Michigan’s magical March continues as Wolverines find redemption vs. Louisville

The Michigan Wolverines are going to the Sweet 16. The No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament’s Midwest region beat the No. 2 Louisville Cardinals in the round of 32 on Sunday, 73-69, in Indianapolis. The Wolverines will play Oregon or Rhode Island next weekend in Kansas City. A live, updating tournament bracket is right here.

Michigan entered as the tournament’s hottest team. The Wolverines won six in a row, including a four-game jaunt through the Big Ten tournament and a first-round win against Oklahoma State. Louisville had just beaten No. 15 Jacksonville State, and the Cardinals posed the biggest threat yet to Michigan’s run.

The Wolverines conquered the threat. The Cards had a 36-28 lead at halftime and stayed in front well into the second half, but John Beilein’s team didn’t fold.

The Wolverines tied the game just inside the 10-minute mark, and they closed strong. Louisville almost mounted a counter-comeback after UM built a six-point lead with 1:18 left, but Michigan held on in the nick of time.

Michigan center Moritz Wagner had a career-high 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting. D.J. Wilson added 17 for the Wolverines.

The Wolverines have an air of magic around them right now, and the combination of them being hot and having an elite offense makes them terrifying. The Wolverines were a bubble team for much of this season. That feels so long ago now.

Michigan still has a ways to travel to win a national title. The Wolverines will only play excellent teams the rest of the way. But they’ve got that look.

Beilein and Pitino are both among the best coaches of this era, but Pitino had gotten the best of Beilein in a couple of key tournament spots before.

In 2005, Beilein was coaching at West Virginia. He led WVU on a wonderful Cinderella run to the Elite Eight. The Mountaineers hadn’t even been in the tournament in seven years, but their March was awesome. As a No 7 seed, they won by two against Creighton in the first round and by six against No. 2 Wake Forest in the second. They beat Bob Knight’s Texas Tech in the Sweet 16 and were a tourney darling by the Elite Eight.

Then WVU played Louisville, and the magic looked like it would continue. The Mountaineers had a 13-point lead at halftime, but a Larry O’Bannon and Taquan Dean-led Louisville came back to force overtime, where it outscored the ‘Eers by eight.

We all remember 2013’s game. Michigan star Trey Burke sat for much of the first half with two fouls, while reserve Spike Albrecht ripped off 17 early points in his absence.

Michigan built itself a nice lead, but that evaporated by halftime, because Louisville’s Luke Hancock went on a 14-point spurt right before the break. The second half went poorly. Pitino’s team won, setting this game up as a revenge shot for Michigan.

The Wolverines didn’t waste it, and Beilein avoided NCAA tournament pain for a third time against his Hall of Fame counterpart. (Pitino’s Louisville had also beaten Beilein’s WVU in a Big East tournament two-overtime game in 2007, for whatever it’s worth.)

But that’s not what’s most important right now. What’s most important is that the Wolverines are still playing and looking as dangerous as anybody.