INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 High-scoring Michigan had to get down and dirty to dig out the national title Monday, making only two 3-pointers all night but still muscling 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,\u00a0came with 1:50 left\u00a0and felt like a dagger, giving the Wolverines a nine-point lead.<\/p>\n
To no one\u2019s surprise, UConn fought to the finish \u2014 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
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.<\/p>\n
But this game 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 from there 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
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 shot 30.9% from the floor and 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 (35-5) covered the 6\u00bd-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
![\"Michigan's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26097113010149.jpg\")
Michigan’s Trey McKenney, left, and Elliot Cadeau celebrate during the second half of the NCAA college basketball tournament national championship game against UConn at the Final Four, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo\/Michael Conroy)<\/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 as the first team to crack 90 points in five straight high-flying tournament blowouts. They didn\u2019t hit 70 in this one but, in almost every way, it was the prettiest of them all \u2014 the one that gives them what even Michigan\u2019s most famous teams, the Fab Five, couldn\u2019t manage \u2014 namely, a natty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 High-scoring Michigan had to get down and dirty to dig out the national title Monday, making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140,76046,110],"class_list":["post-221574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}