Michigan celebrates after defeating UConn in the NCAA college basketball tournament national championship game at the Final Four, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Indianapolis.Michael Conroy/AP
INDIANAPOLIS – High-scoring Michigan had to get down and dirty to dig out the national title Monday, making only two 3-pointers all night but still muscling its way to a 69-63 victory 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 the coach Dusty May’s team full of transfers a nine-point lead.
To no one’s surprise, UConn fought to the finish. Solo Ball banked in a 3 to cut it to four with 37 seconds left – and after two missed free throws, UConn’s Alex Karaban (17 points) barely grazed the rim on a 3 that would’ve cut the deficit to one with 17 seconds left.
Michigan also got outrebounded 22-12 on the offensive glass by a UConn team that would not go away. Not until McKenney sank two free throws to bring Michigan’s shooting from the line to 25 for 28 for the night could the Wolverines (37-3) kick off the celebration for the program’s second title – the other coming in 1989.
But this game had a 1950s feel to it.
“If you’d told me we would shoot it this poorly and (be) 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.”
About the only consolation: The Huskies clogged things up, slowed things down and made Michigan beat them at their game.
The Wolverines came in as the first team to crack 90 points in five straight high-flying tournament blowouts. They didn’t hit 70 in this one but, in almost every way, it was the prettiest 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 outside – 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’s the product of the transfer portal that May has shown no reluctance to use. His ability to form a makeshift group into a winner is still the value of a coach and a culture.
“They might be still calling us mercenaries but we’re the hardest-working team,” Lendenborg said. “We’re the best in college basketball and we’ll be one of the greatest ever.”
