INDIANAPOLIS — High-scoring Michigan had to get down and dirty to dig out the national title Monday, making only two three-pointers all night but still muscling its way to a 69-63 victory over stingy, stubborn Connecticut.
Elliot Cadeau led the Wolverines with 19 points, including the team’s first three-pointer, which came 7:04 into the second half. The second, from freshman Trey McKenney, came with 1:50 left and felt like a dagger, giving the Wolverines a nine-point lead.
To no one’s surprise, UConn fought to the finish — Solo Ball banked in a three to cut it to four with 37 seconds left — and after two missed free throws, UConn’s Alex Karaban (17 points) barely grazed the rim on a three that would’ve cut the deficit to one with 17 seconds left.
Not until McKenney sank two free throws to bring Michigan’s shooting from the line to 25 for 28 for the night could the Wolverines (37-3) kick off the celebration for the program’s second title — the other coming in 1989.
But this game had a 1950s feel to it.
Michigan had to fight for everything. The Wolverines missed their first 11 shots from three, finished two for 15 from there and won despite the struggles of their best player, Yaxel Lendeborg. Ailing with a hurt knee and foot that kept him from elevating, the graduate transfer from Alabama Birmingham finished with 13 points on four-of-13 shooting.
Truth be told, it wasn’t anyone’s prettiest night.
UConn’s hopes at becoming the first team since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty to win three titles in four seasons came up short, done in by massive foul trouble and its own terrible shooting.
Coach Dan Hurley’s team shot 30.9% from the floor and missed its first 11 shots from three in the second half.
Braylon Mullins, the hero of the Duke win that put UConn in the Final Four, finished four of 17, though he made a pair of late threes that kept the game in reach.
UConn (35-5) covered the 6½-point spread, and Hurley kept his players out on the court to watch the podium get set up for the presentation of a trophy heading not to Storrs, but Ann Arbor.
About the only consolation: The Huskies clogged things up, slowed things down and made Michigan beat them at their game.
The Wolverines came in as the first team to crack 90 points in five straight high-flying tournament blowouts. They didn’t hit 70 in this one but, in almost every way, it was the prettiest of them all — the one that gives them what even Michigan’s most famous teams, the Fab Five, couldn’t manage — namely, a national championship.
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