With eight minutes still left to play against the 12th-best team in the country in a championship matchup Wednesday night, Yaxel Lendeborg checked out of the game for the final time.
As the graduate forward exited the contest, the No. 7 Michigan men’s basketball team led No. 12 Gonzaga by 46 points. Lendeborg had contributed a 20-point, 11-rebound double-double and a plus-minus rating of 49, a number five points higher than the Bulldog’s point total at that same moment.
Lendeborg accepted high fives from smiling teammates and coaches alike as he found his way to a seat on the bench, his very-early exit serving as one last flex on a night where all he did was show off.
“You know, me, I just try my best to get the points up for the guys,” Lendeborg said. “It’s an honor to be a part of a team like this.”
During a week in which he was dominating enough to earn the title of Players Era Tournament MVP while his team surged to the No. 1 overall ranking on Kenpom, Lendeborg saved his best for last in an electric double-double outing during the Wolverines’ routing of Gonzaga Wednesday.
The plays and moments that contributed to Lendeborg’s monstrous net rating on the night were not all created equal. What began as a successful campaign from downtown in the first half morphed into a miniature dunk contest as Michigan’s lead spiraled out of control in the second. And his defensive effort was as felt on the perimeter as it was right underneath the rim.
Junior point guard Elliot Cadeau found Lendeborg on the wing on the Wolverines’ very first possession of the game. Lendeborg squared himself up calmly off the dish and delivered three points, the first bucket on his way to a 15-point first half. He would make his second shot from deep on the night just over a minute later in transition as Michigan jumped out to an 11-3 lead.
That would be it from Lendeborg from beyond the arc in the half, but his night was still just getting started. Hauling in five rebounds and earning three trips to the free throw line in the first half, Lendeborg’s size and physicality was on full display. But his handful of steals and work in the transition game served as Michigan coach Dusty May’s dissertation for starting former center at the 3-spot thus far this season.
Lendeborg racked up another pair of steals and a second block in the second half, alongside six additional rebounds that got him to the double-double mark.
As the Wolverines’ lead surpassed 30 points, the minigames began, their ringleader being no other than Lendeborg.
With college basketball fans watching all across the country, the Tournament MVP delivered three highlight reel dunks in the second half. The first came in coast-to-coast fashion and went with a one-handed tomahawk slam that brought the Michigan bench out of their seats, but it was the second dunk that brought the house down.
Once again in transition, Cadeau forwarded the ball to Lendeborg in the empty Gonzaga half of the court, where he rotated his entire 6-foot-9 frame 180 degrees and delivered a two-hand reverse slam that ignited the Vegas arena.
Jogging back on defense, Lendeborg threw both of his hands on his head, just as many in the stands had, in disbelief of what he had just done. At least, that’s what he played it up as.
After one last exclamation point in the form of an alley-oop courtesy of senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr., Lendeborg’s night was finished.
He watched the remaining seven and a half minutes of an eventual 40-point blowout from the sidelines before getting up to receive the oversized Players Era Tournament MVP ring — a larger-than-life trophy for a similar performance.
