The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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8 THE WOLVERINE ❱ APRIL 2026 D usty May's squad scorched the Big Ten and just about every- body else in putting together the best regular season in Michigan bas- ketball history. Now comes the best- ever certification test. Nobody will ever take away 29-2, 19-1 in a runaway Big Ten season. The Wol- verines smoked the field by a full four games, capped by the 90-80 Tom Izzo immolation at Crisler Center on Senior Day March 8. No Big Ten crew had ever won 19 conference games in a regular season before. No Michigan squad had won more than 16 (1976-77 and 1984-85). The Wolverines enter the Big Ten Tour- nament as a No. 1 seed, and an almost certain No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed thereafter. After cutting down the Crisler nets and raising a brand-new championship banner, May paused — ever so momen- tarily — to reflect. "It just seems like years ago, but to see our guys go through this journey and continue to take turns to support each other, to love each other like brothers, it's been amazing," May said. "And, as long as we don't change, we have a lot of ball in front of us. … "I think most publications had us right around [No.] 7, which is not typi- cal for a super team or a superpower or whatever you want to call it. But these guys, because they're super teammates, have become a super team. Our secret sauce is how great of teammates these guys are — period." Graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg — the Big Ten Player of the Year, re- gardless of how the voting turns out — concurred. His 27 points in the regular- season finale doomed the Spartans, but he's proven an incredibly unselfish su- perstar all season long. And since he can pull that off, the rest of the Wolverines follow suit. "It's how unselfish we are," he stressed. "Nobody cares who the lead- ing scorer is. Nobody cares who gets the most shots. Nobody has any secret mo- tives or agendas. That plays a big factor. When we're up by 20, somebody could easily go and try to get their stats up, but nobody cares about that. We just care about winning. That's something that goes a long way. I'm very appreciative of all that." They all appreciate fully the mission that remains. Lendeborg maintains his desire to see this group be known as the best Michigan basketball team of all time. Well, the reigning champion in that department finished third in the Big Ten, at 12-6. Nobody cares. Nobody ever will care. Because that team of des- tiny — featuring sudden-change coach Steve Fisher and stars like Glen Rice, Rumeal Robinson, Terry Mills and Loy Vaught — ran off six straight wins under the brightest lights possible. They captured Michigan's only na- tional championship — up until now. The current crew of Wolverines says, Why not us? And why not? In the 6-9 Lendeborg, 6-9 sopho- more forward Morez Johnson Jr. and 7-3 center Aday Mara, Michigan enters March Madness with the most formi- dable front line in college basketball, backed by grad forward Will Tschetter. In junior Elliot Cadeau, senior Roddy Gayle Jr., grad Nimari Burnett and freshman Trey McKenney, they've got enough guard power to win it all. They've set their sights on April 6 all year. There's no backing down now. "We want to compete for a champi- onship," May said. "We're going to go on our journey. We're going to do the abso- lute best we can. We've said from Day 1 that when we, early on, felt the weight of expectations on our backs, 'Fellas, we're not playing for other people's ex- pectations. We're not playing for that.' "Now, because our ceiling is so high, if we stay healthy, yes, we can beat any- one in the country on a given night, and we're going to try to do that. But if we fall short at some point, then the only regret would be if we didn't give our best." It's giving season. It's there for the taking season. It's the time of year when teams stamp themselves with all-time greatest labels. That's what the Wolverines want. It's what they've talked about all season. Forget the expectations of others. No expectations exceed their own. "We all had goals and hopes of be- ing the best Michigan team ever assem- bled," Lendeborg said. "But now that we're in the middle of accomplishing that, it's great. It's amazing. … We've got the national championship left. We want nothing less." ❏ WOLVERINE WATCH ❱ JOHN BORTON Hoop Dreams Enter Test Phase Dusty May, in just his second season at the helm, led his U-M squad to a 29-2 overall record (19-1 in the Big Ten). The Wolverines headed into the postseason as the top seed in the Big Ten Tournament and were an almost certain No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL Senior writer John Borton has been with The Wolverine since 1991. Contact him at jborton@thewolverine.com and follow him on X (Twitter) @JB_Wolverine.