Scott Rich

But whether Michigan contains Cam Boozer is going to rely a lot on Yaxa Lindenborg providing that double, providing that help side defense on Cam.

He also has some pretty gaudy offensive numbers.

He's one of the most efficient offensive players in the country.

He's a top Ken Palms, you know, player of the year metric in that massive tier below Cam Boozer.

When you watch him play, though, he does not beat you one on one.

He beats you in transition because he is a one-man fast break.

If he gets the rebound, he has the handling chops to take it down the court himself.

And he gets a lot of good looks off of the flow of the offense.

But he is not a guy, a traditional college basketball star, who is going to beat you one-on-one.

He is not going to iso-ball you.

He is not going to go get the ball in the post and just take a guy one-on-one like we're so familiar with with Cam Boozer.

So as counterintuitive as it might seem, if Duke is forcing Michigan to rely on Yaxwell-Ellenberg latent shot clocks in one-on-one possessions, especially if it's against a guy like Dame Saar, even if he gets some of those buckets, that is a win for Duke because that is one of the least efficient offensive options on a Michigan team that you mentioned, Jason, is one of the most efficient offensive teams in the country.

Well, I just want to say, I think it's going to be an interesting subplot of the game of who Dame Sarr actually guards.

He may, by just pure necessity, have to guard Yaxo Lindenborg, at least at the start of the game when the three big starting lineup is out there, because Isaiah Evans versus Yaxo Lindenborg is a little bit of a mismatch that Lindenborg could take advantage of.

One of the subplots of this game, I think, will be

How does John Shire manage that matchup?

And can he switch Dame Sarr onto Elliott Cadeau when Michigan only has two bigs on the floor, which is for more than 50% of the game, despite who they start?

So I think the easiest way to say this is Duke wins if.

I think Duke wins this game if.

Caleb Foster scores in double digits.