The Michigan basketball program is riding high into the second weekend of March Madness.
Perhaps no team in the tournament had as impressive a weekend as the Wolverines, upending a dangerous UC San Diego team 68-65 in the opener, before switching play styles entirely and out-slugging a physical Texas A&M team 91-79 to advance to the program's first Sweet 16 in three years.
There are two more weekends to win − in Atlanta and then San Antonio − to achieve the ultimate dream, but there four roadblocks in the way to get to that moment. The first is Auburn, the No. 1 seed in the entire tournament.
"They have it all. Them and Duke are the two teams that I've seen play a lot on TV and there's no better group of players than they have," head coach Dusty May said Monday evening on the program's in-house podcast, "Defend The Block,"
"They have high-level shot makers. They have Johni Broome, a first-team All-American center. So I'm excited to see how our big guys stack up against their front line of two guys that are gonna play in the NBA as well."
Why Auburn is such a tough matchup for Michigan in Sweet 16
There's a reason the Tigers were the No. 1 overall seed entering the tournament. Prior to a 3-3 finish down the stretch, Bruce Pearl's squad was 27-2 and wrapped up an SEC outright championship in what was the deepest league in America, securing a record 14 bids to the Big Dance.
While every team has weaknesses, Auburn's are harder to spot.
According to KenPom, the Tigers are No. 3 in offensive adjusted efficiency (128.3), No. 5 in turnover rate (13.4%), No. 25 in offensive block rate (7.4%), No. 25 in effective field goals (55.6%) No. 30 in 2-point shooting (56.1%) and No. 48 in 3-point shooting (36.6%). While that last number may not sound that high, for perspective that is the exact rate U-M's sharpshooter Sam Walters hit on the year, however for Auburn that's the rate for the team.
"It's their shot making that's so impressive," May continued. "They have a stable of shot makers. I told the staff this morning: Thankfully there's only one basketball. Because if there was five basketballs out there, man, those guys could probably score about 500."
U-M might figure to fare a little bit better on the other side of the ball, but that too will be a tall task.
Auburn is No. 12 nationally in defensive efficiency (93.3), coming in No. 4 in block rate (16.2%), No. 7 in 3-point shooting against (29.6%), No. 8 in assists-to-field-goals made (40.7%) No. 15 in effective field goal percentage (46.2%), and No. 44 in 2-point shooting (47.2%).
Broome, who May mentioned, is the favorite to be the Naismith Men's College Player of the Year, averaging 18.4 points and 10.7 rebounds. He, however, is only one of five players on Pearl's roster who averages double figures. The other four − Chad Baker-Mazara, Miles Kelly, Tahaad Pettiford and Denver Jones − are all legitimate sharpshooters, hitting between 37.9% and 41.7% from 3-point range on a combined 19 attempts per game.
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"We're gonna have to really, really function as a group and make sure that we don't do anything to shoot ourselves in the foot," May said. "We can't contribute to them being more successful than they've earned."
Michigan's secret weapon vs. Auburn
Michigan, of course, has a secret weapon of sorts against the Tigers. Tre Donaldson, U-M's starting point guard, spent his past two seasons on the Tigers playing for Pearl. Though their roster was revamped this offseason, there's little doubt he will be able to provide specific insight on some of their tendencies.
Donaldson has been unstoppable in late-game situations recently.
In the Big Ten tournament semifinals against Maryland, he hit a go-ahead 3 in the final minute, then the game-winning layup in the final second. Against Wisconsin, in the title game, he hit a go-ahead 3 with less than two minutes to play and U-M never trailed again. Against UC San Diego, he hit a go-ahead 3 with 2:13 to play to give U-M its final lead of the game. Then, against Texas A&M, when U-M's lead had been trimmed to 3, he hit a circus-shot left-handed finger roll in the final minute to help the Wolverines hold on to the win.
Postgame, he and his teammates were watching the finish of the Auburn-Creighton game in the locker room as reporters entered. Donaldson has been quiet about his time in the SEC since the moment he stepped foot on campus in Ann Arbor. That's not changing this week.
His former teammates expect nothing less.
"Tre gonna bring it," Auburn forward Chaney Johnson recently told local reporters. "Tre's a dawg. It kind of hurt us a little bit when he transferred, but he was doing what was best for him and we knew that."
Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball vs Auburn Sweet 16 preview for March Madness game
