Justin Ahrens sets final three visits
By SEAN BOCK Justin Ahrens, the 6-foot-5 shooting guard
INDIANAPOLIS — Moritz “Moe” Wagner and D.J. Wilson embraced near the Michigan basket following their latest win, the seventh straight for this “Team of Destiny.”
The two roommates had just combined for 43 points to lead No. 7 Michigan to a thrilling 73-69 win over No. 2 Louisville at Bankers Life Fieldhouse to advance to the Sweet 16 in the Midwest Region.
“We’re very close, we work so much together,” said the 6-foot-11 Wagner, who scored 17 of his career-high 26 points in the second half when Michigan outscored Louisville 45-33. “We did some similar things so it’s beautiful to see others being successful and very happy that the team in general could be successful, too.”
The Wolverines, who last week won the Big Ten Tournament in Washington, D.C., by winning four games in four days following a plane wreck in Michigan, will face the Oregon-Rhode Island winner in the Sweet 16 in Kansas City.
In their last five games, Michigan has beaten five straight NCAA Tournament teams: Purdue, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State and Louisville.
INDIANAPOLIS -- John Beilein has been around
INDIANAPOLIS –– As Michigan’s team plane skidded off the runway at Michigan’s Willow Run Airport at 150 miles an hour last Wednesday, Coach John Beilein and his players feared for their lives.
“What made it Cinderella was the circumstance,” Beilein said here as his team prepares to face Oklahoma State on Friday afternoon in its first game since winning the Big Ten Tournament on Sunday in Washington, D.C. “It wasn’t just skidding off the runway. It was full going, 150 miles an hour, we can’t stop. And our kids got — thank goodness the plane didn’t flip. All kinds of things could have happened once we got off the plane and looked.”
The pilot “veered to the side” instead of going forward through buildings and that saved the lives of those on the plane, according to an account from Brendan Quinn of MLive.com.
Now, as the Wolverines prepare to play in the NCAA Tournament, one has to ask: Are they the team of destiny? Is it preordained that they will make some kind of deep run given that they all just survived a brush with death?
