There is an alternate universe where this is the second meeting between UConn coach Dan Hurley and Michigan coach Dusty May for the national championship in four years.
In 2023, when May coached Florida Atlantic, the Owls lost to San Diego State in the Final Four on a legendary shot from Aztecs guard Lamont Butler. The Huskies then carved up San Diego State 76–59 to win the first of two straight national titles.
On Monday, May will get the crack at Hurley he didn’t get to take in ’23. As national championships go, this is a topsy-turvy one: No. 2 UConn, on the verge of a dynasty, is a decided underdog against No. 1 Michigan, while both teams appear beat up at the end of a long season.
Here are three unexpected developments to watch for on Monday in Indianapolis.
The Huskies take a double-digit lead within the first 10 minutes—with Tarris Reed Jr. leading the way
This prediction rests on two assumptions about Monday’s game: a.) UConn guard Solo Ball will, at minimum, be limited, and b.) injured Wolverines forward Yaxel Lendeborg will again move “like a 38-year-old at the YMCA.” If a.) is true, it won’t be too big a shock to the Huskies—Ball has struggled so much in the NCAA tournament that UConn has been forced to play through Reed anyway. The ex-Michigan forward has proven up to the task, averaging 20.8 points and 13 rebounds per game.
If b.) is true, the Wolverines’ frontcourt will be hampered, and the task of stopping Reed will fall almost entirely to center Aday Mara. It won’t be easy, but Hurley could use Reed’s physicality to hunt Mara (or Lendeborg, for that matter)—a set of tactics that racked up Duke’s foul count and keyed the Huskies’ comeback in the second half of the Elite Eight. That and a few three-pointers are the blueprint for UConn to get up 10ish points by the under-12 media timeout—let’s say 24–14 or a score like it.
Trey McKenney plays Donte DiVincenzo
The last time Michigan played for a national title—2018—the Wolverines could only watch as Villanova guard Donte DiVincenzo turned in one of college basketball’s greatest-ever national championship performances. He knocked down 10 of his 15 field-goal attempts for a career-high 31 points, keying an easy 79–62 win. It would be ironic, then, if Michigan went to this well against the Huskies with a hobbled frontcourt.
Enter McKenney. The freshman, who has yet to start a game in a Wolverines uniform, has enjoyed a hyper-efficient NCAA tournament: 63.6% from the field with an average of 12.6 points, 2.6 rebounds and 0.6 assists per game. As Michigan’s most reliable volume three-point shooter this season (39.4%), he seems like a natural candidate to be force-fed if UConn clogs the paint. If takes one more three than his usual (say, eight) and one more three than usual falls (say, four—the amount he made against Arizona), he could easily threaten his career high of 21 and force the Huskies back to the drawing board.
After weeks of tempting fate, Dan Hurley finally gets a technical foul
Thanks to McKenney’s heroics, the Wolverines will be in control by midway through the second half. At this point, one of the defining traits of Hurley’s basketball life will come to betray him—his utter inability to go down without a fight. It’s the trait that helped him win national titles in 2023 and ’24, give eventual national champion Florida all it could handle in ’25, and pull a rabbit out of his hat against the Blue Devils in this year’s Elite Eight.
As Hurley pointed out after his much-discussed run-in with referee Roger Ayers last Sunday, he has never received a technical foul in the NCAA tournament, despite his self-fashioned status as one of the game’s most mercurial personalities. However, Michigan seems tailor-made to frustrate Hurley, with its physicality and tendency to goad opponents into avoidable mistakes (see: the Wildcats Saturday). Hurley’s most recent technical came in a March 7 loss to Marquette, a team vastly inferior to UConn. The opposite situation—a loss to a superior team—will push him in a similar direction, though unlike fellow Huskies boss Geno Auriemma, it won’t be serious enough to merit an apology.
More March Madness From Sports Illustrated
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as March Madness: Three Bold Predictions for Michigan vs. UConn in Men’s National Championship .
