INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — High-scoring Michigan had to get to work on the national title On Monday, he made just two 3-pointers all night, but still battled his way to a 69-63 win over stingy, stubborn UConn.
Elliot Cadeau led the Wolverines with 19 points, including the team’s 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 coach Dusty May’s team full of transfers a nine-point lead.
To no one’s surprise, UConn fought to the finish. Solo Ball hit a 3 to cut the deficit to four with 37 seconds left — and after two missed free throws, UConn’s Alex Karaban (17 points) barely reached the edge of a 3 that had cut the deficit to one with 17 seconds left.
Michigan was also outscored 22-12 on the offensive glass by a UConn team that wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t until McKenney sank two free throws to bring Michigan’s shooting from the line to 25 for 28 for the night that the Wolverines (37-3) could begin the celebration of the program’s second title — the other coming in 1989.
But this game had a 1950s feel to it.
“If you had told me we would shoot so poorly and get dominated on the glass and still find a way to win, I don’t know if I would have believed you,” May said. “This team just found a way all season long.”
Michigan had to fight for everything. The Wolverines missed their first 11 shots from 3, then finished 2 for 15 and won despite the struggles of their best player, Yaxel Lendeborg. Dealing with a sore knee and foot that kept him from getting up, the graduate transfer from UAB finished with 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting.
To be honest, it wasn’t anyone’s finest night.
UConn’s hopes of becoming the first team since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty to win three titles in four seasons fell short, due to massive foul trouble and its own terrible shooting.
Coach Dan Hurley’s team shot 30.9% from the floor and missed its first 11 shots from 3 in the second half.
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 within reach.
UConn (35-5) covered the 6 1/2-point spread, and Hurley kept his players on the field to watch the stage being set for the presentation of a trophy that went not to Storrs, but to Ann Arbor.
About the only consolation: the Huskies clogged things up, slowed things down and made Michigan beat them in their game.
The Wolverines entered as the first team to reach 90 points in five straight high-flying tournament outbursts. They didn’t reach 70 here, but in almost every way it was the best of them all – the one that gives them what even Michigan’s most famous teams, the Fab Five, couldn’t manage – namely a natty.
Style points aside, this was a championship built from the outside in – the best team money could buy.
All five Wolverines starters played college ball elsewhere, and all but Nimari Burnett came to Ann Arbor this season. That is the product of the transfer portal that May has shown no restraint in. His ability to turn a makeshift group into a winner continues to be the value of a coach and a culture.
“They may still call us mercenaries, but we are the hardest-working team,” Lendenborg said. “We are the best in college basketball and we will be one of the best ever.”
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
