Michigan is one of the best teams in the country. That much has become clear over the Wolverines’ 26-2 start to Dusty May’s second season. Even after Michigan’s loss to Duke on Saturday in D.C., it still has an inside track to a one-seed in the NCAA Tournament. However, that path got much slimmer on Wednesday night.
With the Wolverines idle one night after getting back into the win column with a 77-67 victory over Minnesota at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, UConn made a statement that the rest of the country has to take notice of.
After a disappointing 81-72 loss to St. John's at the beginning of the month at Madison Square Garden, Dan Hurley welcomed Rick Pitino to Hartford on Wednesday night, and the two-time national champion had his team in postseason form.
The Huskies rolled to an emphatic 72-40 win over the Johnnies, and in the opinion of CBS’s Matt Norlander, all but locked up their place as one of the four one-seeds in the Big Dance.
At 26-3, and with an ugly loss to Creighton on its resume from just last week, UConn is sitting at No. 6 in the country, and is a half-game up on St. John’s for the lead in the Big East at 16-2 in conference play.
The Big East is hardly the Big Ten this year, with just three teams in Jerry Palm’s latest bracket prediction for CBS Sports, compared to eight for the Big Ten, and UConn’s resume is hardly Michigan’s, which includes three top-10 wins and is likely to include a regular-season Big Ten title.
Yet, because the Big East is a softer conference than the Big Ten, UConn has a much easier path the rest of the way after pulling to even on the season series with St. John’s. The Huskies play Seton Hall on Saturday and close out the regular season on March 7 with Marquette.
Comparatively, Michigan travels to Champaign on Saturday to take on No. 10 Illinois and visits Iowa, a fringe Top 25 team next Thursday, before closing out the regular season against No 13 Michigan State in Ann Arbor on March 7. If Michigan wins out, it's a lock for a one-seed no matter how the Big Ten Tournament plays out, but those are considerably more difficult games than UConn will face.
If Norlander is correct and UConn just secured a one-seed and Duke has the other after beating Michigan, the Wolverines will need to stay ahead of Arizona, Iowa State, Houston, and Florida for one of the other two spots. That’s likely to happen, but UConn’s statement on Wednesday night just eliminated Michigan’s breathing room heading into the final three games of the regular season.