{"id":559662,"date":"2026-04-02T05:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T05:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/559662\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T05:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T05:46:08","slug":"jay-bilas-predicts-outcomes-of-both-final-four-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/559662\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Bilas predicts outcomes of both Final Four games"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 Final Four is set as Arizona<\/a>, Illinois<\/a>, Michigan<\/a> and UConn<\/a> represent the last four standing in this season\u2019s 68-team NCAA Tournament field. Final Four games tip off Saturday night inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis with the 2026 national championship game slated for 9 pm ET Monday.<\/p>\n

Final Four action begins at 6 pm ET Saturday between the second-seeded Huskies and No. 3-seeded Fighting Illini, with fellow No. 1 seeds Arizona and Michigan squaring off around 8:50 pm ET. Both games are being telecast on TBS, truTV and HBO Max.<\/p>\n

Ahead of those epic matchups, ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas delivered a detailed breakdown of both Final Four games, including revealing which teams he expects to see in Monday night\u2019s title game during an appearance on this week\u2019s Triple Option podcast<\/a>. Bilas, who picked the Wildcats to win it all on Selection Sunday, stuck to his guns and projected a national championship between Arizona and UConn.<\/p>\n

Jay Bilas on No. 2 UConn vs. No. 3 Illinois (6 pm ET, Saturday)<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though Illinois is favored in the game (according to) Vegas, I\u2019d favor UConn in the game,\u201d Bilas said on Tuesday\u2019s Triple Option podcast<\/a> with FOX Sports analysts Mark Ingram<\/a>, Urban Meyer<\/a>, and Rob Stone. \u201cWhat UConn has done over the last several years, I mean, since 1999, UConn has won six different national championships under three different coaches. \u2026 (This year\u2019s) UConn is not as good as those two (2023-24) championship teams, but they\u2019re good enough to win this thing. They just need to shoot it better than they did against Duke.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he remains high on the Huskies, Bilas had nothing but praise for Illinois, which he said is much improved from its 74-61 non-conference loss to UConn on Nov. 28. Bilas was especially complimentary of the Illini\u2019s overseas recruiting efforts, including landing 6-foot-9 freshman David Mirkovic<\/a> from Montenegro and 7-foot Ivisic brothers Tomislav<\/a> and Zvonimir<\/a> from Croatia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIllinois is really good offensively, they\u2019ve recruited really well internationally so they\u2019ve got a bunch of eastern European guys that are very skilled and can shoot it,\u201d Bilas added<\/a>. \u201cThey can all dribble, pass and shoot, so they can spread the floor on you. \u2026 And their defense has improved over the last month, month and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bilas on No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 1 Michigan (8:50 pm ET, Saturday)<\/p>\n

As far as the 1v1 matchup between Arizona and Michigan, Bilas acknowledged Saturday\u2019s late game could be seen \u201cas the de facto national championship\u201d game. Ultimately, though, the ESPN analyst expects the Wildcats\u2019 \u201cold-school\u201d physicality will require the Wolverines to play a perfect game just to keep Arizona from winning the game at the free throw line.<\/p>\n

\u201cArizona is legit, but so is Michigan. Those are, in my view, the two best teams,\u201d Bilas said<\/a>. \u201c\u2026 But Arizona is kind of old school and they\u2019re an inside-out team, they don\u2019t shoot a ton of 3s, what they do is they get to the foul line. They beat you up physically and get to the rim, and if you\u2019re going to be physical with them, you\u2019re going to wind up fouling them and spend the majority of the game at the foul line. \u2026 Michigan is going to have to play good defense without fouling, because if they put Arizona at the foul line, that\u2019s going to be advantage Arizona.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 Final Four is set as Arizona, Illinois, Michigan and UConn represent the last four standing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99],"class_list":{"0":"post-559662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}