Andy Lyons

Tag Michigan with the Cinderella label at your peril.

Seeded seventh in the Midwest Region, the Michigan Wolverines have become the no-doubt darlings of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament entering Thursday’s Sweet 16 matchup in Kansas City against Oregon.

John Beilein’s team started 14-9 before going on a scorched-earth tear, winning 12 of its last 14 since Feb. 7, with the losses against tournament teams, one in overtime to Minnesota and the other on a stunning full-court pass by Northwestern with seconds left.

Four of those wins came during their improbable run to the championship of the Big Ten tournament — a title that followed the team’s plane crash through a fence before liftoff at the Ypsilanti airport en route to the tournament site. Michigan played its first game after the accident in just its practice gear because its game uniforms were still stuck on the plane.

The uniform mixup came as a handy microcosm of their resurgent last seven weeks — this team looks nothing like the version that stumbled through the season’s first three months.

To set up its matchup against third-seeded Oregon, Michigan beat 10th-seeded Oklahoma State in the Round of 64 before upsetting No. 2 Louisville.

Michigan's story is alluring but over the past seven weeks, its confidence and production have been even better. Together, they serve as a reminder that the Wolverines are no plucky underdog. They're big, long and shoot well, with the country's third-best offensive efficiency, per KenPom, scoring 1.2 points per possession. Louisville coach Rick Pitino went so far as calling UM the "Golden State Warriors."

This is the program’s third Sweet 16 berth since 2013, when it played for a national title.

What could be in store for the Ducks?

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Andy Lyons

1. It's rare for Derrick Walton Jr. to be as off as he was against Louisville.

Based on past performances, Michigan's 6-foot senior guard is likely due for a bounce-back game against Oregon after scoring 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting in the Round of 32 win against Louisville. The Cardinals switched screens to stay in front of Walton and guarded sometimes 30 feet from the hoop to limit his attack points, and while it limited his efficiency — Walton hasn't scored in single-digits this season since Feb. 16, and in his last 10 games has averaged 18.1 points with three threes per game on 39.5 percent shooting from deep — it opened the door for his teammates to produce.

Walton made up for his off-night against Louisville with seven rebounds, six assists and no turnovers. Even if his shot isn't falling, Walton finds ways to be effective.

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2. How do you guard Moritz Wagner?

The 26 points scored by Michigan sophomore forward Moritz Wagner against Louisville were a career-high and attributable to the attention the Cardinals paid to prioritizing how it would defend Walton. Wagner was left in one-on-one situations and took advantage with an array of drives and jumpers. Seventeen of his 26 came after halftime, and his hot second half mirrored his team's, as Michigan shot 17-of-27 to come back from an eight-point deficit for the upset.

Because Moritz is an excellent offensive rebounder on an other wise poor offensive-boarding team, UO is likely to station either Jordan Bell or Kavell Bigby-Williams on him to keep him on the glass. But can either Duck check him for long stretches off the dribble? Bell most likely can, but he’s also prone to foul trouble.

A caveat: Wagner's performance against Louisville certainly could be an outlier. He's scored in double-digits three times in his last eight games.

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3. Michigan's strength is its three-point shooting. But it can win in different ways.

The reason Rick Pitino dipped into the NBA for a comparison with the Wolverines is their three-point shooting. Thirty-seven percent of their points come from deep, the 19th-highest rate in the country, and they're not afraid to shoot it no matter the situation. They dropped 11, on 15 attempts, on Oklahoma State in just the second half in the tournament's opening round, and finished 16-of-29 from deep against the Cowboys. Michigan’s 38.6 percent shooting from three is 29th nationally, but that figure has increased to 40.8 percent in its current seven-game winning streak.

But this isn't a one-trick team. Louisville's defense caused UM to shoot 6-of-17 from range, yet the Wolverines won, anyway, thanks to Wagner and D.J. Wilson's scoring inside. That's a trend. Michigan’s shooting percentages on two-point attempts in its last seven games are 74.1 percent, 67.7, 54.3, 67.7, 68.0, 48.1 and 55.0. That's how they beat teams with huge front lines in Purdue and Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament. Oregon's depth inside took a hit with the knee injury of Chris Boucher, and if Michigan wants to play big, it has a talented pairing in Moritz and D.J. Wilson.

Of course, there's another reason Michigan is built to survive off-shooting games from three.

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Jeff Roberson

4. Few teams are better than UM at limiting mistakes.

There isn't a team left in the tournament with a lower turnover rate than Michigan's 14.3 percent, and that inability to be rattled has shown in its wins against Louisville and Oklahoma State. Beilein's team has just 10 turnovers combined in its Round of 64 and 32 games and has turned the ball over 10 or more times in just three of its last 14 games. Its ball-handlers are responsible, in short: Only 6.6 percent of Michigan's offensive possessions end with a steal, seventh-lowest nationally. (By comparison, Oregon has combined for 25 turnovers so far in the tournament.)

Dana Altman's calling card is mixing defenses from man to zone and back while throwing in pressure of varying lengths down the court, and Louisville has already shown that kind of approach can rattle UM's shooting. What it didn't achieve was steals and the extra possessions that come with them.

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5. X-factor: D.J. Wilson

A 6-10 sophomore, Wilson is one of the more efficient offensive players in the country, and doesn’t require the ball much (using just 18 percent of his team’s possessions, whereas Walton and Wagner use 23.7 percent) to be effective.

Wilson’s effective field goal percentage, which is adjusted to account for three-point shooting, is 60.5, and he’s shooting nearly 64 percent on two-pointers and 83.3 percent on free throws. But he can run hot and cold. He's scored at least 17 in each of his last three games, while adding 26 — on 9-of-11 shooting — to beat Purdue in overtime in the Big Ten tournament semifinals. But he also scored seven in the Big Ten final, and had seven, four and nine points in three straight games from Feb. 25-March 5. Which version of Wilson shows up against Oregon? If both he and Wagner are shooting well, as against Louisville, Altman will have decisions to make defensively with a scarcity of Oregon big men.

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6. Areas Oregon could exploit

If you haven’t caught on by now, Michigan does a lot of things well and is playing its best basketball at the moment.

The Wolverines, of course, have their weaknesses. They struggle rebounding, and have been out-rebounded by 2.5 boards per game this season, one of the worst rebounding margins in the country. Offensive rebounding is particularly difficult, with Michigan getting 7.5 boards on that end per game. Further hurting UM's opportunities for getting points outside of the flow of the game is how rarely it gets to the free-throw line.

The Wolverines like to shoot the three but have issues defending the shot. Opponents are shooting 37.5 percent from behind the three-point line, the 15th-highest rate among the 16 teams remaining. Oregon, by comparison, is shooting 40.5 percent from three since the start of February, with guard Tyler Dorsey in particular playing extremely confidently there.

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Jamie Squire

7. How will Payton Pritchard fare against UM's vets?

Michigan’s most common lineups in its past five games, per KenPom.com, feature a veteran-laden backcourt. Senior Derrick Walton Jr. and 6-4 junior off-guard Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman get the lion’s share of minutes at those two spots, which creates an intriguing challenge for Oregon true freshman point guard Payton Pritchard.

Pritchard, of course, is a four-time state champ at West Linn who’s been battle tested against older national competition for years during the summer basketball circuit. As a freshman at Oregon, he’s shown that maturity in stretches and struggled in others.

He couldn’t find his shot during the Pac-12 tournament before scoring 18 — and looking uber-comfortable doing it — against Iona in Oregon’s Round of 64 win. In the win against Rhode Island, however, Pritchard shot 1-of-4 from two and missed both three-point attempts. How he’ll match up against the older Walton and Abdur-Rahkman will be a key against Michigan.

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8. Michigan might just be the tournament's hottest team right now

The numbers explain only so much about Michigan. There's something that's hard to capture about how a team that appeared soft midway through the season has now sliced through the Big Ten tournament to win as an eighth seed and taken down Oklahoma State in a shootout and Louisville in a grinder.

Like Connecticut in 2011 and 2014, the Wolverines have been described as a team on a mission, the squad that needed a huge run late in the season just to make the field and is now using that momentum to mow down opponents. There's a good case to be made that this is the team you want to face least in the tournament.

Oregon, of course, enters with its own compelling storyline after rallying just last week following the season-ending knee injury to ultra-versatile Chris Boucher. Who prevails Thursday — Ducks, or destiny?

-- Andrew Greif | agreif@oregonian.com

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Coverage of Ducks-Wolverines

OREGON

Canzano: Ducks escape into the Sweet 16

How the Ducks snuck by Rhode Island

MICHIGAN

Game story: Michigan says "Why not us?" after Louisville win

Derrick Walton Jr. can take over a game even when not playing his best

Vegas odds on the Sweet 16

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Game details

What: Oregon (31-5) vs. Michigan (26-11),

Where: Kansas City

When: 4:09 p.m. PT

What channel: CBS



