‘We want to go to San Antonio’ — revived Michigan is on a mission

Michigan has been a popular pick as this year’s 5 seed to get bounced by a 12 in the NCAA Tournament, even after winning the Big Ten Tournament title last week. As much as first round opponent UC-San Diego has talked about playing with a chip on its shoulder, the Wolverines come in with their own in seeing what many fans see as disrespect. 

Forward Danny Wolf, on the Yale team that beat Auburn as a heavy underdog in last year’s tournament, chose his words carefully, pausing for several seconds when asked about the national perception.

“Yeah, of course [we’ve seen it],” he said. “I’ve been on the other side of this last year with Yale when I was a 13 seed, obviously going into that game with a chip on your shoulder. So, I understand their perspective.

“But from our perspective, we know what we’re capable of. We know how good we are. These last few weeks we’ve tried to block out all the outside noise, and we’re going to try to do the same tomorrow. We know who’s in our locker room, who’s been with us the last 10 months, so that’s what we’re going to focus on. That’s all we care about.”

At the same time, there’s no taking them for granted. Much has been made about San Diego’s ability to turn teams over. While the trio they brought to the interview room was self-deprecating about their appearances and their history, they won 15 games in a row for a reason, and they know it. 

Michigan head coach Dusty May understands it too, having coached a mid-major to a Final Four. Initially when they made the tournament it felt like “mission accomplished,” he said. Then they realized they had a much higher ceiling than just making the tournament.

“When we got past the ecstasy of being the second team to ever make the tournament from FAU and a group had never been together and a first time head coach, then we just thought, ‘you know what? We can actually do some damage,’” he said. “The one thing that I felt and the staff, we talked about it after the fact, was when we played the Power Five teams and the [better] seeds, whatever way you want to look at it, we felt like when it got late in the game and the game slowed down that they played … I don’t want to say they played tight, but we played looser and we played with more confidence.

“So, we want to make sure just because we’re that Power Five team or whatever you want to call it, that we don’t fall into that trap. It’s March Madness; everyone is going to love the Cinderella. This is a very, very popular upset pick for a reason — because they’re really, really good.”

His Michigan players have heard it all week, he confirmed, but that won’t make the difference. It’s how they execute for 40 minutes that matters, he said — how connected they stay, how they respond when UCSD makes runs is “ultimately going to determine whether we come back here on Saturday or not.”

Wolf will be a key factor there, and he looked relaxed and ready at Wednesday’s open practice. He also looked and sounded determined.

“It feels more like a business trip … than it did last year at least, and we have really high expectations,” the Michigan junior said. “We want to go to San Antonio [for the Final Four]. We know that we’re capable of doing that, and we’ve got to go one game at a time.

“We’ve got a really good opponent coming up tomorrow night and I speak for the entire locker room at just how excited we are to be here. Not many teams get to be in March Madness, and it’s a once in a lifetime experience. For us, we’re grateful that we get it a few times, and the second part of that, I think it just kind of helps us. We’ve been here before. All the main guys have won games in the tournament or they’ve won major, impactful games. We know what it takes. We know how every possession matters, what you should and shouldn’t do, the dos and the don’ts, and we’ve really got to focus on ourselves and try to block out all that outside noise.”

The Big Ten Tournament was a huge boost to their confidence, May noted, winning three games in three days in different ways. Against Purdue it was taking care of the ball, Maryland rebounding, and Wisconsin mucking it up and finding a way. 

The Michigan coach isn’t sure what to expect Thursday, but he feels confident in his team’s preparation. 

“We have no idea how we’re going to win this game, but we believe that we’re going to, and we’re going to figure it out during the game,” May said. “Whatever the game is going to be … the game is going to tell us something ,and we’re equipped because of our league, because of our pre-conference schedule to figure out a way to win that game.”