Yaxel Lendeborg hated that the knee and ankle injuries he suffered two days earlier prevented him from showing his All-American form with Michigan locked in a tight battle against UConn on Monday night and the national championship on the line.
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He grimaced and punched the air in frustration as he launched an open jump shot. He left the field with his jersey between his teeth after wasting a defensive task. He even described his first-half performance to Turner Sports sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson as “awful” and “super weak.”
“I was very hesitant,” Lendeborg said. “I felt like I was holding our team back. I felt like we could have been ahead much earlier in the game. I kept having opportunities to make a play and I couldn’t make it.”
One of the main reasons Michigan was able to hold off UConn and pull out a 69-63 victory was because Lendeborg’s teammates refused to let the Big Ten player of the year let his self-disgust fester. Nimari Burnett patted Lendeborg on the chest and told him his teammates were with him. LJ Cason urged Lendeborg to stop being so hard on himself and reminded him that the Wolverines wouldn’t have made it to the national title game without him. Roddy Gayle told him an off-color joke to get him to stop playing “soft” and play more aggressively.
“Yax is a very emotional guy, so I think it was my duty to push him out of his feelings,” Gayle said. “I felt like we needed Mad Yax, not Sad Yax.”
(Patrick Smith via Getty Images)
Mad Yax finally showed up in the final six minutes of Monday’s game as Michigan tried to stave off a desperate UConn comeback. The 6-foot-9 forward scored seven of his 13 total points in a 90-second span, burying a 3-pointer, recovering his own miss and drawing a foul, and making a pair of free throws to keep the Wolverines’ lead at nine despite a pair of clutch 3-pointers by UConn.
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“We understood he wasn’t 100% physically,” Burnett said. “I mean, he probably wasn’t even 50%, but he persevered through it and did whatever it took for his team to win. He ran through screens even though his body didn’t feel like it. It just shows his selflessness, his selfless nature to give to this team and help us win a national championship.”
Lendeborg’s determination helped Michigan complete a dominant season with the program’s first national title since 1989. The Wolverines (37-3) defeated the likes of Gonzaga and Villanova in nonleague play, won the outright Big Ten title by four games and then demolished their first five opponents in the NCAA tournament by an average of nearly 22 points.
The driving force behind Michigan’s success was Lendeborg becoming the “Dominican LeBron,” as his teammates nicknamed him. It was the best year of Lendeborg’s life, and one he didn’t see coming a few years ago when he believed playing college basketball wasn’t for him.
Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg watches as the Wolverines beat the UConn Huskies 69-63 in the 2026 NCAA Tournament national championship. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
(Patrick Smith via Getty Images)
Lendeborg thought that working in a warehouse was going to be his life, but his mother, Yissel Raposo, refused to accept it. She forced him to board a flight to Yuma, Arizona, and go to college at Arizona Western.
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That was the beginning of a five-year journey that took Lendeborg from the anonymity of college basketball to a breakout season at UAB last year, to becoming the centerpiece of this formidable Michigan team. He was averaging 21 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in the NCAA tournament before his untimely injuries against Arizona on Saturday threatened to end his season early.
“I definitely felt like I had done all this for nothing at the time,” Lendeborg said Saturday. “I definitely had to calm down a little bit, talk to myself, get out of my thoughts.”
Two days of non-stop treatment allowed Lendeborg to take the court Monday night with just a bit of tape on his injured knee. He didn’t have the game of his dreams, but that didn’t diminish his joy when Michigan captured the national title.
With a championship cap perched atop his head and blue and yellow confetti pooling at his feet, he wrapped his mother in a bear hug as soon as he saw her.
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How did Raposo feel at that moment?
“Very happy,” he said. “Grateful. Blessed.”
Did you have any doubt that your son would overcome his injuries?
“No, because he is a warrior,” Raposo responded.
Before he could say more, Lendeborg interrupted with a “Come on, Mom!” It was time for him to cut his net thread.
For Lendeborg, a day of hellish frustration ended with a moment of pure joy.