Aztecs know Final Four combatants Michigan and Arizona well, having faced both during the regular season

Brian Dutcher flew to Indianapolis on Thursday for the grand climax of the college basketball season. There are meetings and symposiums and cocktail hours, plus an exclusive lunch in which the only way to gain admission is if you’ve coached in a Final Four.

On Saturday, the San Diego State coach will get primo seats at Lucas Oil Stadium to watch No. 1 seeds Michigan and Arizona battle in a heavyweight fight the likes of which, statistically speaking, we have never before witnessed.

It won’t be the first time he’s seen them in person.

By a quirk of scheduling, Dutcher’s Aztecs faced the Wolverines and Wildcats less than a month apart during the fall. Arizona was a self-inflicted wound, a neutral-court game in Phoenix on Dec. 20 that they scheduled. Michigan was the luck of the draw, SDSU’s opening opponent in the 18-team Players Era Festival in Las Vegas on Nov. 24.

Neither ended well.

The Aztecs were within nine points late in the first half against Michigan and had a 3 rattle out that would have cut it to six before getting their doors blown off 94-54, their most lopsided defeat of the 21st century. They led Arizona 27-20 after 18 minutes, then were suddenly incapable of getting a rebound and lost 68-45.

Two games, a combined 63 points worse.

“We were in the game against both of them at halftime,” Dutcher said. “It was just their physicality and size wore us out over the course of the game. … Like, both these teams are super-sized.”

SDSU is one of six common opponents this season who played the teams currently Nos. 1 and 2 in the Kenpom metric, and the only one that doesn’t belong to a power conference. The others: Alabama, Auburn, TCU, UCLA and Purdue.

Michigan won 6-1 (the only loss was against Purdue in the Big Ten tournament final) by an average of 17.1 points. Arizona went 6-0 by an average of 17.5.

In the 30-year history of Kenpom metric, they rank as the third and fourth best teams of all-time, behind only 1998-99 Duke that had a projected margin of 43.01 points over an average Division I team and last year’s Duke at 39.39.

Michigan is at 39.02.

Arizona is at 38.76.

They are first and second nationally in defensive efficiency, and both are top five in offensive efficiency. Both shoot 74% from the line and a tick under 37% on 3s. Both rank among the nation’s tallest rosters at an average of 6-foot-7.

Big, but different.

“Obviously, Arizona destroyed us on the glass. They’re an elite rebounding team,” Dutcher said. “And for Michigan, (7-3 Aday) Mara was such a rim protector that it was hard to challenge him at the rim.”

The numbers echo that.

The Wildcats rank fifth nationally in offensive rebounding rate at 38.4%, or the percentage of their own missed shots they get back. They aren’t as efficient shooting 2-pointers (52nd), but they don’t need to be when they’re just playing volleyball at the rim. Against SDSU, the Wildcats had a 52-28 edge on the glass, including 20 offensive boards.

The Wolverines impose their size on the defensive end, where they block 16.8% of opposing shots, third best in Div. I. Against SDSU, they swatted five and forced it to take tough, long 2s – the absolute worst analytic shot. The average distance of SDSU’s 2-point attempts was a season-high 9.6 feet.

Their 3-point accuracy is almost identical, but only 26.4% of Arizona’s shots come behind the arc — the third least nationally. Michigan takes nearly 42% of its shots from deep.

“It will be interesting,” Dutcher said, “because Arizona doesn’t really play a shooting 5, so they’ve be able to leave Mara around the basket. Arizona has big, strong guys who will go at him. I think the real key to that game will be can Mara protect the rim and avoid being in foul trouble?

“Arizona is more than capable of making 3s, but they won their last game going to the basket (against Purdue) and attacking the rim. It will be interesting to see if they can do that against Michigan. Look what they did to us on the offensive glass. They bullied us. But will they be able to bully Michigan?”

The Aztecs, in a backhanded compliment kind of way, helped change the arcs of both their seasons.

Michigan had been scuffling along, needing overtime to beat Wake Forest and surviving a nervy 67-63 game at TCU before coming to Las Vegas. Then the experimental concept of playing 6-9 Yaxel Lendeborg, 6-10 Morez Johnson and the 7-3 Mara on the floor together suddenly clicked against historically one of the nation’s stingiest defenses, and the Wolverines became an overnight juggernaut.

They beat Auburn by 30 the next day, then Gonzaga by 40 the next. That started a nine-game stretch with an average margin of victory of, yes, 35.5 points.

A month later, undefeated and No. 1-ranked Arizona faced an Aztecs defense that went under ball screens and sat in gaps to deter dribble drives. The Wildcats were 1 of 10 behind the arc in the first half and shot 37.9% overall for the game.

It taught the Wildcats that they could win ugly, a knock against prior teams that seemed to finesse their way to victory and a necessity for deep runs in March.

“Sometimes you have to make a decision,” coach Tommy Lloyd said that December night. “Maybe today is not the day we shoot it as good as we’d hope. There are lots of ways to win. If you can win in the effort areas, which we did today, that will go a long way.”

Now SDSU’s two nonconference opponents meet in the Final Four. The predictive Kenpom metric projects an 80-79 Wolverines victory.

Dutcher agrees.

“My outside guess would be Michigan, because I just think they’re so good around the basket defensively and that’s what Arizona does, attack the rim” Dutcher said.

He paused and added this qualifier: “But this is not a best-of-seven. This is the Final Four. This is one-and-done. Anyone can win.”