Michigan Basketball: Keys for Wolverines to beat Montana in Round of 64
By Adam Childs
Michigan Basketball enters the NCAA tournament a two seed after finishing in second in both the regular season and conference tournaments. Can they make another run to the championship game?
For the second straight year Michigan Basketball will open up the NCAA Tournament with the Montana Grizzlies. Michigan would defeat the Grizzlies last year 61-47 but not after a very slow start that saw Montana jump out to a 10-0 lead in the opening minutes of the game. The Wolverines would lock down on defense and pull away in the second half after only leading by three at the break.
Michigan had a week off before that game last week and it could have contributed to their slow start, but this year they don’t have that excuse. They will look to continue to play good defense but will look to play a full 40 minutes of offense. There has been times this year that the offense has struggled and gone through long scoring droughts. It is what doomed them in their three games against Michigan State and their other losses. The Wolverines can get hot but it has been few and far between lately.
They will be taking a Montana team who won the Big Sky championship for the second straight year. They took care of Eastern Washington in the finals by six points. They finished the year 26-8 and 14-6 in the Big Sky. They only played two power conference teams this year and lost big to both of them. Arizona beat them by 19 and Creighton beat them by 26. They may not have big time wins, but they have nothing to lose and will come out ready to play.
So what does Michigan need to do to avoid a letdown and a big upset. Lets take a look at three keys to the Wolverines first round matchup.