The No. 2 Wolverines just played half of a great game and whipped No. 3 Louisville, 71–52 anyway. They have won their three tournament games by 35, 29 and now 19 points.
FORT WORTH, Texas — We have reached the point of women’s NCAA tournament proceedings where the busywork is all done and the five No. 1 seeds are ready to settle this thing. Yeah, I said five. Michigan deserves a promotion.
. They have won their three tournament games by 35, 29 and now 19 points. They will be underdogs in Monday’s regional final, because they will play Texas in Texas, but they don’t see themselves that way, and why should they? They nearly beat UConn and UCLA earlier this year, and they are playing a whole lot better now. Louisville took an early lead on Michigan in their Sweet 16 game here Saturday. But in hindsight—and hindsight kicked in before the game ended—the Wolverines’ main obstacle was themselves. Star Olivia Olson said she felt like she forced a couple of shots early. Coach Kim Barnes Arico said, “We were sped up. We panicked for about a second. Or maybe a couple of minutes.” With 6:53 left in the second quarter, Louisville’s Elif Istanbullulgou scored to give the Cardinals an 11-point lead.that the 41–13 run reflects the gap between these teams. Michigan is playing like a No. 1 seed, and doing what No. 1 seeds do. UConn, UCLA, South Carolina and Texas do not need to play 40 minutes of great basketball to blow out good teams. They just need to play well for one stretch to effectively end the game., to overtime in one game, and they came within a point of forcing overtime in the other. They only lost to South Carolina by two. That was a nice body of work. Michigan just disposed of it. In a sport where the dominant programs are really,dominant, fans are rightly skeptical of any newcomer to the big stage. Monday’s showdown will only be the second Elite Eight game in the history of the Michigan program. So if you think the Wolverines still need to prove they belong, that is understandable. But there are no smoke and mirrors here. Michigan is not riding a streak of hot shooting or good fortune. Geno Auriemma always laughs when people say he has only won national championships with great players. Of course that is the case. That’s why he recruits them. Olson and Syla Swords are UConn players who happen not to play for UConn. They were McDonald’s All-Americans and will have WNBA careers and they love all of the hard parts.Olson scores, rebounds and defends against everybody, regardless of talent level. Swords effects games in ways that are easy to spot and also in ways that are subtle. She is a steadying presence on both ends.good against Louisville. But they were plenty good enough. So was point guard Mila Holloway, who played only 29 minutes because of foul trouble and still had seven assists . Did we miss anybody? “You’ve got to give Daniels a ton of credit,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. “She impacts the game in so many ways without really scoring, but it’s her ability to continually go to the offensive glass. She had seven of them.” Quarles Daniels also had two defensive rebounds. But we have not even mentioned the sophomore who was the best player on the floor at times. Michigan’s 6'3" sophomore Te’Yala Delfosse scored an efficient 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds in 22 minutes. She blocked two shots and got called for a foul when she might have cleanly blocked a third. She smoothly brought the ball up court in fewer dribbles than a person should need, and she hit a three-pointer with such ease that it seemed like somebody painted the line too close.Teams are not supposed to play road games in the Elite Eight, but Michigan basically will. Then again, No. 1 seeds are not supposed to face other No. 1 seeds in the Elite Eight, but Texas basically will.Michael Rosenberg is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, covering any and all sports. He writes columns, profiles and feature stories and has covered almost every major sporting event. He joined SI in 2012 after working at the Detroit Free Press for 13 years, eight of them as a columnist. Rosenberg is the author of “War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler and America in a Time of Unrest.” Several of his stories also have been published in collections of the year’s best sportswriting. He is married with three children.
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