All previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule
Michigan Wolverines
Seed: 1
Record: 20-4
Conference: Big Ten
vs.
Texas Southern Tigers
Seed: 16
Record: 17-8
Conference: SWAC
Date: Saturday, March 20
Time: 3:00 pm Eastern
Region: East
Location: Mackey Arena, West Lafayette, IN
Channel: CBS
1-seed Michigan begins their quest for the Final Four without Isaiah Livers, possibly for the whole tournament.
Michigan Texas Southern
Power Ratings
Strength: #6 Strength: #234
Pomeroy: #2 Pomeroy: #229
Offense: #6 Offense: #236
Defense: #7 Defense: #236
BPI: #6 BPI: #203
LRMC: #8 LRMC: #196
Other Measures:
Tempo Total/Off: #260/#178 Tempo Total/Off: #41/#52
SOS: #11 SOS: #328
Consistency: #328 Consistency: #17
Str x Consistency: #7 Str x Consistency: #202
2nd half season: #3 2nd half season: #249
Last 6 games: #17 Last 6 games: #208
Road Strength: #5 Road Strength: #225
Injury Modifier: #25 (-Livers) Injury Modifier: #234
Michigan has the numbers of a 1-seed, at least in Pomeroy where they are #2 behind Gonzaga. We have them #6 as does BPI, while LRMC has them #8; those would befit a 2-seed more. On both offense and defense they're in the top 10, a rare group with only a few other members: fellow 1-seeds Gonzaga and Illinois.
Obviously 16-seed Texas Southern isn't expected to live up to those standards. They rank lower than the average D-I team by quite a bit (there are around 350 teams that actually played this year, so 175 is par). Their offense and defense get exactly the same efficiency rank from Pomeroy (I think it shifted since their First Four win). Their strength of schedule is bottom of the barrel, but one thing they are is consistent; they should play at a low level almost every game, giving them even less of an upset change.
Looking at Michigan in the long term there are just two concerns. One is their lack of consistency; that's troubling for a deep run, since it's more likely they hit a downside performance. The other is the status of Isaiah Livers, who is probably needed for them to reach the Final Four. He's likely to miss this game and round 2, while his return at all is questionable. Michigan's low score in recent play overlaps with the sole game he missed, and though the latter is a tiny sample to base anything on, his absence is a concern.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (10): @(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
- Losses to tournament teams (3): (1)Illinois-23, @(11)Michigan St.-6, =(2)Ohio St.-1
- 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.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): =Mount St. Mary's+8
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @(4)Oklahoma St.-20, @(6)BYU-16
- Other losses (6): @Washington St.-4, @Saint Mary's-12, @Auburn-17, @Prairie View A&M-4, Grambling St.-6, Prairie View A&M-2
Overview: Texas Southern started the season 2-7. Four of those losses came on the road to teams that either made the tournament, or are from major conferences, or both. The last 2 losses were part of their conference schedule, so who knew they were going to win 10 of their next 11 conference games? It turns out the two games they lost followed a 3-week Covid pause, which affected many teams this year. Within a few games they were hitting their stride and lost only to Prairie View A&M in February. In March the Tigers marched through their tournament and beat Prairie View 80-61 to take the title and the Dance bid.
Texas Southern is led by Michael Weathers' 16.5 points and 3.6 steals per game. The Tigers are a good rebounding team, but have the distinction of being on of the worst teams in D-I from behind the arc, just 27.7%. They also commit non-steal turnovers more than all but a handful of schools.
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Game Analysis: There's not much to say here except that the only way Michigan loses is if they have one of their weird underperformances. Even that might not be enough to do it, Texas Southern has to step up with one of their better outings. So it's mostly a foregone conclusion, but ever since Virginia-UMBC, there's been hope for 16-seeds everywhere.
Sometimes a "bad" team can be good, and if they can do something well like shoot the three, maybe they can get hot and something will happen. That doesn't help Texas Southern much, because they really can't shoot the three. Sometimes, though, a team is up-and-down, and if you catch them on the right day...nope, Texas Southern is one of the most consistent teams in the country.
Michigan will probably be without Isaiah Livers, which probably hurts them more than anything the Tigers can do. In fact, I'd say Michigan playing a terrible game is far more important to Texas Southern's chances than any upside performance the Tigers can deliver. Just hope for a repeat of the Minnesota or Illinois game and the gap is closed a lot.
Vegas Line:
Michigan by 26 1/2
Power rating: spread
Michigan by 26.4
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Michigan: 93.8%
Texas Southern: 6.2%
Recent game performance (last 6):
Michigan: 88.9%
Texas Southern: 11.1%
Michigan by 19.6
The line just opened exactly on the dot, or as close as it could get, to our power rating's spread. Our game-comparison system tends to give long tails to longshots, so the Tigers are shown with a 6% chance to win that's well above the realistic 1% chance. In recent play, it only takes one bad Michigan game of the six for Texas Southern to get some "wins" and their worst game happened to be in their last six games.
Bottom line: Michigan will advance and hope to get Isaiah Livers back some time pretty soon.
Final prediction: Michigan 80, Texas Southern 60
More previews: click here for the full 2021 NCAA tournament schedule.
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