CHICAGO – It was a statement delivered in triumph, a lock of the net tucked behind Yaxel Lendeborg’s left ear as a visual reminder, but it felt more like a threat.
Michigan is so good at so many things, but it may have found a new dimension this late in the season. Not many teams can outmuscle Tennessee the way the Wolverines did Sunday at the United Center in the Medwest Regional final. If this wasn’t Michigan at its best, what on earth might that look like?
“On physicality, this tournament has been an ‘A,’” Lendeborg said amid the celebration on the floor, Tennessee vanquished, the net cut, confetti scattered, trip to Indianapolis booked. “We’ve got to get it to an ‘A-plus,’ make sure that nobody can contain us down low. We’re going to keep bringing the fight to everybody.”
Two weeks ago, Michigan looked vulnerable in this same building as the top seed in the Big Ten Tournament, losing to Purdue in the final after eeking out narrow wins over Ohio State and Wisconsin.
And now? The Wolverines, top-seeded again, look invincible.
Michigan continued its breeze through the bracket to the Final Four on Sunday, following wins of 21, 23 and 13 with an even bigger win over Tennessee: 95-62. Dusty May even got his son Charlie on the floor with more than two minutes to play, accumulating a ninth of his total playing time this season and doubling his number of three-pointers on the year (2).
“There’s a slippery slope of being happy and content that we’re there, but also knowing you still have work to do for us to accomplish what we could be,” May said. “Our ultimate goal is to be playing on Monday. We have a sign in our locker room: ‘April habits.’ I’ve challenged these guys to develop championship-level habits that would allow us to win a Big Ten championship, allow us to turn the calendar from March to April, and now we’ve put ourselves in position to do that.”
There’s only one game between now and next Monday, and after the Wolverines (35-3) dismantled Alabama at both ends of the floor in the second half of Friday’s semifinal, they went on a scorching 21-0 run midway through the first half Sunday that ended any doubt about their date with Arizona next Saturday.
Lendeborg had 27 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists to lead five Michigan players in double figures, and Elliot Cadeau added 10 assists as the Wolverines shot better than 52 percent from the floor. Ja’Kobi Gillespie had 21 points to lead Tennessee.
Michigan went into the postseason hoping to end up with fragments from three nets, having already secured the first by winning the Big Ten regular-season title. That quest seemed to have been derailed by the Purdue loss, although guard Nimari Burnett admitted he hadn’t fully explored the logistics moments after cutting a second net Sunday.
“I didn’t know that you could cut nets for the Final Four,” Burnett said, the kind of championship naïveté you might expect from a survivor of Michigan’s 8-24 disaster two years ago that led to May’s arrival.
So Michigan’s three-net dream remains alive, but Tennessee’s is finally dead. The sixth-seeded Volunteers (25-12), passing for a bracket-buster amid all the chalk this season despite being more wicked stepsister than Cinderella with their deep SEC pockets, had chances to pull another upset. Just not for long. They went 2-of-9 on a series of wide-open three-point looks in the opening minutes. A few of those fall, it’s a different game. They didn’t, and it wasn’t. Once Michigan got into gear, it was all over but the net-cutting.
And what an impressive machine this is at high RPMs like that. The Wolverines have so many ways to hurt you on offense, and when they dial up the defense the way they did against Tennessee, it’s going to take an exceptional performance to compete — especially if they have a physical edge to bring as well. Michigan’s Morez Johnson Jr. and Tennessee’s Amari Evans had to be separated in front of the Michigan bench, and Tennessee’s Jaylen Carey picked up the retaliation technical when the Wolverines weren’t backing down the way most of the Volunteers’ opponents tend to do.
Things essentially were long settled by then. The Wolverines were up 22 at the half and by 34 when May cleared his bench with a few minutes to go, making the celebration a multi-generational affair as Rick Barnes had plenty of time to contemplate falling one game short of the Final Four for the third consecutive season.
“Now, we had open looks,” Barnes said. “We had some open shots that didn’t go down, and that’s where they were able to get out and capitalize. I thought that a little bit because we weren’t making shots – not that we quit, because we would never quit – but it put us back on our heels a little bit where we had to continue to guard. Because, again, that’s what’s got us through this tournament. But our missed shots led to a bunch of points for them.”
There were a lot of missed shots. During the big Michigan run, the Volunteers missed 10 in a row and also managed to turn the ball over four times. Lendeborg had eight points and two assists during the run, but five other players also scored as the Wolverines came in waves. Barnes tried to stem the tide with a timeout, then another 2½ minutes later that didn’t do the trick either. It takes a lot of heat to provoke that kind of meltdown.
Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg Played 11 Games of High School Basketball. Now He’s a Contender for National Player of the Year.
The Wolverines’ 6-foot-9 forward and two-time transfer went from junior college to mid-major to arguably the best team in the country
Now all the heat’s on Saturday’s second semifinal. Nothing against Illinois, but this is the Big Ten team everyone wants to watch. And with No. 1 overall seed Duke gone, there’s nobody in this tournament hotter than Michigan and Arizona, now 1-2 atop the KenPom ratings.
UConn and Illinois can plan on an early dinner. If Lendeborg’s threat holds true, Arizona will have to plan for more than that.
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