Predicting final score of Michigan basketball vs. Texas A&M in Round of 32 of NCAA Tournament

After a strong first half, Michigan men's basketball stumbled in the final 20 minutes against UC San Diego in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Wolverines did everything but fully give the game away and walked out with a close, 68-65 win over the Tritons. The No. 5 seed Wolverines will now get the No. 4 seed Texas A&M Aggies who beat Yale, 80-71.

The Aggies don't field a tall lineup, a few 6-8 players but nothing taller. However, Texas A&M is the best offensive rebounding team in the country grabbing nearly 42% of its misses. There is a reason for that, as the Aggies are one of the worst shooting teams in the country. TAMU hits just over 30% of its 3s and the Aggies like to shoot them.

Michigan had issues rebounding against a taller Illinois team earlier in the year, but the Aggies will create similar issues as the Illini created.

Here's what our Michigan Wolverines On SI team believes will happen on Saturday between the Wolverines and Aggies.

Trent's prediction

Although Michigan men's basketball got hot and ran the table in the Big Ten Conference Tournament, the Wolverines usually get in their own way during every game. More games were settled by four or fewer points than there should've been and it was due to either turnovers, not crashing the boards, or scoring droughts.

Michigan got by UC San Diego but turnovers and a long scoring drought almost domed the Wolverines. Now going up against the top offensive rebounding team, Michigan is going to have to box out and crash in order to not see a duplicate of the Illinois' loss.

At the end of the day, Tre Donaldson has had a resurgence and Michigan still has two talented 7-footers. The Wolverines will likely let this game go down to the wire, but Michigan's size will be too much for the Aggies.

Final Score: Michigan 72, Texas A&M 70

Chris' prediction

Michigan escaped with a narrow win over UCSD on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but that performance didn't do much to ease the concerns surrounding this team. Turnovers, rebounding, and periods of looking completely out of rhythm continue to be a common theme with the Wolverines. The good news is that Michigan has also developed a habit of finding ways to win in spite of those ongoing issues.

The Wolverines are fully capable of knocking off Texas A&M. While the Aggies are a solid rebounding team, there's nothing particularly special about who they are offensively. If Michigan can get another solid performance from Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin, along with at least one of the guards stepping up offensively, I think the Wolverines find another way to win a close one.

My gut says Aggies, but my heart says Wolverines.

Final Score: Michigan 72, Texas A&M 68

Jerred's prediction

The Wolverines won another close game in the first round of the NCAA Tournament
against UC San Diego. Another game they led by double digits at half time. Another
game they came out of the half and just flat-out did not look engaged. Another game where
they struggled at times with head-scratching turnovers. The Wolverines have had the same issues all year, and it just seems like they have not done anything to mitigate those issues.

In the NCAA tournament, you're only one bad game away from taking a flight home, and I think that happens on Saturday against Texas A&M. Sadly, the inconsistent play, coupled with a penchant to turn the ball over, will likely catch up to Dusty May's team this time. The dreams of meeting MSU in the Elite 8 and avenging those two regular-season losses will be dashed in Denver.

Final Score: Texas A&M 73, Michigan 66