The Michigan Wolverines (37-3 straight up, 19-21 against the spread) beat UConn 69-63 in Monday’s NCAA Tournament finals at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to win their first national title in men’s basketball since 1989.
The Huskies covered the spread as 6.5-point underdogs to improve to 19-1 ATS in their last 20 NCAA Tournament games. The 132 combined points dropped ‘under’ the 146-point total.
Elliot Cadeau was named Most Outstanding Player after leading the winners with 19 points, three rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals. Yaxel Lendeborg added 13 points, while Morez Johnson finished with 12 points, 10 boards and two blocked shots.
“When you bring a group this talented together, and they decide from the beginning that they’re going to do it this way and they never waver and they never change, that’s probably the most uncommon thing in athletics now,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “For these guys to cut down the nets after all they’ve sacrificed is pretty special.”
May, who took Florida Atlantic to the 2023 Final Four, won his first national championship in just his second season in Ann Arbor.
“They’re legit,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “They definitely deserved to win the national championship. They’re clearly the best team in the country this year. They’re just so hard to score against at the rim. I could talk about the 3s that we missed, and I thought we had a lot of good 3s that we missed. But they just made it so tough on us around the rim.
“That was probably what even got us more than the missed 3s was some of those rim shots, all those transition baskets. I think they cut it to four. Could have put some serious game pressure on them. They changed so many shots around the rim. They’re just so tall.”
UConn won the rebounding battle 46-39 thanks to 22 offensive boards, but the Huskies made only 21-of-68 field-goal attempts (31%), 9-of-33 from 3-point range (27%) and 12-of-16 from the free-throw line. Michigan was an abysmal 2-of-15 from long distance (13%), but the Wolverines buried 25-of-28 (89%) from the free-throw line.
“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.”
UConn senior forward Alex Karaban produced 17 points, 11 rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals. Tarris Reed had a double-double with 13 points and 14 boards, but the ‘under’ was a winner on his player prop for points scored (14.5).
Reed went ‘over’ his prop for rebounds (9.5, ‘over’ +113), though. But he made only 4-of-12 FGAs, missing a lot of shots in the paint. Michigan’s Aday Mara didn’t stuff the box score (eight points, four rebounds, one steal and one blocked shot), but UConn went 1-of-9 on FGAs that the 7-foot-3 center contested.
Solo Ball and Braylon Mullins were also in double figures for the Huskies with 11 points apiece, while Malachi Smith had six points, three rebounds, three assists and one steal in 20 minutes of playing time.
Michigan looked like the best team in the country for most of the season. The Wolverines went to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving and destroyed San Diego St. (94-54), Auburn (102-72) and previously-unbeaten Gonzaga (101-61) in a three-day stretch.
A week later, May’s team blasted Rutgers (101-60) and Villanova (89-61) at Crisler Arena. Michigan’s next four wins were by margins of 18 (at Maryland), 52 (vs. La Salle), 41 (vs. McNeese) and 30 points (vs. USC).
After losing a 91-88 decision vs. Wisconsin in Ann Arbor on Jan. 10, Michigan ripped off 11 straight wins, including 10 wins by double-digit margins. The Wolverines won 83-71 at Michigan St. and 91-80 at Purdue.
Michigan lost a 68-63 decision vs. Duke in Washington D.C. on Feb. 21, but it responded with six straight wins to make the Big 10 Tournament finals. Purdue probably played its best game of the season, dropping the Wolverines by an 80-72 score to win the Big Ten Tournament.
The loss turned out to be a good thing for May’s bunch.
“There weren’t any wholesale changes,” May said about the Purdue loss this past weekend. There wasn’t any faith, family and the Michigan Wolverines speech. It was just, ‘Let’s get back to doing what we know are the right things.'”
Michigan did just that Monday in Indy. Unlike 37 years ago at the old Kingdome in Seattle in an overtime thriller against P.J. Carlesimo’s Seton Hall squad in the 1989 NCAA Tournament finals, the Wolverines didn’t need a fortunate call from veteran SEC referee John Clougherty, who whistled the Pirates’ Gerald Green for a block call that was a head scratcher with three seconds remaining.
Clougherty’s gift call sent Rumeal Robinson to the free-throw line for a one-and-one opportunity with his team trailing by one point. Robinson hit the front and back ends to lift Michigan to an 80-79 win.
This time around, there was no overtime, no gift whistle from Clougherty and no controversy whatsoever. It was just Michigan doing the right things and getting the job done to deliver another national title to Ann Arbor.