Michigan avenges NCAA Championship loss with blowout win against No. 8 Villanova and it's an ominous sign for the reigning champs
- After the Michigan Wolverines' spectacular run through March Madness, they fell to the dominant Villanova Wildcats, 79-62, in the 2018 NCAA national championship game.
- Seven months later, No. 18 Michigan traveled to the newly-renovated Finneran Pavilion looking to exact revenge on the reigning national champions, and they did so in convincing fashion.
- The Wolverines stunned the No. 8 Wildcats in a 73-46 rout for Villanova's worst home loss in 32-years of playing at the Pavillion.
The Villanova Wildcats have been as good as any team in college basketball over the last few seasons. They took down the North Carolina Tarheels in stunning fashion to win the national championship in 2016 and, just two years later, reloaded enough to destroy the Michigan Wolverines and once again get crowned kings of the dance.
But things are quickly taking a turn for Villanova.
No. 18 Michigan traveled to the newly-renovated Finneran Pavilion looking to exact revenge on the reigning national champions Wednesday night, and they did so in stunning fashion.
The Wolverines downed the Wildcats, 73-46, after holding them to just 17 points in the first 20 minutes of play. Michigan recorded 11 steals and 6 blocks in the rout while Villanova finished the game with just a single player in double figures, and he scored a meager 10 points in 32 minutes on the floor.
Michigan head coach John Beilein credited his team's stifling defensive effort for their success in Pennsylvania Wednesday night.
"We really are gonna probably be as good as our defense is gonna be this year and it was really good today," he said, per Orion Sang of the Detroit Free Press. "People ask, 'Well what's this scheme or what did you do?' We have really good individual defenders... They're really good at picking you apart and finding a weakness. We didn't have many weaknesses individually on defense today and that was a big difference."
To their credit, the Wolverines impressed on the offensive end of the floor as well. They shot 50.9% from the floor and drained five three-pointers to put the Wildcats in the rearview mirror. Redshirt junior Charles Matthews led all scorers with 19 points, while freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis notched 18 points and seven rebounds of his own to the effort.
The duo added a number of highlight-reel plays to boot. Here's Brazdeikis with a put-back slam early in the first half:
And Matthews with his own twist on the same play 10 minutes later:
The win marked the Wildcats worst margin of defeat in their 32-year history of playing home games at the Pavillion. It was enough to frazzle the notoriously steely Jay Wright, who has coached the Wildcats to 13 NCAA Tournament appearances and three Final Fours in his 17 seasons at the helm.
"Part of it is my fault," Wright said. "We're not as organized as we want to be, and we're just trying to find a lineup early in the season. It doesn't look good throwing young guys in there against an experienced and well-coached team. All the credit goes to Michigan. If [there's] anything I wish we had done differently, maybe it would be to have a set lineup of seven or eight guys. We were too disorganized out there to play against a team like that."