The stage is set tonight as the #1 seed out of the Midwest Region, the Michigan Wolverines(36-3), representing the Big Ten, face the #2 seed out of the East Region, the UConn Huskies (34-5), representing the Big East. The game is at 8:50 PM EST on TBS, HBO Max, and truTV.
Michigan’s last time out
Michigan defeated Arizona 91-73 Saturday night to advance to the championship game. Michigan never trailed in the game. Despite Yaxel Lendeborgbeing limited to 14 minutes after stepping on an Arizona’s players foot while driving to the basket. Michigan’s all-around play and depth proved to be too much for the Wildcats. Lendeborg did return and finished with 11 points on 3-4 shooting and made all three of his three-point attempts. “Yeah, all imaging has come back clean, and he’s getting treatment and doing rehab all day today. I’m sure he’ll give it a go tomorrow, but that will be entirely up to him and the medical staff. They’ll tell me if he can go, and if he can — we were laughing. He played the second half like a 38-year-old at the YMCA — and a really good 38-year-old at the YMCA,” Michigan head coach Dusty May said.
Aday Mara led all scorers with 26 points on 11/16 shooting along with nine rebounds. Elliot Cadeau had a double-double with 13 points and 10 assists. He also had five rebounds. “It’s an honor to be one of the two teams still standing, playing in the last Monday of an amazing college basketball season,” May said.
Off the bench, Trey McKenney had 16 points including four, three pointers. The Wolverines shot 48/44/81 from the field.
UConn’s last time out
UConn beat the Illinois Fighting Illini 71-62. The Huskies led until 7:54 in the first half but took the lead back for good at the 4:44 mark in the first half. They finished leading 37-29. The Illini fought and got back into the game, down 63-59 before Braylon Mullins came through much like the Elite 8 game against Duke, and hit a 25-foot three pointer. Solo Ball was hurt in the game. He finished with 13 points and two assists. Former Michigan player Tarris Reed Jr. had 17 points and 11 rebounds for UConn. Mullins added 15 and was 4/7 from three. “The guys knew right away when we got back to the locker room, but we’re here for a reason. We’re not here to win one game, we want to win two, and we know the National Championship game is the reason why we came here,” UConn forward Alex Karaban said.
The Matchup
Both Lendeborg and Ball are scheduled to play. If Michigan wins, it would be their first National Championship since 1989. UConn is looking to win its third title in four years. Michigan has scored 90+ in all five of its NCAA Tournament games. They are the eighth team to win five NCAA Tournament games by double digits entering the title game. Out of those eight teams, six out of the previous seven won the championship.
This is the sixth straight NCAA Tournament for UConn which is a program record. They are 18-3 in the span and won back-to-back championships in 2023 and 2024. They are the first team in almost 30 years to make the finals three times in four years. “You’ve got to have a plan A, a plan B and a plan C, whether it’s ball screen coverage or you’re trapping the post or how are you going to treat Cadeau in the ball screen game or what are you going to do when they start posting up those Monstars, like are you playing 1s down there. You’ve got to make those types of decisions,” UConn head coach Dan Hurley said.
Michigan likes to play up tempo while UConn will look to limit possessions and make this a half-court game. “I think we’ve been challenged with different ways to beat teams over the course of the year, and so our mindset is to dictate the pace still and find different ways to get extra possessions and still kind of fill up the scoreboard. But just playing the right way of basketball that we’ve been playing throughout the course of the year,” Michigan guard Nimari Burnett said. How much can Ball and Lendeborg can give to their teams will go a long way in deciding who comes out as National Champion. Just how big they are at the 3, 4 and 5, like, is there going to be enough spacing on the court offensively for such a huge, athletic group. They’ve just been dominant, just scary with the size, scary with the rebounding that they’ve got just a great scheme,” Hurley said.
Michigan Stats
Points: Yaxel Lendeborg 15.1
Rebounds: Morez Johnson Jr. 7.3
Assists: Elliot Cadeau 5.9
Blocks: Aday Mara 2.6
3P%: L.J. Cason 40.2%
UConn Stats
Points: Tarris Reed Jr. 14.8
Rebounds: Tarris Reed Jr. 8.8
Assists: Silas Demary Jr. 6.0
Blocks: Tarris Reed Jr. 2.0
3P%: Malachi Smith 46.7%
Verdict: Michigan has dominated the NCAA Tournament and all season minus three games. UConn needed a little bit of luck to get past Duke and let the Illini back into the game when they had multiple double-digit leads. UConn is battle tested and has championship pedigree but I believe this is the Wolverines year. If Michigan guards the three and limits the turnovers, I think they’ll be too much for UConn. Michigan wins 75-65.
