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Expert predictions for Michigan basketball in March Madness, live updates

Published

3 hours ago

March 15, 2026

Press Room

Expert predictions for Michigan basketball in March Madness, live updates

Dana Wakiji
| Special to The Detroit News

Michigan basketball March Madness predictions

The NCAA Tournament gets underway this week. Before the first tipoff on Tuesday, there will be plenty of analysis and predictions from all over the nation about Michigan, Michigan State and the rest of the 68-team field.

The predictions will start rolling out during the NCAA Selection Show on Sunday night. Check back here soon for picks and bracket breakdowns from college basketball experts.

To wrap up the NCAA Tournament Selection show, Seth Davis, Clark Kellogg and Bruce Pearl made their picks.

They all believed Michigan would make the Final Four but not win the whole thing.

Davis and Pearl went with Arizona while Kellogg picked Purdue in the upset.

Coach Bruce Pearl, appearing on the NCAA Tournament Selection show, asked, “Is this going to be the year that Michigan goes and represents the Big Ten and maybe wins a national championship?”

Kenny Smith said “Michigan is a little vulnerable” due to injuries.

They are already without guard LJ Cason, who tore his right ACL in late February.

Yaxel Lendeborg expects to play in the NCAA Tournament despite suffering a low ankle sprain.

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Keith Gill, the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference and chair of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee for the 2025-26 season, spoke about the impact of the Big Ten Tournament, which Purdue won, beating Michigan, 80-72.

“”We had Michigan on the 2 line, and then when we scrubbed it when the Big Ten Tournament results came out, Arizona went to the 2 overall and Michigan the 3 overall.”

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Michigan basketball vs Purdue: Two powerhouses colliding for Big Ten Tournament title

Published

15 hours ago

March 15, 2026

Press Room

Michigan basketball vs Purdue: Two powerhouses colliding for Big Ten Tournament title

CHICAGO − It’s fitting, really, this Big Ten Tournament championship matchup.

The showdown at United Center features 1-seed Michigan basketball (31-2) – the undisputed regular-season champs and a potential No. 1 overall NCAA seed – and 7-seed Purdue (26-8) – which was projected to be the top team in the conference, if not the nation, to open the season.

One of the Wolverines’ crowning achievements − of which there were many − during this season was their thumping of the Boilermakers in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Feb. 17. The Wolverines built a 20-point first-half lead and then held off coach Matt Painter’s team in a 91-80 victory.

“Give them credit,” Painter said following that game. “Just like in the last two games for us, where we set the tone on the glass, they set the tone for the game right there. Their size was there, but also they were quicker to the ball. I thought their guards did a good job of being around the basketball.

“They’re the No. 1 team in the country for a reason.”

The Wolverines won at Mackey Arena in large part because of they neutralized last season’s Big Ten player of the year, point guard Braden Smith. Though he finished with 20 points, none came in the first half at all and half came at the free throw line, with just four field-goal makes.

Likewise, U-M’s bigs controlled center Oscar Cluff.

The 6-foot-11 255-pounder, who averaged 10.1 points and 7.2 rebounds this season, put up just four and three respectively, against the Wolverines. He has rounded into form, however, during this Big Ten Tournament run for the Boilermakers, averaging 16 points and 11 boards in wins over Northwestern, Nebraska and UCLA.

Michigan advanced to the title game in thrilling fashion. On Friday, U-M was down two against Ohio State with less than five minutes to play, before forcing OSU to go just 2-for-12 from the floor in the Wolverines’ 71-67 victory.

Then, the real fireworks came against Wisconsin on Saturday. U-M built a 15-point lead with less than 10 minutes to play, only for the Badgers to shoot the lights out with a six-minute 23-4 run that featured seven 3s en route a 62-58 lead. With the score tied at 65, Michigan held the ball for the final possession ended by a Yaxel Lendeborg 25-foot 3-pointer from the right wing with 0.4 seconds left.

“What a fabulous basketball game, kind of a modern Big Ten game where teams were fighting, clawing, scrapping, competing at the highest level, but also making some high level shots and plays,” Michigan coach Dusty May said afterwards. “This is very, very healthy for us to be where we are right now, still finding some things out about ourselves and discovering new ways to win.”

Lendeborg didn’t score until there were 11 seconds in the first half, while Cadeau played just six of the opening 20 minutes with foul trouble. The two were critical in the second half, as they were in West Lafayette, where Cadeau scored 17 points and Lendeborg added 13 points and seven assists.

Michigan had six players in double figures that night, including L.J. Cason, who is out with an ACL tear. Michigan has played four times without Cason and each was a one-possession game with less than four minutes to play.

But the Wolverines have had the answers on every occasion.

Now, they have one last test against one of the most experienced teams in the league, to determine if they’ll become the first Big Ten team with back-to-back tourney titles since the Wolverines in 2017-18.

Michigan vs Purdue Big Ten Tournament championship game prediction

With the Boilermakers on their fourth game in four days – not to mention myriad poor matchups with U-M – they won’t be able to hang with Dusty May’s crew, which will earn its third banner (2025 tourney, 2025-26 regular season, 2026 tourney) in exactly 365 days. The pick: U-M 83, Purdue 72.

Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.

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Yaxel Lendeborg’s biggest shot shows why Michigan basketball needs him

Published

1 day ago

March 14, 2026

Press Room

Yaxel Lendeborg’s biggest shot shows why Michigan basketball needs him

CHICAGO – Where was Yaxel Lendeborg?

The Big Ten player of the year was nearly invisible on the scoring sheet in Michigan basketball’s quarterfinal opener against Ohio State, and then again in the first half of a tight semifinal against Wisconsin at United Center on Saturday, March 14.

Then Lendeborg emerged. The true Lendeborg who has had so many big moments this season had one more, perhaps his biggest, when he appeared at the elbow with the clock ticking down.

Lendeborg took Elliot Cadeau’s pass and calmly launched a 3-pointer that swished in for the winning score with 0.4 seconds left. The Wolverines won, 68-65, improved to 31-2, and advanced to Sunday’s final against the winner of the Purdue-UCLA semifinal.

A day earlier, Cadeau said the Wolverines were the best team in the country even when Lendeborg wasn’t scoring. But on this day, it was clear U-M needed its best player in a showdown with the hot-shooting Badgers, who made 16 3-pointers (besting the 15 3s they made when they beat Michigan in Ann Arbor in January).

Austin Rapp led Wisconsin with 18 points and took over the game late, making five consecutive 3-pointers to pull Wisconsin ahead, 62-58, with 3:50 left. The Australian almost single-handedly erased the 54-39 lead Michigan built by coming out hot after from a 28-28 tie at halftime.

Wisconsin should have come in tired – and probably too tired to make so many 3s – after going to overtime against Illinois in Friday’s quarterfinal.

But feisty point guard Nick Boyd refused to even entertain the idea of fatigue or the need for rest.

“Ain’t no rest, you know what I’m saying? No rest,” he said Friday. “You’ve got to keep going. You get to play –Michigan, right? No. 3 or No. 2 team in the country. By the time you get out there and the lights is bright, ain’t nothing to think about.

“You talk about rest? We’ll play X amount of games and you’ve got to come out fighting. If you’re not excited and ready to go for a game like tomorrow, don’t even lace ’em up.”

Well, the Badgers laced ’em up, all right. And their footwear looked more like jackboots than sneakers as they started putting their foot on the Wolverines’ throats early, burying 3 after 3.

Even though the first half felt a lot more like a brick show to start off, Wisconsin established its perimeter offense early and started to distance itself from Michigan midway through the first stanza.

The Badgers were again spectacular on 3-pointers, hitting seven of 17 attempts – 41.2% – compared to the Wolverines’ 26.7%: four makes on 15 attempts.

Aleksas Bieliauskas led the Badgers with nine points in the first half, all courtesy of his 3-for-4 shooting from beyond the arc. He was also effective in Wisconsin’s January win, when he was 5-for-10 on 3s.

After Cadeau got into foul trouble – his second came just 8½ minutes in – and had to sit, the Wolverines looked less organized and the Badgers took advantage, pushing their lead to 18-11 with 9:43 left, then to eight, 26-18 with 4:26 left.

It was almost a miracle the Wolverines managed to enter halftime tied, 28-28. But they clawed back by going on a 10-2 run in the final 3:52 and playing tighter defense, led by Morez Johnson Jr.’s steal and block down the stretch, which was punctuated by Lendeborg’s 3-pointer with 11 seconds left – for his first points of the half on 1-for-5 shooting.

Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.

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Michigan shooter filled truck with fireworks, shot himself | The Jerusalem Post

Published

2 days ago

March 14, 2026

Press Room

Michigan shooter filled truck with fireworks, shot himself | The Jerusalem Post

The suspect in Thursday’s terror attack on a West Bloomfield, Michigan, synagogue had filled his vehicle with fireworks before ramming it into the building, according to a Friday statement by FBI Special Agent Jennifer Runyan.

Runyan further stated that the terrorist killed himself during a gunfight with security guards after his truck got stuck in Temple Israel Synagogue’s hallway.

The attacker had purchased $2,000 worth of fireworks from a Detroit-area shop two days prior to the attack, according to NBC News.

The suspect, identified on Thursday as Ayman Ghazali by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was the only person killed in the attack, which injured the synagogue’s security director.

41-year-old Ghazali immigrated to the US from Lebanon and became a naturalized citizen in 2016. He had recently lost family members in Lebanon due to an IDF airstrike, according to Friday media reports.

Families leave after being reunited outside Temple Israel synagogue after an assailant rammed his truck into the building in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, on March 12, 2026. (credit: JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images)

Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun said in a statement that the suspect had lost a sibling, a niece, and a nephew. The IDF has not commented on the incident.

Following the attack, West Bloomfield County Police Chief Dale Young praised the quick and effective security response, which he said he believed helped prevent further casualties.

“I am deeply proud of the response, not only from the security that was on site, but also of all the police officers and the firefighters that are here right now,” Young said. “We train on active shooter events a lot. I think that training certainly helped to mitigate what happened here today.”

Temple Israel Synagogue, widely known as America’s largest Reform congregation, also houses a preschool, which, according to CBS News, was in session at the time of the shooting.

Attack ‘a frightening and painful reminder’

Chair of the Jewish Federations of North America Gary Torgow, a longtime leader in Detroit’s Jewish community, said the attack was a painful reminder that antisemitism remains an active danger to US Jews.

“Today’s heinous attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, is a frightening and painful reminder that antisemitism continues to be a real and present threat to our Jewish communities,” Torgow told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

The DHS has been shut down since February 14 due to a political standoff over immigration enforcement, which has halted the review of millions of dollars in security funding for nonprofits, potentially endangering Jewish institutions amid heightened concern about antisemitic threats.

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