Follow all of Saturday's NCAA Tournament second round games with USA TODAY Sports' live updates.
BUFFALO, NY — The connection between Michigan and Saint Louis starts with coaches Dusty May and Josh Schertz, who once met up in Boca Raton, Florida, with plans to quickly watch film but ended up spending 10 hours talking shop inside May’s former office at Florida Atlantic.
“He's an absolute basketball junkie,” May said. “He's a savant. I've learned so much from him.”
They are coaches cut from a similar cloth: May and Schertz are film-chewing basketball devotees who started as head coaches on lower levels — FAU for May and Lincoln Memorial and Indiana State for Schertz — before ascending to Saturday’s second-round matchup in the Midwest region between the No. 1 Wolverines and No. 9 Billikens.
And they have constructed two teams built in similar ways, with similar styles and a desire to set the pace with fast-tempo offensive playbooks designed to push the score up, up and up.
“They kind of play like us, to be honest with you,” Michigan guard Roddy Gayle Jr. said. “Very similar to us. Honestly, I look at it like, how do we guard ourselves?”
Added forward Yaxel Lendeborg, “We really run the exact same way. I feel like that’s a blessing and a curse for us.”
There is almost no doubt that Saturday’s matchup will be among the most frantic and high scoring in this year’s tournament. Look for fireworks when Michigan meets Saint Louis, and look for each team to chase the 100-point mark in deciding which will advance out of Buffalo and into the second weekend.
“We have a lot of things in common,” said Michigan center Aday Mada. “We both know what kind of shots we want. We have a good efficiency on offense. We play at a high pace. I think we are pretty similar teams.”
The numbers tell the story:
- Saint Louis ranks eight nationally with 87.7 points per game. Michigan ranks 10th at 87.2 points.
- The Billikens and Wolverines were two of the three teams to score 100 points in Thursday’s tournament action, along with No. 3 Illinois against Pennsylvania.
- The Billikens rank fifth in field goal percentage (51.2%) and Michigan ranks sixth (51%).
- Michigan is fourth in assists per game (18.7) and Saint Louis is seventh (18.6).
- The Billikens rank 19th in the country in adjusted tempo, according to KenPom.com, while Michigan ranks 22nd.
- Both offenses love to attack the rim. Saint Louis scored 66 points in the paint in routing No. 8 Georgia 102-77, while Michigan dropped 52 points in the paint in a 101-80 win against No. 16 Howard.
But the teams are not quite the same, and it’s in these differences — and in how each responds to the other’s subtle advantages — that the matchup will be decided.
Saint Louis is far more adept from 3-point range, and much more willing to let things fly from deep. The Billikens are second nationally in 3-point percentage (39.8%) and 12th in long-range makes per game (10.9). On the other hand, Michigan are 114th in attempts (25.1) and 85th in 3-pointers made per game (9.1).
The Billikens are also even more effective in transition than the Wolverines. Saint Louis averages 16.9 fastbreak points per game, sixth in the country, while Michigan ranks 78th at 12.4 points per game on the break.
“If it gets to a game where it’s like a shootout, then we might not get the edge on that,” Lendeborg said. “Because that’s what they like to do. So we’re going to have to do the best we can to run them off the 3-point line and make them finish over our size.”
That’s easier said than done — just ask Georgia, which wilted early in its blowout loss and was looking for the exits before the end of the first half.
But the Wolverines do have two built-in advantages. One is the team’s obvious edge in talent, with former top-ranked recruits such as point guard Elliott Cadeau and two potential NBA draft lottery picks in Lendeborg and forward Morez Johnson Jr., who had a team-leading 21 points against Howard.
Another is experience with facing an up-tempo offense: Michigan defends its own scheme every day in practice, at minimum giving the Wolverines the stamina to handle the Billikens’ frenetic pace.
“It’s going to be easier for us because we’re going to defend things that we’re used to defense every day in practice,” Mada said. “But it’s going to be a tough game, because they’re really, really good and really talented.”
That goes both ways, though, since Saint Louis practices against the same style. And there’s no doubting the Billikens’ confidence after rebounding from a 4-4 close to the regular season.
“We’re so talented offensively, we can play with anybody,” Saint Louis forward Brady Dunlap said.
Michigan players pinpointed the “extremely important” key, said Gayle, of setting the tone early and getting off to a strong start. Saint Louis never trailed against Georgia and led by 14 points with seven minutes left in the first half, eventually pushing that edge to 17 points at the break and as much as 40 points in the second half.
On the other hand, the Wolverines were unable to put down Howard until about six minutes into the second half. The Bison made 10 3-pointers in the first half, and trailed 50-48 after the first possession out of the locker room.
Controlling the flow of this potential shootout would play into the Wolverines’ most discernable advantage: a defense that ranks among the best in the country. Michigan is second in field goal defense (38.5%), third in blocks per game (5.9) and sixth in defensive rebounds per game (29.0).
In the end, Michigan will do its thing on offense, and so will Saint Louis. Given that neither team is likely to be budged off its preferred style, whether the Wolverines advance back to the Sweet 16 might come down to whether they can get the key stops that will mean the difference in a game destined to be among the most explosive in this year’s bracket.
“We’ve got to lead with our defense,” Lendeborg said. “We’ve got to be disruptive. We’ve got to do the best that we can to kind of knock them down a little bit and play in transition like we always do. If we can do that, then we should be set.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michigan vs Saint Louis a March Madness thriller waiting to happen
