After Yaxel Lendeborg’s ‘awful’ first half, his Michigan teammates lifted him up and the rest is history — ‘We needed Mad Yax, not Sad Yax’

INDIANAPOLIS — The best player on college basketball’s best team could not hide his frustration.

Yaxel Lendeborg hated that the knee and ankle injuries he suffered two days earlier were preventing him from showcasing his All-American form with Michigan locked in a tight battle against UConn on Monday night and the national championship at stake.

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He winced and punched the air in frustration when he airballed an open jump shot. He walked off the floor with his jersey between his teeth after he blew a defensive assignment. He even described his first-half performance to Turner Sports sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson as “awful” and “super weak.”

“I was very tentative,” Lendeborg said. “I felt like I was holding our team back. I felt like we could have been up way more early in the game. I kept having opportunities to make a play and I couldn’t make a play.”

One of the biggest reasons Michigan was able to stave off UConn and grind out a 69-63 victory was because Lendeborg’s teammates refused to allow the Big Ten player of the year to let his disgust with himself fester. Nimari Burnett patted Lendeborg on the chest and told him his teammates were with him. L.J. Cason urged Lendeborg to stop being so hard on himself and reminded him that the Wolverines wouldn’t have reached the national title game without him. Roddy Gayle told him an off-color joke to get him to stop playing “soft” and to play more aggressively.

“Yax is a very emotional guy, so I think it was my duty to push him to get out of his feelings,” Gayle said. “I felt like we needed Mad Yax, not Sad Yax.”

Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg is attended to by training staff during the first half of the national championship game. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

(Patrick Smith via Getty Images)

Mad Yax finally showed up in the final six minutes of Monday’s game as Michigan was trying to stave off a desperate UConn comeback. The 6-foot-9 do-it-all forward scored seven of his 13 total points…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/mens-college-basketball/article/after-yaxel-lendeborgs-awful-first-half-his-michigan-teammates-lifted-him-up-and-the-rest-is-history–we-needed-mad-yax-not-sad-yax-062223974.html

Author : Jeff Eisenberg

Publish date : 2026-04-07 06:22:00

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