Dan Hurley didn’t hide what last spring felt like for Connecticut.
After Michigan handed the Huskies their first national championship loss in program history, Hurley made the point plain on April 7: “We did not come here for watches, we came for rings,” Hurley said April 7, following his national championship defeat.
Now the fourth-ranked Huskies get another shot at the 16th-ranked Wolverines, and this time the matchup comes with both teams looking very different from the version that played for the title seven months ago. Michigan has turned over its frontcourt, changed coaches and reshaped its identity. Connecticut has changed plenty too, with former forward Alex Karaban and center Tarris Reed Jr. moving on to the pros.
What remains on both sides is the guard play, and that’s where Friday’s game is likely to live.
UConn’s Silas Demary Jr., the preseason Big East Player of the Year, has already shown why he sits at the center of everything the Huskies do. In the opener, he scored, defended and filled the box score, finishing with three steals and eight rebounds. Michigan senior guard Elliot Cadeau has been operating in a similar lane, with both players leading their teams in steals and assists in their first games of the season.
“A guy like Silas, he’s got a physical downhill driving ability that can put you in some foul pressure,” Wolverines coach Mike Boynton Jr. said Thursday. “But I think on the other end, we got to make those guys work on their defensive end.”
Demary also has help. Braylon Mullins gives UConn a second guard who can bend a defense, even if his game is still growing. He opened with 20 points and knocked down 44% of his perimeter looks, a shooting touch that makes life easier for Demary by forcing defenses to chase him through screens and off-ball action.
“(Mullins’) skill set is very complementary to coming off screens, rescreens, flares and staggers, and him being in great shape gives him a chance to be able to wear his opponent down mentally,” Boynton said. “He had a couple flare threes against us late in the (national championship) where we guarded him well for 22, 23 seconds, and all of a sudden there’s another screen there.”
That said, the title game itself was decided more by the interior than the perimeter. Michigan’s 69-63 win came in a game built on long possessions, tough defense and size that made every basket feel earned. The Wolverines didn’t hit their first 3-pointer until the second half, and their former bigs were the ones who helped them gradually create separation.
This version of Michigan is expected to score more from the outside, but the front line still matters. Graduate forward J.P.
Estrella and junior center Moustapha Thiam are supposed to anchor that group, though Thiam missed Monday’s season opener because of illness. Michigan will need both to clean the glass and create second chances for its guards.
If UConn wins the rebound battle, the Wolverines could spend too much time chasing the game and too little time letting their shot makers settle in.
The Huskies have size of their own. Center Na’Jai Hines arrived through the portal this offseason and has already made an impact, including a 12-rebound double-double that showed exactly why he matters in the paint.
Still, Connecticut’s focus is bigger than any individual matchup. The memory of April 7 is still hanging over this one, and the Huskies have spent months wanting a different ending.
Michigan and UConn haven’t played a regular-season game since 2015, so this isn’t a rivalry in the traditional sense. But with last season’s title game still fresh, there’s enough history now to give Friday’s meeting a real edge.
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