INDIANAPOLIS — Will Tschetter knew exactly what he was doing as No. 1 seed Michigan prepared to play Alabama in the Sweet 16. Star forward Yaxel Lendeborg had mentioned at a press conference that he was offended the Crimson Tide didn’t try to recruit him in the transfer portal after a breakout year at in-state UAB. A minor news cycle broke out over the comment, but most people probably missed that Alabama head coach Nate Oats said he did reach out, he just couldn’t afford him. That update didn’t fit Tschetter’s narrative, and he kept delivering his own message before tip-off.

“They didn’t recruit you,” Tschetter said to Lendeborg repeatedly in the pregame locker room. “That’s so messed up.”

Lendeborg came out like a man possessed. On the Wolverines’ first possession, he initiated the pick-and-roll as a ball handler, turned the corner after a screen from teammate Aday Mara, and drove hard downhill to finish through contact. A few minutes later, he ran off a screen to hit a wing three-pointer set up by point guard Elliot Cadeau. Then he took a pitch from Morez Johnson and hit a three from the top of the key after two dribbles. After consecutive rumbling transition buckets, Lendeborg drove hard again and kicked out to teammate Roddy Gayle for three.

Still, Michigan was having trouble defending Alabama’s pace-and-space attack on the other end, and trailed by two at halftime. Its season hung in the balance.

Lendeborg made sure to set the tone out of the locker room. He dropped Alabama’s Amari Allen to the floor with an ankle-breaking crossover and hit a three. He grabbed a steal and threw a frozen rope outlet pass to Nimari Burnett for the dunk. He got a putback on the offensive glass, threw an assist to a cutting Gayle for a dunk, and hit a step-back three.

Michigan survived, and its dream season was still going. As the Wolverines were making their way through the tunnel at the United Center in Chicago, Mara had some more words of motivation for his teammate.

“Dominican ‘Bron! Dominican ‘Bron,” Mara yelled as he patted Lendeborg on the head and shoulders.

Mara put it even more succinctly when asked about the impact of his star teammate.

“We have an NBA player playing for us in college,” Mara said.

Lendeborg was the best player in men’s college basketball all season long outside of Duke freshman superstar Cameron Boozer, and he has proven it during this tournament run. Dominating Alabama for 23 points, 12 rebounds, and seven assists was par for the course. He also dropped 25 points and six rebounds in the round of 32 win over Saint Louis, and 27 points, seven rebounds, and four assists in an Elite Eight rout of Tennessee to bring Michigan to its first Final Four since 2018.

The Wolverines have three NBA first-round picks in the front court, but Lendeborg is the player that makes it all work. A year ago, he was a hybrid center at UAB who played with the ball in his hands all the time. At Michigan, he’s transitioned to a wing who has to play on the perimeter to maximize Michigan’s two other star bigs in the lineup in Mara and Johnson. Lendeborg’s versatility is why the Wolverines don’t just get away with a three big look, they thrive with it.

Michigan is playing UConn in the national championship game on Monday. Lendeborg’s injury status hangs over what should be a coronation for the Wolverines. He suffered an MCL sprain in the Final Four blowout of Arizona. He’s going to play through it despite acknowledging that certain people in his circle wish he didn’t with the NBA waiting.

Lendeborg is the most unique player in college basketball: a hulking 6’9, 235-pound forward blessed with the length of an NBA center with a 7’4 wingspan, but the ability to play all over the floor on both ends. That’s just the start of it. The Michigan star is in his sixth season of college basketball after a wild journey to get here. He’ll turn 24 years old shortly after he’s drafted in June, but his development arc is unlike anything the sport has seen in recent memory.

Lendeborg’s career could have fallen apart so many times before he ever got to Ann Arbor. Somehow, he ended up exactly where he needed to be.

Lendeborg always had the genes to be a star athlete. His father and mother both played for the Dominican Republic national basketball team. His mother also played for the country’s volleyball team, and she was playing both sports when she got pregnant with him.

Still, Lendeborg was consistently kept off the court because of his bad grades. He was cut from his middle school team, and didn’t make the freshman team at Pennsauken High School after the family moved to New Jersey because he couldn’t keep up academically. He barely played organized high school basketball at all, and was mostly concerned with playing video games all day, every day.

Lendeborg’s family helped get him a spot at a showcase for Dominican players at the end of high school, and that gave him the lifeline he needed to get back on track. Coaches at Arizona Western Junior College saw a clip of him on social media, and extended their final open scholarship to him just to get another big body on the roster. Lendeborg didn’t want to leave home to go to the desert across the country, but his parents made him do it.

Basketball was finally Lendeborg’s primary focus, and his game exploded. His physical gifts were overwhelming at the junior college level, and his skill set was quickly catching up to his tools. After winning his second ACCAC Player of the Year award, he had offers from the likes of St. John’s and Houston, but he chose to go to UAB after making a strong connection with head coach Andy Kennedy.

In his first year, Lendeborg won AAC Defensive Player of the Year and AAC tournament MVP. The next year, Lendeborg led the team in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks to establish himself as the best mid-major player in the country. The NBA was interested, but after going through the combine, he decided one more year of college (and a huge NIL paycheck) from Michigan couldn’t hurt.

Lendeborg might have been a first-round pick in the 2025 draft if he turned pro. When did he know he would instead go to Michigan?

“I would say honestly it was like right after the combine,” Lendeborg told SB Nation after the Sweet 16 win. “Because I talked to a lot of the NBA guys and pretty much nobody said anything was going to be wrong with my age.”

Michigan had commitments from Aday Mara and Morez Johnson, making for a crowded front court. Could all three really start together? Lendeborg embraced the three big look, because he thought a move to the wing would only make him more appealing to the NBA even if it meant sacrificing some usage and scoring numbers.

“(The NBA) wanted to see a lot more three-pointers and a lot more versatility in my defense,” Lendeborg told SB Nation. “I tried to be more of three, because in the NBA, I’m not gonna be the superstar. I’m gonna be playing next to somebody like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and he doesn’t need me to score for him. He needs me to get stops. I just tried to figure out my role and do whatever I can do to get there.”

Lendeborg probably would have been a high-usage primary scoring option anywhere else in the country. At Michigan, he would be playing more off the ball for the first time in his life. It was a work in progress at some of those late summer practices when the team finally got together.

“At first it was more so like, where do I need to be so the rest of the guys can be successful,” Lendeborg said. “Last year it was just me going low post, catching and making a move. It’s completely different this year. I’m just trying to give space to the ball, move when the ball’s moving away. For me, it’s just working to help my teammates.”

Michigan started the year at No. 7 in the preseason AP Poll. It needed overtime to beat a bad Wake Forest team in the second game of the season. TCU took them down to the wire in their third game. The learning curve with team mostly built through the transfer portal was real.

Things clicked when the Wolverines went to Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival starting on Nov. 24. Michigan drilled San Diego St. by 40 in its opener, then beat Auburn by 30, then beat No. 12 Gonzaga by 40. Suddenly, there started to be some hype that this could be all-time great team.

I asked starting point guard Elliot Cadeau when he knew this team would be really good.

“Once I realized that Yax could really play on the perimeter,” Cadeau said ahead of the national championship game. “Yax could play the point guard if he wanted to. That’s when I knew it would all work together.”

Michigan pulverized teams all year with a historically good +39.72 net-rating. Lendeborg’s counting stats took a dip from his time at UAB, but his impact stats went through the roof. He was second in the country in RAPM at +15.2, and the gap between himself and No. 3 (Illinois’ Keaton Wagler) was the same as the gap between Wagler and the No. 23 overall player. He was second behind Boozer again in BPM with a +15.5 rating that tied Zach Edey for the fifth-highest single-season mark ever, and only trailed Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis, and Sindarius Thornwell.

He also made major improvements in the exact areas the NBA was looking for. Lendeborg improved his three-point attempts per 100 possessions from 3.2 in his final season at UAB to 8.4 at Michigan, and his percentage actually went up from 36 to 38 percent. He showed the ability to defend out on the perimeter rather than acting as the big man for the Blazers. He also significantly cut down his turnovers despite more ball handling responsibility.

It was a dream season in every way for both Lendeborg and Michigan. Now they have a chance to end it with a national championship.

Lendeborg is a month older than Josh Giddey, who is in his fifth NBA season. That’s usually the type of thing that should prevent a college player from going in the lottery, but Lendeborg’s path to this point has been so unusual that it should afford him more excuses than the typical super-senior. He’s also so big, so versatile, and so skilled that his game feels like an ideal fit for the modern NBA. He’s projected as a top-10 pick in our latest 2026 NBA mock draft.

Lendeborg’s personality has come under the spotlight during this tournament run, and not always in a good way according to the outside noise. He giggles at press conferences when answering tough questions. He’s a constant goof ball. It’s not often the team’s biggest star is also the class clown, but it feels that way with Lendeborg. His Michigan teammates admitted they didn’t know how it would work when they first met him, but he quickly won them over.

“The first time we played, I’m like, can he lock in?,” Burnett told me. “Then he went out and dropped like 25, and I’m like, all right, I ain’t gonna question it no more.”

Lendeborg’s production wasn’t actually the thing that convinced his teammates that he would be a star at Michigan. It was his lack of ego on the court despite entering the program with so much hype.

“That was the first thing that I noticed when he came in, he was like look, I’m not a get 30, get 40 type of guy,” Burnett said of Lendeborg. “I want to win and I wanna get my teammates involved. I want to pass. He literally said that.

“And so to see it throughout the course of the season that he’s always committed to doing it on both ends of the floor and it’s all about winning, it’s been a beauty to play with.”

Mara again vouched for Lendeborg’s personality as a teammate.

“I think he’s an unbelievable person,” Mara told me. “He’s so unselfish. He’s funny. He’s always trying to help you.

“If he was an asshole, you could see it in his play. He’s not like that. He’s a good guy, and I’m very happy that I’m playing with him.”

Lendeborg’s life was perilously close to unraveling before he ever touched a college basketball court. His rise is proof is that the basketball apparatus will always find talent through any means necessary. It’s also proof that people can change for the better with second and third chances.

Both Lendeborg’s story and game feels more fitted for Hollywood than real life. He’s one win away from the perfect ending.