Poise has been the best word to describe Arizona all season long.

No matter what challenges the Wildcats faced, no matter what was working and what wasn't, they kept their cool. They didn't flinch.

That poise was the reason Arizona made it to Indianapolis. Down seven early in the second half against Purdue, Tommy Lloyd's squad strung a few stops together to spark a run, and the rest was history. The Wildcats clinched the first Final Four berth in a quarter century with a 15-point victory.

Even when Michigan got out to a quick 26-10 lead, there wasn't panic. They responded with a 13-2 run to make it a game again. Just like always.

Then, for the first time this season, the Wildcats lost their poise.

Jaden Bradley, the team's unquestioned leader, picked up his third foul with 5:09 left to play in the first half. He has been the personification of poise, steadying the ship in those moments where it felt like the game hung in the balance.

In his absence, Arizona lost that poise.

Turnovers, sloppy possessions, and poor defensive rotations allowed Michigan to push the lead to 18 points within a matter of minutes.

Arizona did not regain its poise after halftime, either. Bradley picked up his fourth foul within two minutes, and Michigan's lead grew to as much as 30.

"The halftime speech was the same," Brayden Burries told reporters. "No matter how much we were down by, it was the same. ...Then we went out there and we just couldn't get it done. Michigan, they were making a lot of shots and they played great."

Arizona's 14 turnovers are the most it had against a power conference team since it had 15 giveaways against UCLA in the fourth game of the season. The Wildcats also made just 36.6 percent of their field goals, their worst shooting night of the season.

"They just did a great job being in the gaps," head coach Tommy Lloyd explained. "They were kind of mixing up their ball screen coverage, and our guys didn't do a great job adjusting the level of our screen. We weren't getting the edge, and then we had a few guys over-penetrated.

"They're scrappy and handsy, and they got their hands on some balls. That was kind of the first thing. Then I felt like there was at least four or five rebound situations on our end when we were on defense that we had the ball or could have had the ball and we just didn't secure it."

Now, Arizona is far from the first team that Michigan has made look foolish this season. The Wolverines are the first team to score 90 points or more in five NCAA Tournament games and have the fifth-largest combined margin of victory through five games in tournament history.

You can look to Michigan's 40-point win over Gonzaga at the Players Era Festival, or blowout road victories over Illinois and Purdue in February, or a handful of other games where the Wolverines looked like college basketball's Death Star.

But Arizona was supposed to be different. On paper, they had the size to match Michigan's front line. Its guards had been difference makers against a top-10 schedule in the country. The Wildcats entered as the top-ranked team on KenPom and owned the nation's longest win streak.

Michigan simply took them out of what they wanted to do.

"Michigan gets all the credit today," Lloyd said. "It wasn't our night, which probably had a lot to do with them. They were just impressive. They were impressive how they came out and executed their game plan. We got down a little bit, and we've been down a few times this year, but not like that. Just got a little panicky and weren't able to settle back in."

Michigan head coach Dusty May explained that game plan in the postgame press conference, saying they felt good about besting Arizona on the interior—one of Arizona's biggest strengths.

"I think a lot of it is simply match-ups," May said. "We just felt like if a team relies on scoring 15 feet and in, because of our size and length, it's going to be tough to score enough points.

"I do think we matched up well with Arizona better than we have some other teams this year."

It was clear the Wildcats felt that, too. They were not as aggressive attacking the rim, and that lack of aggression bled over into other areas of the game.

"[Michigan] really had us on our heels tonight," Lloyd said. "We never could get in a rhythm. No one's been able to do that to us all year, so it was an impressive performance by them."

Arizona's season was still a success. It made the Final Four for the first time in 25 years, and Lloyd advanced past the Sweet 16 for the first time as a head coach. There are a lot of pieces on the roster that need to be replaced, but Lloyd expects to learn from this.

"One Final Four? Why don't we go five times in 10 years?" he exclaimed. "That's where my mind's at. I'm going to do it day by day. But that's my big dream. I mean, who knows?"