The second Final Four matchup of the NCAA tournament between the Syracuse Orange and the Michigan Wolverines will take place tonight at 8:49 p.m. on CBS. The game can also be live streamed here.
The fourth-seeded Wolverines enter this Final Four matchup with the newly crowned Wooden Award winner Trey Burke. The Wooden Award is bestowed upon the best player in college basketball each season, and Burke's performance thus far has surely validated the honor.
Throughout the Wolverines' up-and-down season, Burke has been a constant for the blue and maize. He averaged a team-high 19 points per game for a Wolverines squad that ranked 27th in the nation in points per game (75.2) and ninth in field goal percentage (48 percent). Burke also averaged a hair under seven assists per game.
The Syracuse Orange do not have a stand-alone star like Burke; rather, their star is the 2-3 zone that they use to frustrate high-octane offenses like Michigan's. They harassed Indiana's star center Cody Zeller into a 3-of-11 shooting performance in the Sweet Sixteen, and have given up 50 or fewer points in three of their last four tournament games.
Syracuse forward C.J. Fair predicted Burke may struggle against the Orange's unique zone saying, "It's tough to go against our zone when you've never seen it before," forward C.J. Fair said. "We want to force him to do some things he's not done before."
Michigan forward Tim Hardaway Jr., a 39 percent 3-point shooter, believes his team will be able to handle the length of Syracuse's defenders and their scheme. "If their zone was unbeatable, then they would be 39-0. We're just going to go out there, play our game, not worry about what they're going to do, and just play Michigan basketball."
Defensively, the Wolverines will have to contain Fair, Syracuse's leading scorer who happens to knock down a startling 46 percent of his 3-point shots. Forward James Southerland is another long-range bomber who needs attention. He sinks 40 percent of his treys, and together the two average just over 27 points per game.
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