Entering this NCAA Tournament, few had heard of Arizona Western College, which is a JUCO located in Yuma. However, Yaxel Lendeborg put it on the map quickly as he and the No. 1-seeded Michigan Wolverines bullied their way to a national men’s basketball title over UConn on Monday night.
The 6-foot-9 senior played through a bone bruise after rolling his left ankle in Saturday’s Final Four game against Arizona, in which he hit two crucial 3-pointers in the second half despite the ailment. Against UConn in a 69-63 win, he played 36 minutes and scored 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting and 5-of-5 from the free-throw line.
In a true show of competitive spirit, Lendeborg saw more action than anyone else on his team in the biggest game of his life. All on a so-so leg and six years after he began to get his life back on track thanks to the prodding on his mother, Yissel.
In February, Lendeborg wrote about how his mother saved his life in 2019 when he was a senior in high school, stating she made him realize “how bad it had gotten.”
“I was still ‘attending school,’ in that I would walk in the front door of the school. But that was about it,” Lendeborg wrote.
So, instead of going immediately to a Division 1 program, he went from his Pennsauken, New Jersey home out west to Arizona.
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Before becoming the 2025-26 Big Ten Player of the Year, Lendeborg was a National Junior College Athletic Association All-American, suiting up for Matadors in 78 games across three seasons (2020-23). He was facing the likes of Glendale Community College and Eastern Arizona before he could face Michigan State and Illinois.
He spent two years with the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers and only then, as a graduate student, did Lendeborg make it to a major conference with a major opportunity.
“My teammates didn’t give up on me,” Lendeborg said in a postgame interview on Monday.
He averaged 18 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists in Michigan’s six NCAA Tournament games that ended in the program’s second national title.
“I’m the new guy around here … so it’s the least that I can do,” Lendeborg said of playing through pain during the trophy presentation.
Yissel wiped tears from her eyes in the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium, knowing her boy not only had grown up, but was a champion.
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