INDIANAPOLIS — Before Michigan took the floor to face Gonzaga in the title game of the Players Era Championship in November, Elliot Cadeau made a comment to his teammates.
“We’re the best team ever assembled,” he said.
Michigan proceeded to go out and beat Gonzaga by 40.
From that point on, the Wolverines were the most dominant team in the country — and they ended Monday the same way they looked back on Thanksgiving Eve: as the best team in college basketball.
Michigan put an exclamation point on a historic season in Monday’s national championship game, beating UConn 69-63. Cadeau was named Most Outstanding Player after finishing with 19 points.
The Wolverines won the program’s first national championship since 1989 — and became the first team to beat UConn in the Sweet 16 or later since Michigan State beat the Huskies in the 2009 Final Four.
UConn’s plan from the outset wasn’t much different from the first few rounds of the NCAA tournament: Get the ball to Tarris Reed Jr. He attempted three of the Huskies’ first four shots but struggled to finish against the length and size of Michigan’s Aday Mara. The Wolverines’ edge in that area was a factor at the other end, too, with three offensive rebounds and six points in the paint before the first media timeout.
The first 15 minutes of the game, however, mostly trended in UConn’s direction. The Huskies kept Michigan out of transition, with the Wolverines having zero fast-break points in the first half and only one real opportunity to get out and run. Michigan tried to pressure the Huskies defensively and speed the game up, but UConn was able to take care of the ball. Much of that credit went to Malachi Smith, who gave UConn coach Dan Hurley great minutes as Silas Demary Jr. was on the bench with foul trouble. Smith had four quick points and held his own against Michigan’s backcourt.
UConn was controlling the tempo, holding its own on the backboards and getting a boost from Michigan’s shooting struggles; the Wolverines went 0-for-8 from 3-point range in the opening period.
The Huskies’ Solo Ball showed no ill effects from a sprained foot suffered in the Final Four, scoring 12 first-half points despite also picking up two fouls, but Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg (knee, ankle) looked a shell of the player who earned All-American and Big Ten Player of the Year honors. He played all 20 first-half minutes but went 1-for-5 from the field and was ineffective at both ends of the floor.
“I feel awful, I feel super weak right now,” Lendeborg said on the broadcast at halftime. “I can’t make anything … I played really soft in that first half.”
The Wolverines overcame their shooting issues by dominating two areas familiar to them: the paint and the free throw line. They had a combined 33 first-half points from those areas, compared with UConn’s 12. With two first-half fouls apiece on Ball, Demary and Reed, one of UConn’s Achilles’ heels was showing up at the wrong time.
Michigan’s first big momentum shift came on a hook-and-hold call against Alex Karaban with 3:16 left in the first half. It jump-started a 6-0 run for the Wolverines in 46 seconds and sparked a 10-4 surge to finish the half and give Michigan a 33-29 lead entering the break.
Foul trouble continued to be a theme for UConn in the second half. Ball picked up his third and fourth fouls, and Demary picked up his third foul before the first media timeout after halftime.
A Cadeau three-point play on Ball’s fourth foul put Michigan up seven with 16:20 to go — Michigan’s largest lead of the game to that point.
“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,” Wolverines coach Dusty May said. “This team just found a way all season.”
The Huskies had gone cold offensively, and Michigan, inevitably, started getting more efficient on the offensive end. Cadeau hit the Wolverines’ first 3-pointer of the game at the 12:56 mark of the second half to put them up 11 — on the same play Lendeborg grabbed his first rebound and registered his first assist.
UConn was teetering and looked out of answers. The Huskies missed 13 consecutive 3-pointers at one point in the game.
Entering the final four minutes of the game, UConn was 5-for-21 on its first-shot offense in the second half, per ESPN Research, and the Huskies were 1-for-9 on shots contested by Mara. Michigan’s size and length around the rim — four blocks after halftime — were a major deterrent.
The Huskies were unable to string together sustained momentum and put real game pressure on Michigan down the stretch. The Wolverines were open to letting them back in the game, but UConn failed to put together three or four possessions in a row of stops and makes. A Karaban contest and rebound gave UConn the ball with a five-point deficit, but he turned the ball over on the next possession, which resulted in a Mara alley-oop finish to push Michigan’s lead back to seven.
UConn had another opportunity to cut the lead to four with two minutes left but failed to convert a transition opportunity. Michigan went down the other end, and Trey McKenney buried a dagger 3 to give the Wolverines a nine-point lead.
