Michigan basketball fans won’t need to stock up on caffeine as the Wolverines will face Villanova in the early game in the South regional on TBS on Thursday night.
The game between the Wolverines and Wildcats will tip off at 7:15 p.m. from San Antonio, Texas. U-M’s fans should probably gird themselves against flashbacks to the most recent NCAA tournament matchup between the two schools, though.
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Michigan and Villanova have faced each other five times, with U-M going 2-3. The Wolverines’ two wins came during the regular season in December 1970 and November 2018, however. In the postseason, it’s been all Wildcats, with ’Nova wins over the 1-seeded Wolverines in the 1985 NCAA tournament and over Michigan in the 2018 national championship game.
In that one, the Wildcats prevailed behind 31 points off the bench from Donte DiVicenzo. U-M was led by Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, who had 23 points. Interestingly, two of the current teams’ stars played in that game. Eli Brooks is the lone Wolverine from that squad still with Michigan; he went scoreless with a rebound in three minutes. For Villanova, star guard Collin Gillespie had four points – all from the free throw line, in four attempts – five rebounds, an assist and a steal in 16 minutes. (Current ’Nova players Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree also played four minutes for the Wildcats in the 2018 title game, while Jermaine Samuels was on the roster, but didn’t play against the Wolverines.)
That championship win was at the Alamodome in San Antonio; Now it’s the AT&T Center, and it’ll host the latest matchup between the two, with a spot in the Elite Eight on the line.
On the other side of the South region, it’ll be No. 1-seed Arizona or No. 9 and No. 5 Houston playing for the other spot in the Elite Eight. Most recently, the Wolverines lost to Arizona in Las Vegas in November 2021 and beat Houston in 2018 en route to the Final Four.
Here’s the rest of the schedule for Thursday and Friday’s regional semifinals:
7 p.m. Thursday: West — No. 1 Gonzaga vs. No. 4 Arkansas, CBS.
9:30 p.m. Thursday: West — No. 2 Duke vs. No. 3 Texas Tech, CBS.
9:45 p.m. Thursday: South — No. 5 Houston vs. No. 1 Arizona, TBS.
7 p.m. Friday: East — No. 15 Saint Peter’s vs. No. 3 Purdue, CBS.
7:15 p.m. Friday: Midwest — No. 1 Kansas vs. No. 4 Providence, TBS.
9:30 p.m. Friday: East — No. 4 UCLA vs. No. 8 North Carolina, CBS.
9:45 p.m. Friday: Midwest — No. 10 Miami (Fla.) vs. No. 11 Iowa State, TBS.
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @theford.
