Yaxel Lendeborg talks Michigan basketball win over MTSU
Yaxel Lendeborg talks Michigan basketball win over Middle Tennessee State at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
Four games into the 2025-26 season, Michigan basketball remains unblemished.
The No. 6 Wolverines (4-0) haven’t always looked flawless, but they’ve found ways to get wins against different styles. A zone team (Oakland), a pair of Power Four opponents (Wake Forest and TCU) and most recently a pesky mid-major (Middle Tennessee State) have all provided different tests.
The slate gets even harder this week when Michigan travels to Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival men’s championship tournament, featuring 18 teams – 11 of which are in the top 50 of KenPom entering the event. So, what are coach Dusty May’s goals entering this type of environment?
“Hope for some vitamin D, hope we stay healthy and hope these three games in three days show us what we need to do or continue to do better to win the Big Ten Tournament,” he said. “I know some coaches or programs don’t value as much (the tournament). … but we want to be in position to compete for it.
“So three games in three days gives us an opportunity to prepare like that, to take care of our bodies and prioritize the next game immediately.”
Michigan won the Big Ten Tournament last season and May clearly is already thinking ahead. That said, it’s not the only goal the Wolverines have in the desert. Michigan has struggled to get its 3-point shooting going, hitting below 33% in each of its past three games and 20% or worse in two of them.
The tests don’t get easier for U-M this week, facing San Diego State on Monday, Nov. 24 (10:30 p.m., TruTV) which is No. 19 nationally in defense per KenPom and Auburn the following night (8:30 p.m., TNT), which is No. 36.
It’s unclear who the Wolverines will play for their third game, which could be either Wednesday or Thursday, and depends on how the first two go. Either way, with three games in 72 hours, there’s a chance Michigan will go a bit deeper into its bench, which could include some time for sharp shooting freshman Winters Grady.
“I could see us in the near future going with a little bit longer, deeper rotation,” May said.
Michigan won the Fort Myers Tip-Off a year ago during feast week, which served as a spring board for a 5-0 start to Big Ten play and helped them figure out their Danny Wolf-led identity.
Michigan is still figuring out its rotations this year, as far as lineup combinations, minute allocations and assessing which pairings lead to certain outcomes on each side of the court. May has said that he’s pleased with his team’s start in some ways, namely the toughness.
“Nothing gives me confidence we’re going to pick up a few quality wins other than we have a really good team, we’re capable of playing really good basketball,” May said following his team’s 84-61 win over MTSU. “I haven’t watched San Diego State, I’ve watched Auburn. Obviously we’re very familiar with them, they sent us home last year.
“The confidence I have to go get a couple wins is simply because we have a really good staff and really good players. Now it’s the time to turn the page and start studying what we need to do.”
What U-M needs to do is protect the ball better. Its turned the ball over 56 times the past three games and SDSU is No. 17 in the country, forcing turnovers on 23.8% of opponents possessions.
The Aztecs are deep, with their bench playing 43.4% of all minutes. Auburn, meanwhile, is run-and-gun team. They rarely turn it over (No. 24 nationally), shoot well inside the arc (62.4%, No. 24) and do so because they get so many high-percentage looks on putbacks (44.0% offensive rebounding rate, No. 10).
“We’ve got to be able to learn on the fly where we don’t have time to practice in between – we go straight from a film session, walk through and be able to apply things,” May said. “That’s the secret sauce of elite teams. So hopefully we’ll see us doing that on the fly.”
Should U-M win the tournament, it would be a positive on multiple levels, most notably some Quad 1 wins for the resume.
But the staff has been around the sport long enough to know the week will not make or break the season one way or the other.
“We are 100% a growth mindset program. We need to be better (when we return) next week than we are today,” May said. “We need to continue to learn more about our team and whether we win or we lose, we’re not going to be too high or too low because our season is long and we have a high, high ceiling.”
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.
