INDIANAPOLIS — The 44 minutes from the final buzzer sounding to finally retreating triumphantly into the locker room for Yaxel Lendeborg were the type of euphoria a child couldn’t even dream of.
He bounded around the court area with the attention span of a gnat, seeking out hugs and high-fives, determined not to miss anyone. He got to his teammates at the buzzer and celebrated with them as the confetti fell down, holding a “Shock The World Boys Go Blue!” sign that came with him for much of the celebration. Then came his mother Yissel Raposo, who he embraced deeply before being pulled away for interviews. Mom stayed attached at the hip, hugging him, her head on his back as he dutifully tried to answer every question. From there, a trip to see extended family and friends, nearly leaving his championship hat behind in the stands before once again being pulled back to the court to cut down his piece of net. And before that return to the locker room, where a massive water shower awaited, he sprinted to the student section to slap a brown leather belt against the fencing, one final “belt to ass” in a season full of them for the Wolverines.
But on the micro, Lendeborg was astonishingly close to seeing his chances of playing for that title evaporate in the Final Four, when he drove awkwardly and injured his knee. He told TNT that night that he’d play Monday unless he couldn’t walk, and he meant it. He moved with a clear limp and not close to full capacity but battled through to give the Wolverines all he had. That became one of the major drivers of their ability to hold on in the second half against an upset-minded UConn team. Even in celebration, Lendeborg rarely jumped up and down, going for hugs instead, telling reporters after it was because of that balky knee.
“My leg hurt very, very bad,” Lendeborg said from the court. “I couldn’t turn the corner as much as I wanted to, there was many times I tried to push up and get high enough to make an easier layup for myself. … It was very tough for me, I felt like I was letting my team down, but they stuck with me no matter what was going on.”
Michigan head coach Dusty May quipped Sunday that Lendeborg was moving late in Saturday’s game like a 38-year-old at the YMCA. After two days of near nonstop treatment, with help from trainer Chris Williams as well as both of the team’s doctors, Lendeborg’s movement was maybe more like a mid-30s aging veteran pro—better, but far from himself. He sat out practice almost entirely, shooting around a bit but doing very little from a movement standpoint. Mentally, Lendeborg said he was in a difficult place knowing he wasn’t close to right, but his teammates helped pick up his spirits.
“It took a lot to get on the court, honestly, and to stay on there,” Lendeborg said. “I was dealing with a lot of mental issues today. These guys all leaned in on me and helped me out, helped me dig myself out of the hole and just continued to keep fighting. Chris [the aforementioned trainer], shout-out to him because he was with me pretty much all day, all night, making sure I was even 50%, 60% ready to play.”
Things were especially bumpy in the first half. Lendeborg played all 20 minutes, but scored just four points on 1-for-5 shooting (including a few ugly misses), didn’t grab a rebound or dish out an assist. He was a shell of himself, one of the reasons Michigan was struggling to pull away. Leaving the court, he told TBS’s Tracy Wolfson that he had played “really soft.” At halftime, Lendeborg made a couple wardrobe adjustments, adding a white leg sleeve over that troublesome left leg and switching out the maize-and-blue sneakers he had worn in the first for a pair of gray Air Jordans.
“I was just trying to get a new look,” Lendeborg says. “It didn’t really help much, I still played terrible in the second half.”
Consider that a moment of modesty for Lendeborg, who has become known for his bravado in his season in Ann Arbor. Great? Maybe not. But Michigan doesn’t win this game, or this championship, without what Lendeborg was able to muster in those gray shoes in the final 20 minutes. First, his durability: He grinded out another 16 minutes, wrapping his leg in a bulky black heating pad in the brief moments he was off the floor to stay ready.
And offensively, he mustered some key buckets in critical moments. First, a three-point play heading into the under-16 media timeout, drawing a third foul on star UConn big Tarris Reed Jr. Then, he scored six points in a critical 91-second stretch, buckets or free throws on three consecutive trips down the floor that prevented UConn from sparking a comeback despite a pair of big Braylon Mullins threes. He beat everyone down the floor for a duck-in layup on one trip, then rumbled around the corner without his usual burst, missed a floater and tipped it back in, and closed the stretch with two free throws just bullying his way to the rim with his size and strength. Assistant coach Akeem Miskdeen also shouted out the importance of Lendeborg’s stability as a ballhandler in the second half, especially when Most Outstanding Player Elliot Cadeau sat with foul trouble.
“Yaxel was basically our second-best ballhandler [tonight],” Miskdeen says.
Lendeborg will go down as a legend in Ann Arbor, a one-year all-time great and the unquestioned star of one of the great teams of the modern era in college basketball. At many points in his season, he was known for his flash: the eye-popping dunks, the ferocious blocked shots, the game-changing plays, even the sparkling jewelry. But his Final Four contributions were all about substance, a true instance of doing whatever the team needed and then some even when it wasn’t easy or convenient.
Freshman Trey McKenney, standing arm-in-arm with his sixth-year vet, reminded reporters that Lendeborg “didn’t have to play,” perhaps a callback to Lendeborg’s remarks that his mom and agent had expressed doubts about him going back in against Arizona. It’s also why the commentary about Lendeborg and Michigan’s portal class being “mercenaries” (which Lendeborg referenced multiple times postgame) falls so flat. Watch the way he embraced his teammates, embraced Michigan, stood in awe watching him and the Wolverines in “One Shining Moment” and you could never even think about him as anything but a Michigan Man. This is the player who often had to be pulled away by staffers from signing autographs and taking pictures just to ensure he could get a full pregame warmup in. And Monday night was no exception, having to finally be shepherded to the locker room so as to not fully vanish into the sea of students who wanted a piece of his time.
And once he finally made it back, he was doused in water, the most soaked of any Wolverine as he finally emerged for more interviews, even begging for a fresh shirt since his first championship one was so drenched. It’s not quite Kirk Gibson rounding the bases on one leg, but the Wolverines star’s ability to tough it out will be a moment to be remembered forever from a special championship run.
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.
- SI:AM | Michigan Grinds Its Way to a Championship
- It’s the Big Ten’s World. The Rest of College Sports Is Living in It.
- Alex Karaban Leaves as UConn’s Ultimate Winner—But One Title Short
- Dusty May’s Ambitious Vision Carried a Michigan Juggernaut to a Championship
This article was originally published on www.si.com as From Obscurity to Immortality: Yaxel Lendeborg’s Gritty Masterpiece Seals Michigan’s Title.
