Dusty May plans on using Yaxel Lendeborg like 'a queen on the chessboard' for Michigan basketball

After Michigan basketball's season ended after a Sweet 16 run, the Wolverines had to begin the recruiting process immediately -- even prior to being eliminated. Not only keeping the current roster as intact as possible, but keeping a constant eye on the ever changing transfer portal. And when the top-ranked player entered the portal, UAB big man Yaxel Lendeborg, Dusty May knew they had to act. Speaking with Brian Boesch on Defend the Block, May shared how the process went from recruiting Lendeborg to getting him to sign in Ann Arbor.

“Well, looking back now, you gather information of what their thought process was and the chain of events. But looking back, we knew Yaxel from competing against him, [coaching against him] at UAB, and so we were very friendly with their staff," May said. "We were very, I guess, familiar with everything around him.

"So we thought at the end of the day, we might have a chance to recruit him if he went into the portal. And so in the back of our minds, we were kind of just monitoring the situation after they lost. He came up with a very concise plan of what he was going to do.

“And immediately after going into the portal, myself and the staff drove to Chicago, where he was interviewing or meeting with agents. And we asked if we could just carve out an hour or two just to visit face to face. And some other schools did that as well.

"And they immediately narrowed everything down to just a handful of schools that they were considering based on what he was looking for and what was important to him. And it moved pretty quickly at that point. But we also felt like this was a year that we could gamble on someone we thought, who we felt was the best player, and the most productive best player in the portal.

“And what I mean is some years, you can't wait this long. Well, in this case, we felt like we had the roster depth, the positional size across the board where we could roll the dice and go the duration with someone like Yax. And fortunately it paid off because he raises our ceiling exponentially.”

Yaxel Lendebor — Chris Jones-Imagn Images

Signing Lendeborg was the big piece for Michigan after losing Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin from last season. The 6-foot-9 big man averaged 17.7 points and 11.4 rebounds, while dishing out over four assists per game. With Lendeborg being another skilled player, May believes Michigan can play him in multiple spots. The Wolverines are extremely deep at the '4' and '5' after signing Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara, and keeping Will Tschetter in the fold. May says there are multiple players who can play any position, and it will take some sacrifice in order to go win a national title.

“Yeah, obviously there's going to be a reaction to everyone that we sign," said May. "But the beautiful thing about Yaks is we think we can play him all over the board. And so we have guys that can slide up, can slide down.

“But as a program that's striving to be championship level, we have to be much more concerned with maximizing our minutes and playing at an optimal performance level versus counting how many minutes we're playing. So we're all gonna have to sacrifice, but hopefully we're sacrificing to win championships.”

There have been a ton of comparisons between Wolf and Lendeborg since he committed to the Wolverines. Both players are skilled bigs who can both handle the basketball and use their playmaking ability to get others involved. May touched on the comparisons between the two, and using Lendeborg to unlock his playmaking ability in Ann Arbor.

“Well, they're very similar that they're both big players who are skilled," May said of Wolf and Lendeborg. "They're different in how they approach things. But the one thing about Yax, we think he'll be able to unlock some playmaking ability here.

"Once again, that league is a lot different. It's smaller, it's more athletic. We were able to play extremely small at FAU, at the Big Ten. He'll be defended by much bigger players a lot of the time. So he'll be able to use his speed and his quickness. But the one thing about Yax is when he draws to, the ball comes out of his hands, probably as well as anyone that we've recruited in the last several years, where he just has a really good feel for playing team basketball.

“And so you don't really have to change a lot. And so we'll just simply use him as a weapon, as a queen on a chessboard, like Derik Queen at Maryland, like Danny Wolf, just guys that can create and make plays. And then obviously Vlad had a lot to do with Danny's success.”

Yaxel Lendeborg — Chris Jones-Imagn Images

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