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College basketball guru for NCAA.com Andy Katz has Michigan as a 7-seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament next month, and that was even before Isaiah Livers returned to the lineup.
Something tells us that the powers-that-be at our parent publication didn’t get the memo about how much different Michigan is with Livers at or near full capacity, as evidenced by the Wolverines solid win over the former preseason No. 1 team in the country, Michigan State, this past Saturday.
We get it — Michigan is 15-9, and spent most of January looking like an NIT basketball team at-best. However, that was without maybe the Wolverines’ best player. Long forgotten were the days of the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament, when Michigan took down Iowa State, UNC and Gonzaga in consecutive days. It’s still Gonzaga’s sole loss on the season.
Still, the maize and blue are 28th in the NCAA’s NET rating, which is how teams are actually seeded into the tournament, and that metric is determined by quadrant wins and losses. And Michigan, while it has 6 quad 1 wins, it also has 8 quad 1 losses at the moment. But, with a schedule that still includes just one ranked team — the regular season finale at Maryland — there’s a solid chance Michigan could look closer to what it did in November than in January.
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However, USA TODAY Sports has Michigan as a future 8-seed in the West region culminating in Los Angeles, starting off against 9-seed Oklahoma in Spokane, Wash. before having to likely face down once again against 1-seed Gonzaga in the round of 32.
It might be a path the Wolverines would be willing to take considering the last time Michigan played Gonzaga on a neutral court. The Bulldogs succumbed to the maize and blue 82-64 in a game that wasn’t even that close.
Regardless, it’s quite unlikely at this juncture, so long as Michigan stays healthy, that it will end up being as low as an 8-seed. But anything can happen.