ATLANTA — No. 1 Auburn was the team to beat throughout the regular season, even earning the NCAA Tournament’s top overall seed after entering Selection Sunday losers in three of its last four.
Now in the South Region semifinal, the Tigers (30-5) tangle with No. 5 seed Michigan (27-9) on Friday night in Atlanta, with a chance to clinch a program-record 31st win and advance to its third Elite Eight.
After posting wins against Alabama State and Creighton in its first two tournament games, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl knows the stakes have been raised, beginning with Friday’s Sweet 16.
“You feel like you’re playing for a national championship now, four times,” Pearl said. “You don’t feel like that in the first two rounds.”
The Tigers have had no shortage of tests this year, holding nine wins over the remaining teams in the field, while winning the Southeastern Conference’s regular season title — a league dubbed by many as the best the sport has seen. Spearheaded by first-team All-American Johni Broome’s 18.4 points and 10.7 rebounds per game, Auburn’s dominance will be put to the test against red-hot Michigan and its two big men, Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf.
“Michigan is as good as anybody in this field. They are,” Pearl said. “Goldin, in the Big Ten, was the best player on the floor almost every single night. Wolf, there’s not another seven-footer in college basketball that resembles him. … Our ability to defend those two is really going to be the difference in the game.”
Auburn freshman reserve Tahaad Pettiford has been the steadying force in its first two wins, averaging 19.5 points in the tournament. On the season, Pettiford averaged 11.5 ppg, behind Chad Baker-Mazara’s 12.5 and Miles Kelly’s 11.7.
Just over a year after head coach Dusty May took on a Michigan team coming off a 24-loss campaign, a trip to the transfer portal revitalized the Big Ten-champion Wolverines. May, who reached the Final Four in 2023 with Florida Atlantic, brought Goldin with him, and added Wolf from Yale, along with Tre Donaldson (Auburn) and Roddy Gayle (Ohio State).
For Michigan to punctuate an already successful first year under May, the Wolverines will have to slow down a high-powered Auburn offense, led by Broome.
“I think we’re all aware of how lethal (Broome) is on the block and getting to where he wants to get to,” May said. “He quarterbacks their offense, so he’s a challenge on a number of levels.”
As for Michigan’s counterparts, Goldin paces the scoring with 16.8 points per game, while Wolf adds 13 points and team-high 9.8 rebounds per contest, a duo that’s prepared each other for this stage.
“I get to go against one of the best centers in the country every day,” Wolf said of Goldin. “I know that we’re all very excited for this opportunity and it’s not often that you get two elite frontcourts going at it this late in the season. For myself, Vlad, we’re all very excited.”
Wolf had 13 points and five rebounds for Yale in last season’s upset of Auburn in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The seven-foot junior is averaging 11.5 points and 10 boards in Michigan’s wins over UC San Diego and Texas A&M. Goldin has gone for a combined 37 points and 20 rebounds in the Wolverines’ two victories.
–Jack Batten, Field Level Media
