Michigan basketball soaking up Final Four before 'battle' vs Arizona
· Yahoo Sports
INDIANAPOLIS − Moments after Michigan basketball arrived at their downtown hotel − their intended home through Monday, April 6 − Nimari Burnett opened the curtains in his room and pulled out his phone.
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Covering the side of the Marriott across the street was a building-sized 2026 NCAA Tournament bracket, with every team and every result, all the way down to the Final Four. Among the teams' logos still on the side, 1-seed Michigan – the Wolverines face fellow 1-seed Arizona on Saturday (8:49 p.m., TBS) for a spot in Monday's national championship game.
Even before that, the moment had already hit him.
"I mean as soon as we landed, it was a bunch of people lined up, all types of banners and posters," Burnett said in the team locker room, shortly before the Wolverines took the court for their first practice at Lucas Oil Stadium. "The esthetic of being in the Final Four, it's beautiful. As soon as we got to the hotel, our room was laid out, you can see the bracket across as soon as you open the window
"Super cool, something that I'll never forget."
The Wolverines are toeing the line between soaking up the moment live and focusing on their future. The immediate goal (which may appear familiar to anyone following the team for more than a minute this season): Win two more games and become immortalized in NCAA history.
It's hard not to be struck by the moment that no Wolverine, other than coach Dusty May, has experienced: The patches on jerseys, the logos on chairs and lockers, the massive mural (reading "The Road Ends Here") on the side of the Wolverines office through at least Saturday (if not two more days after) – otherwise known as the home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts.
May said that he and the staff have tried to be "as business as possible and limit outside distractions and stay busy," but with seemingly five times their usual media at every turn, plus additional obligations and the general aura in Indy, his players aren't hiding how this moment is unlike any they've experienced.
"Obviously we know what the stakes are of this game," Roddy Gayle Jr said. "It is kind of a surreal moment to be one of four teams left in the NCAA Tournament with a chance to win a championship.
Fifth-year senior Will Tschetter turned to redshirt freshman Oscar Goodman after they received their Final Four backpacks, during their ride the hotel to the stadium, saying, in one breath: "This still doesn't even feel real."
And yet, in the next breath, he spoke, matter-of-fact, on how this is the moment the team has prepared for since the summer. Now that it's here, the confluence of pomp and circumstance shouldn't cover up that it's the same sport the team has played all year.
"At the end of the day, we're just playing two more basketball games," he said. "We're just ready to go out there, execute the game plan and play two more."
Michigan expected to be here, but it doesn't simply expect to beat Arizona. The Wolverines believe they can win this game, but they know it will be an absolute slugfest. The Wildcats (36-2) lost back-to-back games in one week in January – that was bookended by a 23-game win streak and their active 13-gamer.
Arizona is one of the few teams in the country with a frontline that can genuinely match the Wolverines, coupled with depth that Michigan can't simply run down and a guard known for making big plays in big moments.
Michigan appears to have an answer at every turn. The Big Ten player of the year, Yaxel Lendeborg. The most imposing frontline in the nation in Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara. A point guard in Elliot Cadeau who's playing his best ball and is "fine" after suffering a medical scare during the team's Ann Arbor sendoff. A pair of senior guards in Burnett and Gayle. Tschetter to provide energy off the bench. And a freshman who is as much of a knock-down shooter as anybody in the nation, in Trey McKenney.
The more the Wolverines study the Wildcats, the more they see the parallels, which leads them to believe this one is going to go the distance. Would it be easier if it didn't? Sure. But the Wolverines have prepped with "April habits" for the better part of nine months for this exact moment.
"When we watch them, we see ourselves other than a few stylistic differences," May said. "We see a lot of ourselves in them, and it's going to be a battle. We believe it's going to be won in the 39th or 40th minute of this game."
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball soaking up Final Four before 'battle' vs Arizona