Michigan expected to grind it out against Texas A&M

LOS ANGELES — They play grinding basketball, ugly basketball if one sees it that way. Michigan and Texas A&M haven’t been stylish in this NCAA Tournament, but they have been successful.

Thursday night at Staples Center, the two schools, better known for football perhaps — Texas A&M just hired a coach, Jimbo Fisher, for $75 million — will meet in the opening game of the West Regional Sweet 16.

Gonzaga, a finalist last year, faces Florida State in the second game. The winners play Saturday to earn a place in the Final Four next weekend in San Antonio.

In this tournament of unpredictability, the West’s No. 1 seed Xavier and No. 2 seed North Carolina, the defending champ, are gone. Michigan at No. 3 is the highest seed remaining in the bracket.

Michigan (30-7) won the Big Ten Tournament, beating Michigan State in the semifinal and Purdue in the final, and now is on an 11-game win streak. Texas A&M is 22-12, the No. 7 seed in the West, and has won only its last two. But those two got them where they are.

Michigan, which has reached the Sweet 16 in four of the last six tournaments, has the eighth-ranked defense in country, allowing just 63 points per game. The Wolverines beat Houston, 64-63, in the second round on Jordan Poole’s three-pointer at the buzzer. The Wolverines feel like their best basketball is ahead of them.

“I think playing in a close game like that certainly helps, but on top of that I think we feel like we didn’t play our best really that entire weekend,” Michigan senior guard/forward Duncan Robinson said Wednesday about the Wolverines’ first two tournament games in Wichita. “So I think we had some confidence going there, and hopefully we can start to play better moving forward.”

Texas A&M has an NBA-sized front line, highlighted by 6-9, 270-pound Tyler Davis and 6-10, 241-pound Robert Williams.

In the 86-65 second-round win over North Carolina, Davis and Williams combined for 26 points, 22 rebounds and five blocked shots.

“Tyler Davis and Robert are playing extremely well, obviously, just being dominant in the paint offensively and defensively, and really it just seems like I think we’ve gotten 80 percent of our rebounds off of missed shots, which is a high number, and those two guys are the reason why,” Texas A&M coach Billy Kennedy said Wednesday. “They’re getting everything in their area, they’re getting everything out of the area.”

The Aggies are well-traveled this season. They have played West Virginia in the Armed Forces Classic in Germany, UC Santa Barbara and Penn State in the Legends Classic at Barclay Center in Brooklyn, and USC at Galen Center in Los Angeles. Now they’re back in L.A. hoping to make one more trip. To the championship.

“What we’ve tried to do after beating North Carolina is talk to our guys about keeping their eyes on the prize,” Kennedy said. “Our goal is to get to San Antonio, and whoever is in our way is what we need to be prepared for next.”