INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 This title for Michigan\u2019s newest Fab Five will look better in the trophy case than a time capsule.<\/p>\n
Hard to be too picky \u2014 this new-age group of ballers in maize and blue showed they can win any which way.<\/p>\n
The five fabulous transfers who make up coach Dusty May\u2019s starting lineup got down and dirty with the rest of the Wolverines to dig out the national championship on Monday. Michigan made only two 3-pointers all night but still muscled its way to a 69-63 victory over stingy, stubborn UConn.<\/p>\n
Elliot Cadeau led the Wolverines with 19 points, including the team\u2019s first 3, which came 7:04 into the second half. The second, from freshman Trey McKenney, came with 1:50 left and felt like a dagger, giving May\u2019s team \u2014 which had scored 90 points in five straight March Madness games leading to the final \u2014 a nine-point lead.<\/p>\n
Though the shooting wasn\u2019t great, this marked the fourth straight game in which Michigan has held its opponent to a season-low field goal percentage. UConn shot 30.9 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys have done it all year,\u201d May said. \u201cWhen one side of the ball has let us down, the other side has picked it up. Our togetherness defensively ultimately got us over the hump.\u201d<\/p>\n
To no one\u2019s surprise, UConn fought to the finish. Solo Ball banked in a 3 to cut it to four with 37 seconds left \u2014 and after two missed free throws, UConn\u2019s Alex Karaban (17 points) barely grazed the rim on a 3 that would\u2019ve cut the deficit to one with 17 seconds left.<\/p>\n
Michigan also got outrebounded 22-12 on the offensive glass by a UConn team that would not go away.<\/p>\n
Not until McKenney sank two free throws to bring Michigan\u2019s shooting from the line to 25 for 28 for the night could the Wolverines (37-3) kick off the celebration for the program\u2019s second title \u2014 the other coming in 1989, a few years before the Fab Five arrived and made two trips to the Final, but never won a title.<\/p>\n
This game, though, had a 1950s feel to it.<\/p>\n
Michigan had to fight for everything. The Wolverines missed their first 11 shots from 3, finished 2 for 15 beyond the arc and won despite the struggles of their best player, Yaxel Lendeborg. Ailing with a hurt knee and foot that kept him from elevating, the graduate transfer from UAB finished with 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019d told me we would shoot it this poorly and (be) dominated on the glass and still find a way to win, I don\u2019t know if I would have believed you,\u201d May said. \u201cThis team just found a way all season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Truth be told, it wasn\u2019t anyone\u2019s prettiest night.<\/p>\n
UConn\u2019s hopes at becoming the first team since John Wooden\u2019s UCLA dynasty to win three titles in four seasons came up short, done in by massive foul trouble and its own terrible shooting.<\/p>\n
Coach Dan Hurley\u2019s team missed its first 11 shots from 3 in the second half.<\/p>\n
Braylon Mullins, the hero of the Duke win that put UConn in the Final Four, finished 4 of 17, though he made a pair of late 3s that kept the game in reach.<\/p>\n
UConn (34-6) covered the 6 1\/2-point spread, and Hurley kept his players out on the court to watch the podium get set up for the presentation of a trophy heading not to Storrs, but Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n
About the only consolation: The Huskies clogged things up, slowed things down and made Michigan beat them at their game.<\/p>\n
The Wolverines came in shooting freely and winning big. In each of their five tournament games, they broke 90 and won by 13 or more.<\/p>\n
In this one, they didn\u2019t hit 70 and had to battle to the buzzer. But in almost every way, it was the prettiest of them all \u2014 the one that gives them what the Fab Five couldn\u2019t manage \u2014 namely, a natty.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody cared about stats the whole season,\u201d Cadeau said. \u201cNobody cared about nothing but winning. I\u2019m just had to be part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Style points aside, this was a championship built from outside \u2014 the best team money could buy.<\/p>\n
All five Wolverines starters played college ball elsewhere, and all but Nimari Burnett came to Ann Arbor this season. That\u2019s the product of the transfer portal that May has shown no reluctance to use. His ability to form a makeshift group into a winner is still the value of a coach and a culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey might be still calling us mercenaries but we\u2019re the hardest-working team,\u201d Lendenborg said. \u201cWe\u2019re the best in college basketball and we\u2019ll be one of the greatest ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 This title for Michigan\u2019s newest Fab Five will look better in the trophy case than a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-587438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}