"When I was at the podium, I said, 'See you in Detroit next year,' " Thabeet recalled on Friday. "And I made it happen. This time, I've got my guys with me."

"All I could do was run and dunk," Thabeet said. "I didn't have that many moves on the block."

"The bottom line is, if he gets it behind you, he's dunking it," [Tom Izzo] said. "That's a given. So that's the first thing we can't let him do. Because if he gets behind you, there's nothing else he's going to do but dunk it. If he gets it in front of you, he does have some post moves. Not like he's a stiff in there. You might have a 50-50 chance."