UConn’s Solo Ball, Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg dealing with injuries heading into title game
INDIANAPOLIS — UConn starting guard Solo Ball limped from room to room Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium, a protective boot on his sprained left foot. Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg didn’t even do that much because of an injured left ankle and an injured left knee. Just one day before the teams meet in Monday night’s national championship game, the big question for both was the health of two key playmakers.
Neither was expected to practice Sunday as they focused instead on getting as much treatment as possible, even as teammates and the players themselves insisted the stars would play Monday night. The coaches, Dan Hurley and Dusty May, also tried to lighten the mood before college basketball’s biggest game of the season. “I’m sure he’ll give it a go tomorrow, but that will be entirely up to him and the medical staff,” May said as he updated the playing status of Lendeborg, a first team All-American.
“He’ll tell me if he can go and we were laughing because he played the second half, but he played the second half like a 38-year-old at the YMCA — a really good 38-year-old at the YMCA. So whatever version we get of Yaxel we get, it’s going to be somebody that helps us play better basketball. ” Lendeborg played just five minutes of the first half before getting hurt in Saturday’s 91-73 victory over Arizona, which sent Michigan (36-3) to its first title game since 2018.
He finished with 11 points and three rebounds in 15 minutes and made two 3-pointers in the second half. But he hardly resembled the guy who was named the Big Ten’s Player of the Year. When Lendeborg was asked whether missing Monday night’s game was a possibility, Lendeborg emphatically told reporters in the locker room, “absolutely not.
” He reinjured the ankle he initially hurt in the Big Ten Tournament championship game. The knee injury was a new one and Lendeborg said, at worst, he was told it was a sprained medial collateral ligament. May said MRI results came back clean Sunday.