Madness for Michigan: Wolverines get revenge on Louisville, advance to Sweet 16

The University of Louisville men’s basketball team, the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Regional, was upset by No. 7 seed MI, 73-69, in the round of 32 in Indianapolis on Sunday. The Wolverines will play either OR or Rhode Island.

The victor of today’s MI vs. Louisville game will move on to the Sweet Sixteen to take on the victor of the No. 3 OR vs. Walton is just the 13th player in Big Ten history, to surpass 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 400 assists for his career. MI regrouped and proceeded to win four games in four days and take the league tourney as the No. 8 seed.

Louisville has made the Sweet 16 in five of the past six years.

As they’ve done for the past month, MI answered with 3-pointers. The Wolverines couldn’t get anything going, especially with Walton starting slow (0-of-6) before finishing the half with five points. Deng Adel had 16 points and 5 rebounds and a thunderous first-half dunk.

Top star: Moritz Wagner continues to emerge as one of the nation’s bigger matchup nightmares.

Moritz Wagner led the way for MI, setting a career-high with 26 points. He can beat you inside, outside or in transition.

But Wagner bailed out the Wolverines from a poor game. With the energy high and the big men overmatched, the Wolverines kept fighting.

After putting the Wolverines ahead by four, it was D.J. Now, in addition to being flat-out entertaining, it’s playing some of the tournament’s best basketball, a versatile offensive team finding different ways to win.

MI guard Derrick Walton Jr. said Wagner has the guts to make a big play.

Against Oklahoma State, the Wolverines were bombs away as they hit a season high 16 three pointers to stay in the game and eventually pull it off. MI point guard Derrick Walton Jr will hope to lead a team whose shooting remains hot.

Nine points ahead with less than 15 minutes to play, Louisville’s heretofore stingy defense suddenly turned into a sieve Sunday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. MI is the story of this year’s Dance in the early going.

Kevin Scott scored 19 points to lead the 16th-seeded Tigers (23-12), the champions of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

Did you see this?

Inside the locker room, coach John Beilein squirted his players with a water gun.

But our backcourt defense, getting over screens, has probably been the biggest weakness this year. While trading buckets, Wagner converted one free throw to make U-M’s lead 64-59 with 3:30 left.

The Wolverines will now play the victor of Sunday night’s OR vs. Rhode Island game in Sweet Sixteen action on Thursday in Kansas City. Those three schools have combined to win four of the last eight national championships.