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.

FRIDAY’S ACTION: Michigan basketball will fall short if Yaxel Lendeborg can’t step up

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.