, which could be important; they also shoot free throws a lot better, important in a potentially close game.
Vegas Line:
Michigan by 7
Power rating: spread
Michigan by 6.5
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Michigan: 69.9%
UCLA: 30.1%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Michigan: 52.8%
UCLA: 47.2%
Michigan by 1.3
1-seeds have met 11-seeds a total of 7 times and are just 4-3 against them (57%). So Michigan's 70% chance to win is pretty large, and Vegas agrees with our point spread generally. For recent games the odds for Michigan narrow, and that's key—1-seeds only meet 11-seeds at the Elite Eight, which means those 11-seeds are playing their best. Over the last 6 games the Wolverines have a 53% edge, and over the last 4 games it's a 50/50 proposition (Michigan by 1), and over the last 3 UCLA has a 1 point edge at 56%.
Bottom line: I picked against both teams—Michigan to get upset, UCLA to fall short of the upset—last round so that doesn't leave a good track record figuring out what these teams are going to do. I still say Michigan stumbles at some point, and I can't believe UCLA made it this far. It's a coin flip for me whose luck runs out, but UCLA has been living on the edge from the beginning and they have to lose a close one at some point.
Final prediction: Michigan 69, UCLA 68
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.