Michigan basketball wasn’t considered the favorite to win the national championship at the outset of the season. Yes, Dusty May brought in a bevy of transfers, including star forward Yaxel Lendeborg. But it still wasn’t thought of as a team that was going to dominate the way it did.
Yet, at the end of the final Monday of the college basketball season, it was the Michigan Wolverines cutting down the nets, after beating UConn, 69-63.
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After the game, head coach Dusty May, most outstanding player Elliot Cadeau, Lendeborg, and Trey McKenney met with the media to discuss the big win and the team’s first national championship since the 1989 season. Here is everything they had to say.
Opening statement
DUSTY MAY: Yeah, what a way to wrap up the ’25-26 college basketball season with this group. I want to begin by thanking last year’s team.
At Michigan, we came up a little bit short, but those guys laid the foundation, established an identity for us, and also helped attract these guys to come in and chase this stream together. And secondly, I want to thank our FAU guys, the team, and staff that really, really, this is one time I’ll make it about me, that really helped us grow together. And that was the first time I’d been with a group that was truly sacrificial, where we were about each other. And because of that, we all improved so much, and this team’s done the same thing.
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It’s when you bring a group that’s talented together, and they decide from the beginning that they’re gonna do it this way, and they never waver, and they never change, that’s probably the most uncommon thing in athletics now, and it’s a tribute to their character, but also those in their circles around them. Their coaches, their parents, their mentors, they allowed these guys to give themselves up for the group, and it’s never guaranteed, but for these guys to cut down the nets after all they sacrifice is pretty special.
The game wasn’t a typical Michigan game in terms of your shooting, assists, three points, almost none of that was going on. How did you guys find a way to sort of shift your game in the middle of the game to almost a wholly different identity and still win?
ELLIOT CADEAU: You know, all year we’ve been just finding ways to win, and we made two 3s the whole game. We wasn’t making shots. We weren’t. Like, we had a couple assists, not as many as we usually do, but we constantly just been finding ways to win all year, no matter how everybody’s playing.
YAXEL LENDEBORG: To piggyback off of that, yeah. Early on in the season, we went through our struggles offensively, trying to find our rhythm, was stuck out, and what really brought us together was how, you know, unselfish we were eventually in those moments and our defensive toughness, you know, and whenever offense isn’t rolling, we find a way to make plays with our defense and make it lead to quick offense.
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When did you know you were gonna go? What percentage were you at, and were you a little bit tentative early, a little bit scared to move on that much?
YAXEL LENDEBORG: Yeah, I knew I was gonna go as soon as I got back on the court, the first game. I knew there was no way I was gonna miss this game, no matter what was going on. I was very tentative this game. Yeah, I felt like I was pretty much holding our team down. I feel like we could have been up by way more early in the game, later on in the game. I kept having opportunities to make plays, and I couldn’t make the play, but these guys stuck with me no matter what. They all believed in me. I was trying to push through my mental and physical battle. I was dealing with myself, but, you know, these guys really helped me out and helped me push through.
There was a time late in the second half, you came out, you looked frustrated.I saw it on a TV monitor. LJ kind of was motivating you at that moment. Since he had that, a similar injury — perhaps share that conversation and what he has meant to you.
YAXEL LENDEBORG: Yeah, he was, he was telling me to stop being so hard on myself, you know, he was basically saying like, I’m one of the reasons why we’re here, like one of the biggest reason that we got to this moment, you know, and nobody’s gonna, you know, downplay me or what I’ve done this year because of one bad game. So, you know, he just kept telling me to keep going no matter what, he believes in me. All of us, all the rest of the team has my back no matter what, you know, just find a way to get easy buckets, you know. Coach Joyner also came to me and talked to me about the Anthony Davis game, where he was having a bad game, and he found a way to, you know, impact the team. So, I just tried to find a way to do something to help the team out, and eventually it started working out.
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Elliot, when you came here to this tournament, everybody was forecasting who would be the most valuable player of the tournament, and such, and when you got the trophy, that trophy right there is what means the most to you, but what did it mean to you to be honored like that?
ELLIOT CADEAU: Man, it means the world to me, like, I’m just so proud of myself where I came from, like, last year I was really down on myself. A lot of people doubted me, and I’m just so proud of myself for me to be able to say I was the most outstanding player and win a national championship at the same time.
What did you guys see when you first got together where you started talking about winning championships when you maybe barely even knew each other, and you didn’t know what you still had in you coming here? Where did that come from?
ELLIOT CADEAU: Yeah, I just saw so much talent around me since day one and just like a unique, a unique set of talent, like three bigs at the same time. Switching one through four, I just seen like a unique type of basketball that we was playing and I knew like it would be a mismatched nightmare for every single team that we played and it was this year.
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Elliot, your job obviously changed when LJ went down. A lot more responsibility on you, and somehow you went from there to these last two games playing maybe the two best games you’ve played all year. Can you explain that journey, how you were able to traverse that through the course of this month?
ELLIOT CADEAU: Yeah, I feel like I’ve been playing the same from when LJ went down. I feel like I just got the ball more, and I just played more minutes, and I just had higher usage. So it seems like my stats were higher, but you know, I think LJ, I thank LJ for even if he’s out, he’s still supporting us. He’s still, he’s literally an assistant coach out there, and it just inspires me to go out there and just play for him.
You transferred in at the start of this season. What have you seen in terms of your fit with the rest of the team, and how have you seen yourselves grow since you become a part of this Michigan team?
YAXEL LENDEBORG: Man, once we transferred in, I know, especially for me, the whole University of Michigan welcomed me with open arms. You know, I’ve seen many, many Twitter arguments that these guys are going back and forth with everybody saying like, you know, we deserve the spot here, and they’re going to cherish every moment of us being here. And shout out to Will, Roddy, Nimari, LJ, especially those guys. Once we all got together, they were super genuine with us the whole way. They tucked us in under the wing, and they showed us the Michigan way. They could have easily got butthurt or something because the new guys were coming in, stealing their minutes, stealing their points, but you know, they didn’t care. All they cared about was winning and, you know, look where it led us, you know.
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Yaxel, now that you have a championship trophy, can you tell us a little bit more about the injury? Are you going to need follow-up surgery, follow-up consultation? Is there any, what did it take to get back on the court tonight?
YAXEL LENDEBORG: I hope I didn’t mess anything up any more than I already was. I’m going to find that out in a couple of days, you know, once we finish celebrating, but man, it took a lot to get on the court, honestly, and to stay on there. I was dealing with a lot of mental issues today, you know.
These guys all, you know, leaned in on me and helped me out, helped me dig out, dig myself out the hole, man, and, you know, just continue to keep fighting, you know. Chris, shout out to him because he was with me pretty much all day, all night, trying to make sure that I was even 60, 50 percent able to play, you know, and I did the best I could regardless of the outcome, but it feels really, really good to be a champion, to be on top of the world, man.
What about your teammates just makes you the most proud to say that you won a national championship with them?
TREY MCKENNEY: I think just the way throughout the season, I mean, everybody on this team is extremely talented and for us to be able to, you know, sacrifice something for ourselves, I mean, a lot of us, you know, could be somewhere else, you know, doing more than what we’ve done this season, but I think it just shows that this team is super selfless and I’ve never been around such a, you know, such a talented group of guys that, you know, are willing to take a lesser role for somebody next to them. So I’m just really grateful to be around this team and, you know, I’m going to cherish this moment for the rest of my life.
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It took you a very long time in your career to get to a point where you could pick your next move, essentially. What made you think that you could do it at Michigan and do it quickly once you got to that point?
DUSTY MAY: I want to, Elliot beat me to it. L.J. Cason was playing as well as any backup guard in all the country and probably playing as well as anyone on our roster. And at Illinois, he’s hooping and has the most floor-to-man injury in the history of injuries. And the next day, you would think he retired and took over an assistant coaching spot. His spirits were up. He’s immediately pouring into the guys, trying to learn, pick their brain, because he had a different perspective. And that’s very indicative of this team. He never one day brought negative energy because he felt sorry for himself. And for Elliot to shout him out, beat me to it, is pretty impressive as well.
The toughest part about jobs, and this has always been my opinion, because I’ve just taken jobs. My wife used to get angry with me because I’d just call her and say, hey, what do you think? Do you mind if I take this job? For whatever reason. And so now, you don’t get a chance to really go feel the place and see it. And even FAU, I went to see it. And before I’d see anything, I’d already signed the contract. That’s how impulsive I am, whatever the case. So yeah, Anna will give you a better background than me on all this stuff. And living in Ypsilanti, when I was a young assistant in Eastern Michigan, I wasn’t that familiar with Michigan other than ’89 and being a fan of the game. And just the feelings that people had, the pride they had in the university. I just thought that was really, really cool.
We thought it was a great time to get back to the Midwest. We were to stage our life, or we were empty nesters and just wanted something different. And then just felt like Michigan was a place, ultimately, with the changing landscape, that we could retain really good players, even if it wasn’t going great for them. It was going to be hard to leave. And even Tarris is a great example. He had options to go anywhere in the country. And it was difficult for him, based on my conversations, it was difficult for him to leave the University of Michigan and the relationships that he had made and all the people that poured into him. So I just felt like that’s the type of place that I’d love to coach at.
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You talk a lot about doing something eternal. You’re around Terry Mills a lot. What do you think this accomplishment is going to do for this group the rest of their lives and beyond?
DUSTY MAY: It further strengthens their bond. And we didn’t need this for that to happen because of their actions all year. But to hang a, we called this, we talked about it early in the season, a center banner. Like we have a lot of, Michigan’s got a proud tradition. There’s a lot of banners on the side. There’s one lonely banner up in the middle. And if we were having a bad practice or we didn’t have our edge, we would remind them that if we’re ever going to hang another banner so that would have some company, then we can’t have these type of days or we can’t have these type of practices. And usually, that was one way that we could refocus our group.
It seemed like this was a really unusual blueprint to try to win free throws, blocks, and steals. That’s not kind of the Michigan thing. Were you conscious of that was the way you were going to have to do it?
DUSTY MAY: Yeah, we taught, early in games, we can tell how the game’s being played. And so then we talk about how we have to adjust, and we have to figure out solutions based on how they’re guarding us and all the things. We actually thought the basket would open up a little bit in the second half.
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We felt like we were going to make shots in the second half. We generated, I think there were two 3s in the first half that we didn’t really love those attempts. And you’re not going to love them all. The rest of them we thought were really good offense, and the ball just didn’t go in. And so we just were trying not to result in all that we do and just stay with the process and evaluate the contributions and how it felt.
And so then early in the second half, the game got a little bit chippy and physical. And so we thought this is going to be a game. We just have to figure it out. We started going offensive, defensive early. Offensive, defensive substitutions early. And UConn was dominating us on the glass. Credit to them. They were motivated and determined as any team we played on the offensive glass. But we did feel like we were defending well enough that we were going to be able to find enough baskets.
A lot of the players just now we’re talking about your assistant coaches being so instrumental in getting them ready in-game before the game. Can you talk about your cohesive coaching staff and how much credit was to them to getting you guys to this point winning this national championship?
DUSTY MAY: I could go on until tomorrow. That’s one of our secret sauces is we have an incredibly talented group of coaches that never make it about themselves. Look, this is an ego-driven business.
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This is a lot of alpha males with great egos, and that’s why they’re successful doing what they do. And these guys have made our players the number one, two, and three priority from day one over their own careers, over their own individual attention and accolades and things like that. And so just it’s hard for our players not to follow the team, which is the staff, when they’re modeling that behavior every day. And they deserve a big, big, big chunk of credit for this.
Dusty, I think from the public standpoint anyway, you brought in Elliot before even the three bigs. And so even he said he doubted himself. The team he played on last year did not have a great year. Other than assists, he did not have a great year. What did you see in him that you thought he could get you to this moment?
DUSTY MAY: That’s a great question. We had seen him in prep ranks, and we had seen him in high school ranks, and we felt like we needed a quarterback, a pass-first quarterback on the floor at all times. And with Elliot, once we got him, we were able to sell him. And even I coached Sean May years ago in AAU basketball. And so I called Sean, and he gave me all the intel and everything on the background. And I just said, “Let me ask you one question. Would 17, 18-year-old Sean May, who was a McDonald’s American NBA player, All-American, all of it, would he want to play with ElliottCadeau?’ And he said explicative, yeah, absolutely. Let’s go.
And I said, that’s all I need to know because Sean is one of the smartest, best players I’ve ever been around. And so I valued his opinion that much. And that was a stamp on the intangibles and whether I thought we could win this with him. Because on film it was there. He’s a savant, and he’s brilliant. And so he’s made us better coaches, and hopefully we’ve helped him become a better player.
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You talked there about Elliott, but the group as a whole, when you’re putting it together, you never really know for sure. How rewarding is it to have it turn out this well?
DUSTY MAY: I think the most rewarding part is they never changed. Like this came, we weren’t very good early in the year. The first two exhibitions, we beat St. John’s, but they weren’t St. John’s yet. And then we didn’t play well. And at that point we considered pivoting and changing our lineup and going a different direction and maybe admitting failure for our vision. And because of our staff, I remember the day like it was yesterday, we’re in the conference room and we did a deep dive and everything that you could come up with to try to predict whether we thought that would work.
And once we left that meeting, we were more committed than ever that this is going to work and these are the reasons why. Now we didn’t feel like we were; it was like bamboo. We didn’t feel like the bamboo was just going to shoot to the sky the next week in Vegas, but it did and then that happens quickly when we’re playing at that level.
And that’s typically when it gets more difficult. I’ve been on assist on staffs when you play like that, and that’s when it really gets tough because there’s more tension. There’s more of everything coming at your guys, and for them not to waver on how they I guess continue to give. To me, that’s probably the hardest part and most rewarding thing that these guys did.
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I wondered what is it like to coach at a program where you have that type of fan support? And also when you came to the Final Four when you were young, did you ever sit in those really bad seats when you were a coach that was making no money or trying to get in?
DUSTY MAY: No, I never had tickets. I never attended a game until Mike Davis made it in 0-2 and at that time he had already offered me a position on the staff, even though he didn’t have one yet, coming from USC. So we played in the same regional.We got upset by UNC Wilmington and he created a position to bring me back home. But in that process they continued to advance and so he got me great tickets right behind the team and started that process of acclimating to their program. So that was the only time I ever went.
So yeah, the tickets, all these people that pay hard-earned money and give us their time to support us, it’s appreciated. We’re very, very grateful.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: What Dusty May, players said after Michigan basketball championship
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