Michigan basketball landed the top player in the Transfer Portal this cycle when Yaxel Lendeborg signed with the Wolverines.
The former UAB star, who considered the NBA Draft before withdrawing and signing with Dusty May's program, is considered among the best bigs in the country and raises expectations for the coach's second year in Ann Arbor. He joins the roster alongside Elliot Cadeau (North Carolina), Morez Johnson Jr. (Illinois) and Aday Mara (UCLA) as they complement Trey McKenney, Nimari Burnett, Roddy Gayle Jr., Will Tschetter and others with the goal of improving on last season's run to the Sweet Sixteen.
Last season, Lendeborg averaged 17.7 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.7 steals per game at UAB. He's a two-time AAC Defensive Player of the Year and first-team All-AAC and was projected as a late first-round pick had he stayed in the NBA Draft.
Now that Lendeborg has officially signed with Michigan, coaches can speak publicly about what he'll bring to the Wolverines this winter. Dusty May joined Brian Boesch on "Defend the Block" this week to break down the recruitment and Lendeborg's projected impact. Here's what he said:
Dusty May on how Michigan recruited Yaxel Lendeborg
We knew Yax from competing against him. I coached [against him] at UAB. We were friendly with their staff. We were very familiar with everything around him. We thought at the end of the day, we might have a chance to recruit him if he went into the Portal.
In the back of our minds, we were just monitoring the situation after they lost. He came up with a very concise plan of what he was going to do. Immediately after going into the Portal, myself and the staff drove to Chicago where he was interviewing or meeting with agents.
We asked if we could carve out an hour or two just to visit face-to-face. Some other schools did that as well. They immediately narrowed everything down to just a handful of schools that they were considering based on what he was looking for and what was important to him. It moved pretty quickly at that point.
We also felt like this was a year that we could gamble on someone who we thought was the most productive, best player in the Portal.
What I mean is some years you can't wait this long. In this case, we felt like we had the roster depth, the positional size across the board where we could roll the dice and go the duration with someone like Yax. Fortunately, it paid off because he raises our ceiling exponentially.
Dusty May on Yaxel Lendeborg's role at Michigan and how it impacts the roster
The beautiful thing about Yax is we think we can play him all over the board. We have guys that can slide up, can slide down.
Even when you look at the guys we brought in, one of the things that Elliot Cadeau's prep school coach said was that he's one of the best, toughest switching defenders for his size that he's ever been around. It's more about who you can defend. Elliot is able to guard bigger, stronger guys because of his competitive spirit.
Then you look at Morez and you look at Will Tschetter. Will Tschetter graded out as one of our best on-ball defenders last year on the perimeter. You add Yax, who's very similar to Will and Morez, you add some switchability. The more players we have that can slide up and down the lineup and play different positions just gives us more versatility, more options to go in any direction on either side of the ball.
Obviously, everyone we sign each year, especially older players, is going to have an impact on everyone else. As a program that's striving to be championship level, we have to be much more concerned with maximizing our minutes and playing at an optimal performance level versus counting how many minutes we're playing. We're all going to have to sacrifice, but hopefully we're sacrificing to win championships.
Dusty May compares Yaxel Lendeborg and Danny Wolf
They're very similar in that they're both big players who are skilled. They're different in how they approach things, but the one thing about Yax: We think he'll be able to unlock some playmaking ability here.
Once again, that league is a lot different. It's smaller. It's more athletic. We were able to play extremely small at FAU. In the Big Ten, he'll be defended by much bigger players a lot of the time. He'll be able to use his speed and his quickness. But the one thing about Yax is when he draws to, the ball comes out of his hands probably as well as anyone that we've recruited in the last several years where he has a really good feel for playing team basketball.
You don't really have to change a lot. We'll just simply use him as a weapon, as a queen on a chessboard, like Derik Queen at Maryland, like Danny Wolf, guys that can create, make plays. Obviously, Vlad had a lot to do with Danny's success, and then our shooting and cutting ability of Nimari and Roddy and Tre and those guys.
A lot goes into it, but we do think with Aday, his ability to play above the rim, his ability to pass it, we will have some unique abilities on offense again because of the size and skill level of those guys.