CHARLOTTE — Earlier in the day on Selection Sunday, Michigan guard Matt Vogrich received a reassuring text message from his friend, Todd Zafirovski.

The two go back more than 10 years to their days in Lake Forest, Ill., where they played AAU basketball together.

With Michigan on the bubble, Zafirovski told his friend the Wolverines would make the NCAA tournament. When the bracket came out, Zafirovski couldn’t believe it.

A sophomore forward at Duke, he could potentially play against Vogrich if both teams won their first NCAA tournament games. They did and here Michigan and Duke are, playing in the Round of the 32 on Sunday (approximately 2:45 p.m., CBS).

“I sent him (a text) like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this,’” Zafirovski said.

This will be the third time the two friends have faced each other.

“He’s one of my best friends,” Vogrich said. “It’ll be cool. Before the game, I’ll say hi to him, maybe give him a hug or a handshake and then we want to beat (them) so I won’t talk to him.”

In what could be a bonus for Michigan, Vogrich is 2-0 against Zafirovski dating back to middle school days. It is something, Zafirovski said, that Vogrich still holds over him.

Because Vogrich went to the public school Lake Forest and Zafirovski went to the private Lake Forest Academy, the schools rarely played. But both lobbied their high school coaches to play.

“He texted me (recently),” Zafirovski said. “Saying ‘I just want to let you know, I’m still 2-0 against you.’”

The 1-3-1 myth

Michigan’s players and coaches received a lot of questions Saturday about the 1-3-1 zone and how much the Wolverines use it and whether or not Michigan coach John Beilein recruits to it.

Except for one little problem — Michigan has barely run any zone this season and even fewer possessions of the 1-3-1.

“It’s a unique defense that we used when I was at Richmond, believe it or not, and at West Virginia,” Beilein said. “It’s been very effective sometimes. However, we practice it often; we use it rarely.

“But when we do use it and it’s effective, we’ll stay with it.”

Besides Friday against Tennessee and the last 7 minutes against Kansas, Michigan has played mostly man-to-man defense this season.

That said, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said his team was going to work on it during practice Saturday.

This and that

This will be Krzyzewski’s 101st NCAA tournament game and at 899 wins, if Duke wins Sunday it will be win No. 900 in his career. … Beilein has never been faced or been eliminated from the NCAA tournament by a No. 1 seed and has a record of 4-5 as the coach of a lower-seeded team.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein