NCAA Final Four: Arizona Wildcats blown out by Michigan in national semifinals

INDIANAPOLIS—Now we know what it looks like when this Arizona team truly has a bad game, and what a terrible time to find that out.

The Wildcats’ magical season came to a crashing end on Saturday night, losing 91-73 to Michigan in the national semifinals at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Wildcats, in their first Final Four appearance since 2001, finish with a 36-3 record.

Michigan (36-3) will take on UConn, which beat Illinois 71-62 in the first semifinal, on Monday night for the NCAA title. The Huskies are in their third championship game in the last four seasons and have won 19 consecutive tourney games in the Sweet 16 or later.

A crowd of 72,11 saw very little go right for the UA, which never getting closer than five after being down 10-1 in the first 2½ minutes. Arizona shot a season-worst 36.6 percent, turned it over 14 times—with Michigan turning those into 26 points—and on the defensive end got dunked on and shot over.

Michigan shot 47.8 percent, including 57.1 percent in the second half, were 12 of 27 from 3 and had almost as many dunks (six) as layups.

Koa Peat led the UA with 16 points and 11 rebounds, the first freshman in school history to record a double-double in the Final Four, but he was 6 of 18 from the field. Brayden Burries scored 13 on 4-of-16 shooting, including 2 of 10 from 3, and Jaden Bradley had 13 but only played 25 minutes due to foul trouble.

Michigan got 26 points from UCLA transfer Aday Mara, who was 11 of 16 from the field, 16 from Trey McKenney and 13 points with 10 assists from Elliot Cadeau. All-American Ysaxel Lendeborg had 11 points but only played 14 minutes after early foul trouble and then suffering a knee injury late in the first half.

The UA trailed 48-32 at halftime, the second-largest deficit midway through an NCAA tourney game in school history. The Wildcats missed their first five shots to start the second half, with Bradley getting his fourth foul 94 seconds in.

Michigan extended their lead to 56-34 on a Lendeborg 3 with 16:27 left, then after Arizona cut the margin to 17 the Wolverines just kept scoring. A 3 by McKenney made it 77-47 with 10:31 to go.

After that it was just about padding the stats for both teams, with Bradley scoring 10 in the second half to move past Oumar Ballo for 35^th on the UA career list and Burries getting 11 of his points after halftime.

Michigan jumped out to a 10-1 lead, despite Lendeborg picking up two fouls in the first 82 seconds. Arizona didn’t make its first shot until just before the first media timeout.

The Wolverines forced four turnovers in the first 5-plus minutes, scoring seven points off them including aMcKenneydunk for a 16-5 lead that forced Tommy Lloyd to call timeout. It was just the sixth game this season the UA had trailed by double digits.

Two free throws by Morez Johnson Jr. put Michigan up 24-10, the largest deficit the UA had faced all season.

The deficit grew to 16 before Arizona started to get back into it. An 11-2 run, including seven in a row, got it within 28-21 with 7:21 left before halftime and forced a Michigan timeout.

The UA got within five and started to get Michigan’s bigs in foul trouble, withMara andJohnson both getting their second, yet Motiejus Krivas and Ivan Kharchenkov missed all three foul shots on a possession. Then a third foul onBradley, second on the offensive end, set up aMcKenney3 on the other end to put the Wolverines back up 35-23.

Another 7-0 Michigan run put it up 45-27 with 1:47 left in the half and the UA was outscored 18-9 after the three missed foul shots.