Yaxel Lendeborg Vows to Be Ready for Michigan’s Men’s Hoops Title Game

INDIANAPOLIS — If the universe was conspiring against Yaxel Lendeborg on Saturday night, every sign was telling him that was the case at the Final Four.

The UAB transfer who became the face of Michigan’s run to the national semifinal clanked a few of his shots during early warmups and no doubt had some of his routine thrown off with concert equipment being packed up at Lucas Oil Stadium making his path to the court a bit more treacherous than usual.

Two fouls in consecutive possessions within the first 90 seconds of the game sent him packing for the bench in an omen for how the night could have gone, too. After all, Arizona had not lost since Feb. 14 and was holding on to a 13-game winning streak that made it every bit of a title favorite as the Big Ten regular-season champions were after two weeks of dispatching its opponents with ease in the NCAA men’s tournament.

Then came a hold-your-breath injury just minutes after checking back into the ball game for his first extended dose of action. To add an insult on top of it, Lendeborg couldn’t even make it straight back to the locker room to rest up after the game. Limping with a giant ice bag on his leg and a knee brace flopping around his ankle, he was pulled aside as one of several members of the Wolverines basketball team who were required to undergo NCAA drug testing.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

If it was possible to experience the full gamut of emotions a player could have from concerning to chuckling with some of the Michigan staff about the absurdity of it all just before midnight, well, the senior forward certainly speedran them all over the course of two exhausting hours on the biggest stage basketball has to offer.

“I was definitely a little worried. I went out and into the tent and I cried for a little bit. I was fearful, I didn’t think I’d be able to go back in there,” said Lendeborg. “The training staff was letting me know that I’ll be O.K. They said that worse case it is like an MCL strain. It sounded bad once I heard it, so you know I prayed to God. I asked him to be with me. And I was able to get back out there, at least start the second half to see how I felt. I wanted to get two, three threes up, just to feel the rim for Monday.

“Because there’s no way I’m missing that.”

That will certainly be the case with one more Lendeborg special ready to be unleashed—fully, he hopes—fewer than 48 hours following his team’s 91–73 victory over the Wildcats to send them into the national championship game against UConn.

Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg finished with 11 points and three rebounds. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

In a game where the Wolverines won as convincingly as possible in nearly every aspect of the box score and to the eyes of the 72,111 who stuck around to witness it all, that they did so getting only 14 minutes out of their best player might have been the biggest and scariest statement they could have made after weeks of looking capable of cutting down the nets.

“The guys know that Yax is about winning. And from Day 1, he’s always just been one of the guys,” said coach Dusty May. “When you have a first-team All-American potential player of the year that just wants to be one of the dudes, it helps everyone else fall in line and just accept their role. Our glue guys were awesome tonight.”

They needed them to be.

Lendeborg was attempting to split a double team with a drive down the lane with 8:51 remaining in the first half. However, he stepped on Motiejus Krivas’s foot and rolled his left ankle while being fouled, landing awkwardly after the whistle once freshman Koa Peat arrived as a third defender to cause Lendeborg to hit the deck hard. The veteran forward slapped the floor while grimacing in pain and came up gimpy, needing several moments to get his composure before making both of his two free throws.

That forced him to the locker room for more than 15 minutes as trainers worked on both his ankle (which was retaped) and his knee. While most of the team warmed up, Lendeborg eventually made his way back to the court prior to the start of the second half and was walking alongside injured guard L.J. Cason—who suffered a knee injury last month that knocked him out for the season—before hearing a large roar from the pro-Michigan crowd when he started doing some jumping exercises to test what he was capable of.

“We usually walk out all together, but one of us was left behind,” said Cason. “I feel, as a team, I had to have his back.”

The treatment, such as it was, didn’t seem to faze Lendeborg much. He tried to take things easy initially and had a knee brace covering the vast majority of the tattoos that run down his left leg. Lendeborg hit a pair of threes from either side of the lane within the first four minutes of seeing the court and later spent much of the game as a cheerleader at the end of Michigan’s bench given how quickly the blowout transitioned from brutal to ruthlessly unwatchable for anyone not in maize and blue.

“Yaxel at 80%, 70%, 60%, whatever he’s at, we’ll take it. That dude has brought us so far. I have no doubt he’s going to give it his all and we’ll take whatever percentage,” said forward Will Tschetter. “We’re super deep, we knew that all year.”

Indeed, if anything may have delighted May more than seeing his star All-American return to the lineup after what could have been a tournament-ending injury, it might have been how his teammates stepped up in his absence.

Elliot Cadeau scored 13 points and dished out 10 assists, including finding Lendeborg for two of the latter’s three shots from beyond the arc and nearly doubling his season average in the process. Center Aday Mara, aside from navigating a touch of early foul trouble, kept receiving extra touches and made Arizona pay with nearly every one to finish 11 of 16 from the field for a career-high 26 points. Freshman Trey McKenney continued to look good as the sixth man off the bench to chip in 16 on a nicely efficient 6-of-9 shooting.

Michigan freshman Trey McKenney was an efficient 6 for 9 from field. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Guard Roddy Gayle Jr. was one of the few key players who didn’t score in double figures but still contributed nine points and a thunderous dunk in the first half that might warrant inclusion in “One Shining Moment” if there were not another half-dozen highlights from the game it would have to muscle out of the way.

Lendeborg did check in again after the under-eight timeout to see how he would fare and finished with 11 points and three rebounds—a modest stat line given his role for Michigan this season but something it will take every time if the final scoreboard reads like it did when the horn sounded in the penultimate contest of the season.

“This game was very indicative of how this group has played throughout the season, unselfish basketball,” said May. “A connected group who defends, gets out in transition and then shares the basketball.”

Now all that’s left is for the ultimate New Jersey guy, UConn coach Dan Hurley, to see what he can do against Pennsauken, N.J.’s finest in Lendeborg on Monday night in a contest that pits a budding dynasty against the Big Ten banner-carriers who are attempting to end a 26-year drought for their conference in terms of hardware.

“We gotta neutralize the three-pointers, you know? That’s pretty much the name of the game to beat us,” an excited Lendeborg said of the Huskies. “I’m super excited to play those guys. They’re a legendary program, a historic program, and it’s going to be a fun game.”

For long stretches, it didn’t seem like it would be one that included Lendeborg.

Thanks to the rest of the Wolverines and enough adrenaline to mask a pair of lower leg injuries however, it very much will with much more on the line 40 minutes away from history.

More March Madness From Sports Illustrated

Listen to SI’s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on the SI College YouTube channel.