{"id":699669,"date":"2026-04-05T14:27:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T14:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/699669\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T14:27:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T14:27:20","slug":"uconn-is-chasing-championship-history-but-michigan-is-the-team-thats-historically-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/699669\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn is chasing championship history. But Michigan is the team that\u2019s historically great"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014\u00a0Connecticut is the program chasing history. But Michigan is the team that actually compares to the peak of that potential history.<\/p>\n

Connecticut 2026 is trying to join Connecticut 2023 and 2024 to give Dan Hurley\u2019s Huskies three championships in four years<\/a> \u2014 only John Wooden\u2019s UCLA and Adolph Rupp\u2019s Kentucky (his run starting when the tournament consisted of eight teams) can say the same.<\/p>\n

But Michigan 2026? Michigan 2026 is Connecticut 2024 \u2014 one of the most dominant teams we\u2019ve seen in this sport. An inevitable monster. A monstrous inevitability. A Dusty May-led group that toyed Saturday with what was by all accounts and data an equally great team Saturday in the national semifinals. The 91-73 final score is a gentle description<\/a> of what the Wolverines (36-3) did to the Arizona Wildcats (36-3) to set up Monday\u2019s title game against the Huskies (34-5)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michigan 2026 is a team that, like Connecticut 2024, would have to do something, or many things, out of character to come up short of its net-cutting destiny. And I\u2019m not sure this UConn team \u2014 for as tough as it is, for as impressive as it was in outlasting Illinois<\/a>, for as theatrical as one more win would be \u2014 can even compare to the Purdue team that sort of hung with Connecticut 2024 in the title game before succumbing 75-60.<\/p>\n

Really, the best chance UConn has of winning its seventh championship and keeping Michigan from its second is if Yaxel Lendeborg\u2019s left knee<\/a> is worse off than it appeared late Saturday night. CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson reported during the game that he suffered an MCL sprain when he stepped on Arizona center Motiejus Krivas\u2019 foot in the first half, rolling his left ankle in the process. Lendeborg returned to the game in the second half and said afterward that a sprain is the worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to play,\u201d he said of Monday\u2019s title game to roughly half of the sportswriters in America.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if the medical folks suggest otherwise, Lendeborg said, with a giant ice pack tied around the left knee, there would be time to rest after the season. Don\u2019t miss that among all the reasons this Michigan team is great.<\/p>\n

Lendeborg was May\u2019s prize portal addition out of UAB, a guy who told the Associated Press he was offered $7 million to $9 million to play at Kentucky (which Kentucky coach Mark Pope eventually refuted, but no one would refute he makes millions). He\u2019s going to be a first-round pick in the upcoming NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s about winning. He\u2019s about finishing the job with this collegiate basketball team. Before the injury, Lendeborg was on the bench with two quick fouls Saturday, and when Michigan point guard Elliot Cadeau<\/a> found Trey McKenney for a dunk to go up 16-5, force an Arizona timeout and foreshadow the evening to come, Lendeborg was first off the bench, sprinting to celebrate with McKenney.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a first-team All-American potential player of the year that just wants to be one of the dudes, it helps everyone else fall in line and just accept their role,\u201d May said.<\/p>\n

Lendeborg brings the energy, attitude and talent that starts everything for Michigan. But on this night he played just 14 minutes, scoring 11 points because he knocked in a couple of 3-pointers in the second half when the game was already out of hand.<\/p>\n

\"Yaxel<\/p>\n

\n Big Ten player of the year Yaxel Lendeborg was limited to 14 minutes Saturday but scored 11 points. (Michael Reaves \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Wolverines obliterated the Wildcats, doing whatever they wanted, making a big and strong team look small and weak. No Yaxel required.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll probably need more Lendeborg to be comfortable against UConn. Though I\u2019m not sure what the Huskies do with 7-3 Aday Mara (26 points, 9 rebounds against Arizona). I doubt they rattle Cadeau (13 points, 10 assists) the way they seemed to bother some of the Fighting Illini. Former Michigan big man Tarris Reed Jr., who transferred to UConn in 2024, doesn\u2019t just have to deal with Aday, he\u2019ll also be looking at Morez Johnson Jr. (10 points, 7 rebounds) inside.<\/p>\n

And the Huskies might be looking at the Wolverine with the most upside when freshman Trey McKenney (16 points) comes off the bench. It\u2019s an absurd team, and it has moved past the season-ending injury to backup point guard LJ Cason \u2014 while Duke, the team that beat Michigan in a neutral-site classic in February and might have provided a better title game Monday, was undoubtedly diminished by its late-season injuries.<\/p>\n

For all of Michigan\u2019s riches, the play that stood out Saturday was when senior reserve forward Will Tschetter, who endured an eight-win Michigan season as a sophomore, thought he had a transition 3-pointer in the first half but got chased off. He put the ball on the floor, ducked in and snapped a diagonal pass to reserve guard Roddy Gayle Jr. in the corner. Swish. Michigan up 13. Arizona down bad, early.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were humming at that point,\u201d Tschetter said. \u201cI felt like (the Wildcats) were kind of awestruck in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were struck by more than awe in the end. Now UConn has history to chase. And Michigan has history to change. The Wolverines are now 8-1 in national semifinals. But a program whose lone title came in 1989 is 1-6 in national championship games.<\/p>\n

That program isn\u2019t this team. This team is the first to score 90 points in the first five games of an NCAA Tournament and win all of them by double-digits, per CBS. This team has one of the best KenPom efficiency ratings in history. This team is plus-118 in points differential entering the title game, just eight behind the best of all time, Duke at plus-126 in 1999.<\/p>\n

This team, this team, this team is too huge, too deep, too unselfish, too skilled, to not finish the job.<\/p>\n

Those 1999 Blue Devils, by the way, were shocked by UConn in the title game, the first of the Huskies\u2019 six championships. When you\u2019ve achieved as much as UConn has in the past 30 years, you can point to things like that and talk yourself into being capable of just about anything.<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ll always have that history. May it be a comfort late Monday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014\u00a0Connecticut is the program chasing history. But Michigan is the team that actually compares to the peak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1982,7,6133,354,1043,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-699669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-arizona-wildcats","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-connecticut-huskies","11":"tag-mens-college-basketball","12":"tag-michigan-wolverines","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116352572343171471","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}