Yaxel Lendeborg on Michigan basketball: ‘Best frontcourt in the game’
Yaxel Lendeborg, a fifth-year transfer from UAB and No. 1 transfer portal prospect, breaks down Michigan basketball outlook Sunday, July 13, 2025.
It’s been essentially a perfect start to the season for Michigan basketball.
A historic shooting performance in a season-opening win over Oakland. A pair of grind-it-out wins against Power Four opponents in Wake Forest and TCU. Then, most notably, obliterating San Diego State, Auburn, and Gonzaga by a combined 110 points to win the Players Era Festival championship in Las Vegas.
It’s all well and good, but the real meat and potatoes of the season starts this week with Big Ten play.
“I think you put a huge emphasis in every game, but certainly the Big Ten being the powerhouse league that it is,” assistant coach Justin Joyner said on Thursday, Dec. 4. “It’s probably the best league in the country right now, we want to do our best to win the league, and every game matters in it.”
The 20-game league slate begins Saturday, Dec. 6, at Crisler Center against Rutgers (4 p.m., Big Ten Network).
Lessons in physicality
Michigan began league play in spectacular fashion a season ago, going 5-0 out of the gate and 12-2 by mid-February. That’s when the grind of playing bruising teams such as Purdue, Michigan State and Illinois took hold.
The Wolverines were within striking distance of a league title only to drop four of their final six games and finish in a tie for second in the conference. Coach Dusty May took lessons from his first year in a league that’s predicated on toughness. He knew he needed to get bigger bodies.
U-M also started “toughness drills” where staffers got pads out and players had to work on rebounding and possessing the ball in traffic while managers “beat the crap out of you,” senior Will Tschetter told team play-by-play voice Brian Boesch in an offseason episode of the team’s in-house podcast “Defend the Block.”
“The main thing is pretty much how physical it is,” said star forward Yaxel Lendeborg of what’s been emphasized about the Big Ten. “Sometimes in practice, if you complain about calls and stuff, they just assure us that we’re not getting those calls, especially on the road at Purdue or, you know, Michigan State, stuff like that.
“So I mean that the physicality adjustment is going to be key for me.”
The same goes for freshman guard Trey McKenney. He’s from Big Ten country and is already built for the league at 6 feet 4 and 225 pounds, but hearing about Big Ten physicality and dealing with it are two different things.
“Every Big Ten game, it’s a dog fight,” McKenney said. “[Have to bring] a high level of toughness and every night might not go your way, but you know, you have to try to find other ways to win.”
Experienced reinforcements
It wasn’t an accident that the Wolverines brought in some size muscle on the front lines – like 7-foot-4 center Aday Mara and 6-foot-10 forward Morez Johnson Jr. – from physical Big Ten teams.
Mara (UCLA) got a crash course in grit and grind from Mick Cronin in Los Angeles, while Johnson was an enforcer and a tone setter even as a freshman during his time playing for Brad Underwood at Illinois.
“Aday and Morez have come from Big Ten programs, so we have that,” Joyner said. “Some guys just haven’t felt it. But we have guys in our locker room that have and it helped us last year, and I think it’s gonna help us even more this year.”
Among those who’ve felt it before are Tschetter, Nimari Burnett, Roddy Gayle Jr. and L.J. Cason.
Tschetter, the longest tenured Wolverine, has not won a Big Ten regular season title through four years. Same for Gayle, who’s in his fourth year in the conference (the first two with Ohio State) or Burnett, who’s now in Year 3 in the Big Ten.
Still, there have been lessons along the way. Back-to-back overtime losses at the end of the 2022-23 season that Tschetter surely remembers which kept U-M out of the NCAA tournament. The disaster that was 2023-24. Getting punked last year at Purdue, 91-64 and soundly beaten by Michigan State twice by a combined margin of 30 points.
“Your player-led teams that have been through these wars, that have been through these races, we’re going to call on them,” Joyner said. “We need those guys to be, you know, sharp and iron tight for us to have success and really make it through this long race.”
Michigan vs Rutgers prediction
The Wolverines played three games in three days, then had to wait nine days for their next game. “Man, yes,” Lendeborg said of his excitement to get back on the court. “I was watching High School Musical the third one, they sang a song like the boys are back. … I’m ready to post that on Saturday, because I’m just excited to play.” Most tests in the league are tough with 13 teams rated inside KenPom’s top 60. This is not one of those, with Rutgers (No. 127) the lowest rated team in the Big Ten. U-M may have a little rust with the time off, but should roll. The pick: Michigan 84, Rutgers 62.
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
