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The third round of the NCAA Tournament tips off on Saturday just after high noon with one of the most anticipated games in the East Region, as the VCU Rams try to unleash HAVOC against the Michigan Wolverines.

And boy, did the Rams ever release said HAVOC in the second round of the dance on Thursday night! They knocked off the Akron Zips 88-42 in what turned out to be the biggest blowout that a No. 5 seed ever put on a No. 12 seed in the history of the tourney. VCU forced more turnovers than it allowed field goals to be made for the game, and there literally was not a single second in the game when anyone watching could have possibly thought that Akron was going to have a shot at pulling off the upset. Head Coach Shaka Smart ended up deploying 11 different players, all of which were on the court for at least 11 minutes, and that is going to make it so his team is quite well-rested for this game against Big Blue. The pressure is going to be key in this one, and for that to happen, the Rams are going to need to make their shots, especially from the outside. They went 8-of-16 from long range against Akron on Thursday, and they also shot 53.8 percent from the field, creating a ton of opportunities to unleash the full court pressure.

Michigan never really had much in the way of problems against the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in the second round of the tourney here in the East Region either. The Wolverines really got a great game from F Glenn Robinson III for the first time in quite some time. The Jackrabbits were just overmatched in the paint by Robinson, and he ended up shooting 8-of-9 from the field and tallying 21 points to go with six boards. This Michigan team clearly looked a heck of a lot different when Robinson was hitting some shots from the inside and the outside, and things can only get better from here. G Trey Burke, one of the best players in the entire country, only went 2-of-12 shooting and scored a grand total of just six points against South Dakota State, and there is no way that he is going to do that once again in this one.

Prediction:

The Wolverines are young, but they didn’t play like a young team against the Jackrabbits on Thursday. They have the guards that can contend with VCU’s pressure, and their defense should do a lot better job against VCU than Akron did. This is the best game of the tourney to date as we see it, and that might stay the case for the whole dance. We think that the Rams overrated themselves when they blew out the Zips, and as a result, we want the Wolverines on our side. Michigan 67 – VCU 64