Michigan gets No. 1 seed in Midwest, where Iowa State, Virginia and Alabama are in March Madness mix
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7:01 PM on Sunday, March 15
By ERIC OLSON
Michigan earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021 on Sunday and will lead the Big Ten's pursuit of its first national championship in men's basketball since 2000.
The Wolverines (31-3) are the third overall seed behind Duke and Arizona and will open the tournament against the winner of a First Four matchup between Maryland-Baltimore County and Howard.
This is the fourth time the Wolverines have earned a No. 1 seed. Juwan Howard’s 2021 team reached the Elite Eight, Steve Fisher’s 1993 team lost in the championship game and Bill Frieder’s 1985 team lost in the second round.
Dusty May's team came out of the regular season with an average winning margin of 19.4 points per game. The Wolverines won two close games to get to the Big Ten Tournament championship game in Chicago, where they lost 80-72 to Purdue. More challenges await in a Midwest Region that also features Iowa State, Virginia and Alabama.
The Wolverines are the betting favorite to win the national championship, at plus-325, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. Two wins would send them back to Chicago for a regional semifinal. With a win Thursday in Buffalo, New York, Michigan would advance to a second-round game against No. 8 seed Georgia (22-10) or No. 9 Saint Louis (28-5).
Led by Big Ten player of the year Yaxel Lendeborg, the Wolverines set a Big Ten record with 19 conference wins and ran away with the regular-season title by four games.
May, the Associated Press Big Ten coach of the year, built on a 27-win first season by bringing in Lendeborg and three other transfers to fill spots in the starting lineup. The Wolverines are a complete team. They've scored over 100 points eight times, and four players average in double figures. The 7-foot-3 Aday Mara is blocking 2.6 shots per game and opponents are shooting just 38.4% against a defense ranked No. 1 in adjusted efficiency by KenPom.
Those Miami (Ohio) RedHawks got the at-large bid they felt they deserved and will play SMU in a First Four game on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, about an hour's drive from their Oxford campus.
Coming out of the Mid-American Conference and off a loss to UMass in the first round of the league tournament, it wasn't a certainty they would get into the tournament even after going 31-0 in the regular season.
The RedHawks were first among the last four teams selected, getting in ahead of North Carolina State, Texas and SMU, Division I men's basketball committee chair Keith Gill said.
Miami is the first MAC team to get an at-large bid since Wally Szczerbiak led the RedHawks to the Sweet 16 in 1999. A win over SMU would send Miami to Philadelphia to play No. 6 seed Tennessee on Friday.
The 5-12 matchup between Texas Tech (22-10) and Akron (29-5) features two of the best point guards in the country in the Red Raiders' Christian Anderson and MAC Tournament MVP Tavari Johnson.
Anderson's status was in doubt after he left his team's game against Iowa State in the Big 12 quarterfinals Thursday after he slipped on the controversial ASB GlassFloor LED court. Texas Tech announced Saturday he would be available. Anderson leads the Red Raiders with 18.9 points and a Big 12-leading 7.6 assists per game. Johnson is averaging a MAC-best 20.1 points per game.
Santa Clara (26-8) received its first bid since 1996 and is a No. 10 seed for its Friday game against No. 7 Kentucky (21-13) in St. Louis.
The Broncos have made the tournament 11 times previously but not since Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame member Steve Nash led them to three appearances in four years in the 1990s.
Herb Sendek's team finished third in the West Coast Conference and made a run to the league championship game.
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AP March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
