The Wolverines beat UConn 69–63 Monday night to claim their first national title since 1989, setting Ann Arbor on fire literally.
Ann Arbor was supposed to sleep Monday night. It didn’t.
Forty fires. Two arrests. More than forty street signs damaged. The Ann Arbor Police Department reported a large presence on the streets as thousands of Wolverines fans poured out of bars, out of living rooms, and out of their minds after Michigan beat UConn 69–63 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to claim the 2026 NCAA men’s basketball championship the program’s first title since 1989.
It wasn’t pretty. Michigan went 0-for-11 from three in the first half and missed its first 11 attempts from deep in the second. Yaxel Lendeborg, the graduate transfer from UAB who’d carried this team all season, played hurt bad knee, bad foot and finished 4-for-13 from the floor. Style points? None. A trophy? Absolutely.
“They might be still calling us mercenaries but we’re the hardest-working team. We’re the best in college basketball and we’ll be one of the greatest ever.” – Yaxel Lendeborg
Elliot Cadeau, named the Final Four’s most outstanding player, led with 19 points and hit the team’s first three-pointer after an 0-for-11 start. Freshman Trey McKenney’s dagger from deep with 1:50 left Michigan’s only second 3-pointer of the night pushed the lead to nine and, in that moment, 37 years of waiting collapsed all at once.
All five Michigan starters played college ball somewhere else before coming to Ann Arbor. Critics called them mercenaries. Coach Dusty May, just two years removed from an 8-24 disaster, calls them his.
For Michigan fans who remember the Fab Five who remember Chris Webber’s timeout that wasn’t this one lands differently. The Fab Five never brought home a banner. This bunch of transfers, this stitched-together squad that nobody quite believed in until they couldn’t stop winning, finally did.
The Big Ten hasn’t had a men’s basketball champion since Michigan State in 2000. That drought is over. The fires along State Street have been put out. The nets are in Ann Arbor now.
