The Michigan Wolverines won on Sunday after defeating the Florida Gators in blowout fashion, 79-59. The victory gets Michigan into the Final Four. It was an offensive attack on behalf of the Wolverines led by Nik Stauskas and a stingy defensive team effort.
Stauskas finished the game with 22 points going 6-6 from three and 7-8 overall from the floor. Trey Burke had a rough shooting night going 5-15, but he had 13 points along with three steals. Mitch McGary filled up his stat sheet with 11 points, nine rebounds and was also great on defense racking up five steals.
As a team, the forced the Gators to 15 turnovers, 13 of which were direct results from steals. As a team, Michigan shot 47 percent in the game.
Michigan began this game on a heavy run. They dominated the first 10 minutes of this game going on a 23-8 run and quickly opening up with a double-digit lead. The three-pointer was their best friend from the corner as they began this game shooting. During the run, they went 3-4 from beyond the arc.
They're best player on the floor? Freshman Stauskas. Just in the first half alone, Stauskas matched his 19 points combined in the last two games and scored more than half the points he's had in the first three Michigan games in the tournament. Staukas went 6-6 from the floor and an amazing 5-5 from three.
For the Gators, they were simply outplayed. They shot just over 40 percent and 1-4 from three. They were outrebounded 21-13, they gave up seven offensive rebounds to their three, committed more turnovers 6-5 and just when they thought they were going to have easy baskets, the Wolverines were there to block the ball as they had four rejections in the first 20 minutes of the game.
At the half, the game was 47-30 and the Gators were up against the wall. They made a push in the second half that brought down to 11 points after beginning the period on a 6-0 run, but it wasn't enough. Stauskas stopped all of this with his sixth three of the game taking the Wolverine lead back up to 14.
It was pretty much this way for the remaining 16 minutes as Michigan locked down and put a stop to Florida's run. After the Michigan stars sat out briefly, Spike Albrecht came off the bench and shot 3-4, scored seven points and picked up three steals in the process.
Michigan faces Syracuse in the Final Four as they will attempt to make it to the championship game.
