The second Final Four matchup of the weekend will take place after the Illinois-UConn game when two number-one seeds go head-to-head in Michigan and Arizona. It has been a while since either one of these schools competed for an NCAA title. The Wolverines last reached the championship game in 2018. However, the Wildcats have been waiting 25 years for a shot at the NCAA title.

Nobody last weekend had a more convincing victory than Michigan. The Wolverines demolished the sixth-seeded Tennessee Volunteers 95-62 to earn their ninth Final Four berth in school history and their first since 2018.

“We're extremely proud of our guys,” said Michigan head coach Dusty May after the victory. “Our guys have been up to the challenge to deliver in the biggest moments all year, and nothing changed tonight… We're all just very proud to be a part of this group.”

The Volunteers had the Wolverines on the ropes after taking a 16-14 lead about midway through the first half of this game. However, Michigan turned on the burners and outscored Tennessee 34-10 to take a 22-point lead into the break. From there, it was smooth sailing for the maize and blue.

“We knew the name of the game was going to be physicality, and they were the number one offensive team in the country for a reason. They showed us in those first four minutes,” explained Wolverines senior forward Yaxel Lendeborg. “In the media timeout, we all regrouped. We thought about what we needed to do. That was the game plan all along. So once, we started hitting them back, and they stopped getting the same offensive rebounds, the game definitely started to shift.”

Once Michigan got out to a huge halftime lead, the Volunteers never recovered. After Tennessee went ahead 16-14 in the first half, they were outscored 81-46 the rest of the way. Now, the Wolverines are two wins away from their second national championship in the program's 118-year history.

“This was obviously one of the goals because of the talent we had in our locker room. There's a slippery slope of being happy and content that we're there, but also knowing you still have work to do for us to accomplish what could be our ultimate goal, [which] is to be playing on Monday,” Dusty May told reporters. “We have a sign in our locker room that says ‘April habits.’ And from day one, we've challenged these guys to develop championship-level habits that would allow us to win a Big Ten championship and would also allow us to turn the calendar from March until April. And now, we've put ourselves in position to do that.”

Unlike the Wolverines, the Arizona Wildcats did not coast to a victory in the Elite Eight. In fact, they trailed the Purdue Boilermakers 38-31 at halftime of their matchup last Saturday.

“We got off to a good start. And then, we didn't play great, but I thought Purdue played really well the second part of that first half,” Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd said during the postgame press conference. “In the locker room at halftime, you know, you have long halftimes. We've talked a lot about this with the guys: long halftimes, long timeouts. We can't let that disrupt our rhythm, and we have to be the team that comes out with the most effort out of a timeout… or a 20-minute halftime.”

That’s exactly what Arizona did, after they opened the second half on a 13-5 run that allowed them to take a 44-43 lead with less than 15 minutes to go in the game. From there, the Wildcats led the rest of the way, securing a 79-64 win.

“Our guys were obviously great in the second half, and I have so much respect for Purdue. I wouldn't have said we're going to come out and beat them by 22 in the second half,” Lloyd explained. “The message to the guys for me was like, ‘Stay steady. Let's work ourselves back in the game.’ We've been great at the start of the second half, and then we'll go from there, and our guys did a good job. They came out, and we tied the game pretty quick, and then it's a zero game, and can we win it down the stretch? Somehow, someway, we were able to sustain that run.”

Despite decades of success, Arizona has not reached a Final Four since 2001 nor won a championship since 1997. Though the Wildcats aren't done yet, Tommy Lloyd understands how important it was to lead the program back to the Final Four.

“Listen, the people in Tucson are basketball historians. I mean, the number of stories I've heard consistently about things that happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. It's impressive. I mean, they really hold on to the things this program accomplishes. And, they hold on to our struggles as well,” he said. “My main motivating factor has been our community and our fans… You take the 15 minutes of collective joy of each individual that loves this program, that's happy right now. How powerful is that? How cool is that? You talk about getting the compound effect. So I'm really happy for our community now.”

Now, Arizona has to prepare to play on the biggest stage in college basketball at Lucas Oil Stadium, which seats 70,000 people. On top of that, the Wildcats are going up against a Michigan squad that has looked dominant most of the season, with 35 wins compared to just three losses.

“We need to go there understanding that this isn't a field trip; this is a business trip, and we need to treat it as such,” Lloyd said during a Tuesday press conference. “We've worked really hard at talking about and understanding what it is to be in the moment. So, we're just going to double down on what we've done.”

This will be the second time that Dusty May and Tommy Lloyd have gone against each other as head coaches. The last time they faced off in December of 2023, the game was a barn burner. May's Florida Atlantic Owls outlasted Lloyd's Arizona Wildcats 96-95 in double overtime. Between that matchup and the tape Dusty May has on Arizona, there's a lot of familiarity between these squads.

“I've watched them a lot. I'm a big fan of Tommy's and their program. I know their staff. I visited with them a lot overseas at recruiting international tournaments, and they've been fun to watch,” May said during a Sunday interview. “They're obviously incredibly unselfish. We played them a couple years ago at FAU, and a couple of those guys are still there. Jaden Bradley's still there. They're deep. They're athletic. They're tough. They play to their strength, and - like us - they seem to have really, really good dudes.”

As impressive as both teams have been in this tournament, the goal is not to just make it to the Final Four or to the Championship game. Arizona and Michigan have their sights set on the NCAA title.

“When this group got together, just like coach is saying, we all wanted to make it to the national championship and win it,” Yaxel Lendeborg said. “Just being able to make it this far and continuing to want to get more means a lot and just means how much we've done together as a unit and how unselfish this team has been all year.”

Prediction for #1 Michigan Wolverines (-1.5) vs. #1 Arizona Wildcats

I believe that the winner of this game will go on to be crowned National Champions on Monday. Since the season began, neither squad has been ranked lower than seventh in the country. Their five combined losses have all come against squads that qualified for this year's tournament. At the same time, Michigan and Arizona have 25 wins between them against AP Top-25 ranked teams. Needless to say, the Wolverines and Wildcats are both battle-tested.

The analytics show that these are the two best teams in the country. Michigan is the top-ranked team based on KenPom net rating (+38.95), and Arizona ranks second in that category (38.92). The Wildcats are fourth in offensive rating (128.7), while Michigan is fifth (128.2). On the other end of the court, the Wolverines are the best defensive team in the country (89.3 rating), but the Wildcats are second (89.7). This is just a long-winded way of saying these teams match up well with each other.

There are two incredibly important things working in Michigan's favor. First, Arizona is one of the worst teams in the country from beyond the arc. They only average 5.9 made three-pointers per game, which is tied for 334th in the nation. Meanwhile, Michigan averages 9.3 made field goals per game from deep, so the Wolverines should win the three-point battle. Additionally, Michigan will limit Arizona's effectiveness down low. The Wildcats are second in the country in points per game that come from two-point field goals (49.2). Not only do the Wolverines have the best rim-defending player in the tournament in Aday Mara, but Michigan is also third in the country in two-point defense (their opponents make just 44.3% of their two-point field goal attempts). This game should play into the Wolverines' strengths.

Prediction: Michigan 81 - 76 Arizona

How to watch #1 Michigan Wolverines (-1.5) vs. #1 Arizona Wildcats

Michigan vs. Arizona starts at 8:49 p.m. EDT on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium. You can watch it on TBS or truTV, or stream it via the March Madness app or HBO Max.

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