First Look: Arizona Wildcats

Michigan will face Arizona on Saturday night in Indianapolis in the headlining game of the Final Four. The Wildcats and Wolverines have been two of the top three teams in the sport for most of the season, and now they’ll meet in a battle of KenPom No. 1 and No. 2 on the biggest stage in the sport.

Arizona is 36-2 with its only losses coming back-to-back against Kansas and Texas Tech in mid-February. The Wildcats played the No. 9 schedule in college basketball, have top-five offenses and defenses, and won the Big 12 outright by 2 games.

Here’s our First Look at the Wildcats, our initial deep dive to kick off the Final Four week.

A heavyweight fight

This isn’t just the top two teams on KenPom battling it out; it is a battle of the two biggest and most physically imposing teams in the sport. Arizona and Michigan both impose their will around the basket to win games.

There are so many parallel stats when you analyze these two teams’ positional size and interior dominance. It’s the two best defenses in the country, the two best eFG% defenses in the country, and the 2nd and 3rd best 2-point percentage defenses.

Here you can see just how many interior and physicality stats the two teams excel at:

This is a matchup of two teams that have won the paint on a nightly basis this season. Two teams that have been so dominant on the interior that they are a combined 71-5 on the season, but both can’t dominate the paint on Saturday — someone has to win.