Chicago–About three minutes into the second half of the No. 1 seed michiganSweet 16 win over fourth seed alabama on friday, Yaxel Lendeborg The Crimson Tide stole an inbound pass from under the basket and saw it Nimari Burnett Going down in the opposite direction.
Lendeborg delivered a 65-foot outlet pass from the low block that hit Burnett as he advanced to the opposite 3-point line and the senior guard made a dunk. Somewhere, Tom Brady smiled at the timing and the anticipation.
When asked if he felt like a quarterback, Lendeborg said with a halogen smile, “Absolutely.” “I didn’t play quarterback, but I know when we played outside, I was playing [quarterback]”
That moment reflected a night when Lendeborg did everything he could to help the Wolverines defeat a powerful Crimson Tide team and come out victorious. 90-77 On the strength of a strong second half.
Lendeborg finished with 23 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists. He hit four 3-pointers and showed an arsenal of step-back and ballistic moves on the perimeter that belied his 6-foot-9, 240-pound frame.
“He’s kind of a Swiss Army knife,” Michigan assistant Mike Boynton said. “He can do everything.”
Michigan’s win makes it the fourth Big Ten team in the Elite Eight this weekend, joining the Wolverines Purdue, Illinois And iowa. Michigan will play the winner of the 2nd seed iowa state and 6-seed tennessee.
This is the first time in Big Ten history that the league has four teams in the Elite Eight. The Big Ten has not won a national title in men’s basketball since 2000, which will be a big storyline in Indianapolis.
“I would say the best way to overcome this drought is [is] “If we send four Big 10 teams to Indianapolis,” Michigan coach Dusty May said with a smile.
The Wolverines trailed by nine points early in the first half and by two points at halftime. They needed Lendeborg’s all-around talent to overcome Alabama’s 14 3-pointers. May’s team struck hard in the first half and responded with a relentless flurry of haymakers, turning a halftime deficit into a 15-point lead in the first 11 minutes of the second half.
On a night when Michigan shot 13 of 27 from 3-point range and 50% from the field, Lendeborg revved his engine. He knocked down bounce passes in the paint, made 4 of 5 shots from 3-point range and handled the ball deftly to spark Michigan’s offense.
Burnett, an Alabama transfer, later shared that a Crimson Tide player yelled at one point, “They’re shooting 50% from 3, they can’t keep that up.”
He paused and smiled: “And we kept it going.”
Michigan is now 40 minutes away from the program’s first Final Four since 2018, when John Beilein’s team lost to Villanova in the national title game. This is a moment that Wolverine has built toward.
“We are one step closer to our goal,” Lendeborg said. “We got a chance to cut another trap [Sunday] and then one more [in Indianapolis]”
