Brooke Quarles Daniels is diabolical.

The only senior in Michigan’s rotation plays the game with unmatched intensity. When the game isn’t going well, she scowls. When the game is going well, she scowls some more.

Standing behind Kim Barnes Arico, however, she smiled, flexed, shimmied her shoulders, made faces at the camera, and then an idea struck as she looked at the back of her coach’s head. Daniels’ hands hovered above Arico’s head for a moment, a grin clearly spreading across her face even though it’s obscured, before she pulled the back of Arico’s hair up in two separate bundles.

Puffs, if you will.

Arico smiled through it. After all, she was talking to ESPN’s Holly Rowe after coaching Michigan to their second Elite Eight berth in program history — both under her watch, four years apart. Daniels could have her fun, especially in tribute to Te’Yala “Puffs” Delfosse, whose outstanding performance off the bench helped power Michigan past three-seed Louisville, 71-52.

The final score belies the challenge Louisville presented. When the Naz Hillmon-led Wolverines made the Elite Eight in 2022, it was Jeff Walz’s Cardinals that knocked them out of the tournament. Louisville also beat Michigan in the second round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament.

“Louisville, early in my career, it seemed like we got them in every bracket,” said Arico. “I say, oh, golly, if you want to say how many times I played Kim Mulkey or Jeff Walz, check the numbers. It just happens when you advance in the tournament.

“So I was not looking forward to playing them at all, but heck, it feels so great to be on the other side of that.”

The Wolverines came out of the gate this time around and… didn’t score in the first six minutes. Louisville led by as many as nine points in the first quarter, an ugly period in which the two teams combined for ten field goals and 12 turnovers. Michigan had trouble generating even somewhat open shots, while UL couldn’t capitalize on several good looks.

The stilted play continued into the second quarter, as only UL’s Elif Istanbulluoglou could get any consistent offense going. Her hook shot after drawing a debatable charge call on U-M center Ashley Sofilkanich extended the margin to 11 points. It felt like a massive inflection point.

Instead, Michigan bore down. Despite Olivia Olson picking up her second foul and hitting the bench soon after, the Wolverines went on a 16-0 run.

The reserve forward line of Delfosse and Kendall Dudley turned up the pressure, neutralized Istanbulluoglou, and converted defense into offense. Delfosse accounted for eight points during the run, highlighted by a three-pointer and a coast-to-coast and-one for the lead, and Dudley put U-M up five with a driving layup.

Delfosse ended the first half by blocking Istanbulluoglou’s putback attempt from behind at the buzzer. Michigan only held the lead for 1:59 of the opening 20 minutes but went into the locker room with a five-point cushion.

“It took us a minute to settle, but then once we did, I think our confidence exploded,” said Arico. “And we just were really disruptive on the defensive end.”

Louisville opened the third quarter on a 7-0 run and replied to U-M’s initial response with a couple tough buckets from Mackenly Randolph. For all the world, it appeared this game would go down to the wire.

Instead, Michigan dropped the hammer, again. While Olivia Olson and Syla Swords made their mark on the scoreboard, the 18-0 run was all about the grind-and-grind trio of Daniels, Delfosse, and Dudley.

Daniels crashed the boards with her usual aplomb, initiated the offense when point guard Mila Holloway took a breather, and scored a layup off a Swords airball. Dudley played disruptive defense and pivoted her way to a couple slick buckets.

Delfosse was everywhere. She grabbed a defensive rebound and found Holloway on an outlet pass for an assist. She kept the ball moving in transition for another assist on Olson and-one. Another defensive board quickly turned into a Dudley layup, then she helped force multiple Louisville turnovers — a wayward pass by Reyna Scott against the press and an offensive foul on Randolph.

“She's our difference maker,” said Arico. “When she plays great, we have a chance to beat anyone.”

Scott finally broke the run with a tough finish over Delfosse, only for Olson to reply with a swooping baseline reverse layup to beat the third-quarter buzzer. The scoreboard read 57-40, Michigan. The game was no longer competitive.

“We were just having so much fun,” said Olson. “All the work that we've put in in practices, all the hard preseasons, Coach [Arico] getting on us — she's thrown everything, every single possible situation at us this year in practice.

“So just that third quarter we were just really playing loose and having fun, and I think that's what ignited our run.”

Michigan maintained their momentum in the fourth quarter, which was both academic and delightful. Olson cooked. Delfosse volleyball-spiked a Randolph shot attempt and scored on the ensuing possession. Swords swished a baseline jumper after outfighting her defender to catch a Daniels skip pass.

The Wolverines pushed the lead as high as 23 points. For the second straight game, they shook off an early deficit and emptied the bench for celebratory garbage time. Senior forward Ally VanTimmeren hit a hook shot for the game’s final points.

As Holly Rowe conducted a postgame interview with Syla Swords, the whole team gathered in the background. When Delfosse’s performance came up, they all put their hands above their heads in tribute to her signature hairstyle.

This is a team you want to root for. They’ve already cemented their place as the best team in program history. Any win from here on out supplants this one as their signature game. Enjoy it. They sure do.

There are a lot of fun stats from this one.

PUFFS PLUS. Delfosse finished with ten points on 4-for-5 shooting, eight rebounds, two assists, and two blocks. Nothing captures her impact as well as her plus-minus, however, which was an incredible +31 in 22 minutes. Dudley, meanwhile, finished +27 in 24 minutes.

Second half superstars. While not quite the monster performances of the N.C. State second half, Olson and Swords each dropped a dozen points after halftime, combining to shoot 9-for-16 from the field. Holloway was limited to only five points but dished out seven assists against a lone turnover.

Today’s Brooke Quarles Difference. As mentioned above, at 5’7”, Daniels set the NCAA Tournament record for shortest player to record seven or more offensive rebounds (she had seven on the nose). She also chipped in seven points, two defensive rebounds, two assists, two steals, and drew four fouls.

Defense wins championships. Istanbulluoglou was the only Louisville player to score in double digits and 11 of her 18 points came in the first half. Their other four leading scorers on the season — Randolph, Tajianna Roberts, Laura Ziegler, and Imani Berry — combined to shoot 10-for-40 from the field.

The jerseys, explained. I’ll let Kim Barnes Arico explain yesterday’s coaching attire:

Again, it’s very easy to root for this program. Naz Hillmon was once again in attendance, too.

This won’t be as extensive as my Louisville preview in part because of timing and in part because Texas is really damn good at pretty much everything. They’re 34-3 with their losses all coming on the road against top-ten teams — LSU, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt.

In November, they beat one-seed UCLA and South Carolina in back-to-back games in Las Vegas. They avenged the subsequent loss against the Gamecocks by beating them 78-61 in the SEC championship game. They rank in the top ten nationally in:

They’re merely in the top 20 in such stats as effective field goal percentage, two-point field goal percentage, and block rate.

Their style is unlike any other, built around the incredible midrange game of first-team All-American forward Madison Booker, who’s made more midrange shots than the vast majority of teams in the country:

Booker averages 19.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 2.2 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game. Her length — a lanky 6’1” — and touch make her the best tough-shot maker in the country. She only attempts two three-pointers per game and makes 31.1% of them. As a team, Texas attempts the lowest rate of threes in the nation, comprising only 18.8% of their field goal attempts.

The team’s other star is 5’6” senior point guard Rori Harmon, who might be best thought of as Power Mushroom Brooke Quarles Daniels. Harmon, the recent subject of a long ESPN profile, is the program’s all-time leader in both assists and steals. While she only averages 8.5 points, she’s very efficient when she looks to score, and she fills out the stat sheet with 6.2 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 2.8 steals per game.

If a shot is going up from beyond the arc, it’s probably coming from 6’0” sophomore Jordan Lee, who averages 13.6 points and makes 35.9% of her threes. Lee also torched Kentucky in transition early in their Sweet Sixteen blowout. She’s another defensive pest, averaging 1.5 steals.

Michigan will have to overcome a serious size disadvantage in the middle. 6’6” center Kyla Oldacre is a load to handle in the paint, averaging 10.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.2 steals, and 1.1 blocks while drawing a ton of fouls. She splits time with 6’4” junior Breya Cunningham, who scores and grabs offensive rebounds a little less often but is very efficient around the hoop and tough to score on.

6’1” sophomore Justice Carlton rounds out the starting lineup on the wing, averaging 8.4 points and pulling down 2.3 offensive rebounds in only 19 minutes per game. 5’0” freshman sparkplug Aaliyah Crump averages 8.2 points in only 17 minutes. 5’9” sophomore Bryanna Preston capably handles backup point guard duties.

Texas has used those eight for the vast majority of their somewhat competitive tournament minutes but can go ten-deep with senior wings Teya Sidberry and Ashton Judd, who’d be regular rotation players on most teams.

Michigan’s most likely path to victory is the one Vanderbilt took: opening up a big gap in three-point shooting, limiting the damage on the glass, and hoping the Longhorns have an unusually mediocre night on midrange shots. Bart Torvik’s numbers favor the Longhorns by nine, though that accounts for this as a neutral-site game; the Fort Worth crowd will be heavily in favor of Texas.

The game tips off at 7 pm Eastern Monday evening on ESPN.