Three Keys To Victory: No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 16 Texas Southern

Even without Isaiah Livers, Michigan is favored by 25.5 points against Texas Southern. That's obviously a massive spread, but Michigan is much more talented and has a lot more size than the Tigers. Still, as we saw with Ohio State and Purdue yesterday, teams have to show up, execute and play to win. If Michigan does these three things, they should cruise to victory.

1. Feed Hunter Dickinson

The Michigan guards already look for Hunter Dickinson a lot, but they need to look for him even more than normal because he's going to be much bigger and more skilled on the block than anyone Texas Southern can throw at him. The need to go to him over and over and over — just like Marshawn Lynch says.

Texas Southern's two biggest players are 6-9, 220 pounds. Dickinson is all of 7-1, 255. He's going to have a distinct size and strength advantage throughout the entire game and should score 20 points easily. If he can score at will, Michigan's offense will click and they should pull away before it's even halftime.

2. Make Three-Pointers At A 40% Clip

I think this point is directly related to the first point. If the guards look for Dickinson, allowing him to get position and then look back out for shooters, Michigan should have a field day. We don't know yet if Texas Southern will double-team Dickinson, but I predict they will. They simply don't have anyone who can check him one-on-one, so I see them throwing extra bodies at him. If and when they do, Dickinson should be able to find open shooters like Mike Smith, Eli Brooks, Franz Wagner and Chaundee Brown Jr. — at that point it's on them to knock them down. The four of them are 40.2% shooters from deep, but that number is likely even higher when they're open. I think they'll be open a lot today.

3. Bring Energy

For most of the season, Michigan did not play down to its competition over the course of an entire game, but they did come out of the gate a little slow at times. The bench has been great, and Michigan's experienced leaders almost always ended up setting the tone once the game got going, but in the tournament you can't afford to sleepwalk through the first 10 minutes of a game. If you let teams hang around, they can end your season. I don't see that happening with Texas Southern because they just aren't good enough, but LSU and St. Bonaventure certainly are, so Michigan needs to come out firing and get a feel for what's necessary to win in the tourney.