I would have liked to have seen Not Montana. Not because of the quality of this year's Griz—significantly down from last year, particularly on D—but because of that one lady.

Queme los game film.

Make sure the audio track burns, too.

In the Before Time, when I could still hear pitches above a high B-flat, Montana jumped out to a 10-0 lead over a Michigan squad that very much looked like it'd had an extended layoff. The Wolverines adjusted to the aggressive trapping Grizzlies defense and held a three-point lead at halftime. A woman screamed as if she, also, was trapped by grizzlies.

Hopefully she was a senior or is in jail for unrelated crimes. Giving Michigan the late game against Montana again is some kind of troll.

Although not too much of one. Last year's Montana team was fairly big for a Big Sky outfit. They ran out two 6'8" guys in their starting lineup. One of those guys graduated and the other got hurt midway through the year so the Griz's starting C is now the kid with the headband from last year's game. "You mean that wing" you ask? Yep.

Bobby Moorhead, #24 above, has added 10 pounds per the Montana roster, but he's still a wing. He gets about half of Montana's minutes at C. Another 6'7 guy who has in fact cracked 200 pounds gets most of the remainder.

Everyone else came back for the Griz so this move from biggish to really tiny is entirely responsible for their defense dipping from 58th to 161st. Their two point D has dropped from 40th to 123rd; they're forcing far fewer turnovers than they did a year ago. And both of their games against major conference opponents were blowouts: Creighton shot 66/54 and rebounded almost half their misses en route to 1.46 points per possession in a 26 point win; Arizona only put up 0.9 but they held the Griz to 0.62 PPP on 31/22 shooting. Creighton is #50 in Kenpom; Arizona is #99. Arizona's defense isn't even good.

Montana still may pose some problems. You no doubt remember last year's grind in which Montana trapped all ball screens, and they're still doing that:

I assume they'll switch everything since they don't really have a C and that's been Michigan kryptonite this year. But this is not last year's feisty bunch; at #137 in Kenpom they're about 6 points worse in efficiency margin than Illinois, the worst team in the Big Ten. Should be fine.

[After THE JUMP: first glimpses at round two and beyond]

On the other hand. I have no idea what to think about the potential second round game. Nevada's kind of a scary name because they were neck and neck with Michigan for the title of last undefeated team this year, but once you drill down into their resume they did indeed deserve a 7 despite going 29-4. They played absolutely nobody. Their only top 50 opponent was Utah State; they played two A-tier Kenpom games all year, a win at #72 Fresno State and a loss at Utah State (after which there was a fracas incited by Utah State assistant coaches).

Nevada's 25th in Kenpom, which is bang on what you'd expect for a seven seed, but I wonder how much of that was because of a lone, freak game: an 85-58 loss to New Mexico. New Mexico zoned Nevada into oblivion, which is obviously inapplicable for Michigan. And anyway Nevada adjusted their approach in their second game against the Lobos and crushed them by 29. After playing around with Torvik I can assert that does make a pretty big difference: Nevada jumps from 33rd to 23rd once you only consider quad 1 and 2 games. But Michigan's second in the country when you do that because that drops out the Great Binghamton Free Throw Line Brick Fest, amongst other grim performances against small-conference zone enthusiasts.

Compounding Nevada uncertainty is the status of Jordan Caroline, who missed the Mountain West semifinal with an achilles issue that "flared up". He's reportedly 100% for the tourney, but that sounds like an issue that might linger or recur.

Switchability concerns do abound with the Wolfpack, which plays about 20 MPG with an actual center and has Tre'Shawn Thurman do most of the rest of the work. Nevada has a ton of 6'7" dudes

Florida: meh. Extremely weird team. No nonconference wins of note unless a home game against Butler counts, 9-9 in the SEC, shoot a lot of threes but don't make many, ranked 28th—almost exactly where Nevada is—on Kenpom. Probably shouldn't be in the tournament at all since they're 50th in Strength of Record, four spots worse than Indiana.

On the one hand, Florida runs the kind of high pressure defense that relies on a lot of turnovers and blocks that Beilein teams generally eviscerate. On the other, they run a ton of that half-ass 1-2-2 press that I think everyone should do all the time. Michigan's loss at Penn State was due in no small part to the disjointed offense that Michigan initiated with 15 seconds on the clock after taking their sweet time to break the press. Florida has one of the lowest defensive tempos in the country because of that press. They're 347th. It's a late clock world against Florida: 21% of opponent FGAs are in the last five seconds of the clock.

Also they are very switchable. I asked Jerry Hinnen, The Internet's Auburn Fan, about his impressions of the Gators:

They're the ur-10 seed. Above-average team with several above-average players and an above-average coach but doesn't feel like they do anything above an above-average level.

Their starting lineup kinda feels like Allen, Hudson (both of whom have been around forever) and 3 Generic Athletic Guys, which is kinda borne out just looking at their heights--Allen's 6-2, and the other 4 are 6-5, 6-6, 6-6, 6-9. That's a big part of why their defense is so solid--there aren't any mismatches to hunt or switches to take advantage of. It's a point guard and 4 roughly interchangeable, athletic guys.

Overall impression is that White knows what he's doing and is probably getting about as much out of this group as he can, he just needs more guys with more actual basketball skills on the offensive end.

He doesn't see them getting past Nevada.

Livers: your backup 5. Montana doesn't have a C; Livers is actually listed heavier than Florida's C, who is a dunk on assists guy who doesn't post a ton; Nevada plays about 16 MPG with a 6'8" guy who only gets about 40% of his shots at the rim. Michigan will be able to go small in the first two rounds no matter who gets through.

This will not be the case if Texas Tech or Buffalo comes through their pod,  FWIW.

Reminiscent of 2014. Michigan got a two opposite a really good team in a smaller conference as the #1, and that #1 had a series of booby traps awaiting it before the regional final. In 2014 Wichita State got blasted out of the tournament by 8-seed Kentucky; Michigan would eventually lose a classic regional final on a jacked-up three right before what would have been OT.

Here Gonzaga gets Syracuse (maybe) in round 2. In this new Syracuse era they kind of suck but always finish within a game of .500 in the ACC, which they've done each of the last five seasons, and get a bid half the time anyway. That hasn't stopped them when the committee puts them in the field. The last two Syracuse bids:

• made the Final Four as a ten-seed by beating Gonzaga and Virginia in rock fights
• made the Sweet 16 from Dayton by being the other half of The Ben Carter Game

Gonzaga cannot have been happy to see the Orange pop up as a potential opponent, especially on one day of prep.

I'm not particularly enamored of Michigan going up against a zone down the road but I would much prefer it to Gonzaga.