Michigan built a roster full of transfers who pushed it to national title

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Michigan's Roddy Gayle Jr. snagged a final rebound, then flung the ball to the other end of the court, effectively ending UConn's frantic bid for a miracle. The horn sounded, and Morez Johnson Jr. came over to share a celebratory scream and hearty hug — from one transfer to another — as the Wolverines began running toward midcourt to celebrate a national championship. Maybe a school really can build an ideal college basketball roster amid the topsy-turvy chaos of the transfer portal, paying players and top-to-bottom overhauls. Michigan proved it Monday night, rolling out an all-transfer starting lineup that was too big, too strong and too capable of countering anything that UConn could muster — even on a night when the 3-point shot wasn't falling and All-American Yaxel Lendeborg was hobbled by ankle and knee injuries. The Wolverines still had enough to hold off the Huskies 69-63 and claim the program's first title in 37 years. And they showed how second-year Dusty May assembled a resilient roster by diving all the way into the portal. "Man, this whole year, we were a team that played together," Lendeborg said as he stood amid the confetti on the court at Lucas Oil Stadium. "We didn't have a best player, like I said before. We have a guy that steps up big-time in these games. "We have players that make plays when they need to make them. And we just played a full all-around team basketball game today. We did it." It didn't matter that the Wolverines shot just 38% while making 2 of 15 3-pointers — stunning numbers for a team that entered the NCAA Tournament ranked No. 8 nationally in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency (126.6 points per 100 possessions). It didn't matter that they were outrebounded — and gave up an incredible 22 offensive boards. Nor that Lendeborg carried an awkward gait as he grinded his way through a 4-for-13 shooting effort in 36 minutes after twisting his left ankle and spraining a knee ligament in Saturday's win over Arizona in the Final Four. Not the way these guys complemented each other on the sport's biggest stage. Point guard Elliot Cadeau, in his first season after two up-and-down years at North Carolina, had 19 points and was named the Final Four's most outstanding player. Johnson, in his first year from Illinois, had 12 points and 10 rebounds. The 7-foot-3 Aday Mara, in his first year from UCLA, helped hold UConn big man Tarris Reed Jr. — who had been a March Madness force — to just 4-of-12 shooting. "Nobody cared about stats the whole season. Nobody cared about nothing but winning," Cadeau said. Four of Michigan's five starters were in their first year after transferring: Cadeau, Johnson, Mara and Lendeborg (UAB). The fifth starter, Nimari Burnett, was practically a Michigan lifer by comparison; he was in his third season with the Wolverines, after starting his career at Texas Tech then spending two years at Alabama. A similar story followed Gayle, a reserve who had spent two years at rival Ohio State before these last two years in Ann Arbor. That left only two players in Michigan's eight-man rotation who would qualify as "homegrown" talent: freshman Trey McKenney and fifth-year graduate Will Tschetter. It's an approach that tailored to the current era of the sport, with players transferring freely between campuses and cleared to profit from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL), along with schools able to pay athletes directly with the arrival of revenue sharing. Purists have complained that the revolving door of players makes it harder for fans to get behind their schools than it was when most players spent multiple seasons in the same uniform. Transfers even featured prominently in an executive order signed last week by President Donald Trump seeking to reform college sports. May shrugged off the critics on Sunday, noting, "I think we are all better in certain situations than others." Athletic director Warde Manuel offered a similar defense on the court Monday night after the program claimed its first national title since the Glen Rice-led Wolverines cut down the nets in Seattle in 1989. "A lot of teams around the country benefited from transfers," Manuel said. "You can't just say, 'Well, Michigan had the most transfers.' Dusty put this team together the way he did." And it worked to perfection. By the end, Mara was jumping around with a few teammates after they had watched the "One Shining Moment" music montage of tournament highlights, with someone picking up a handful of confetti and tossing it into the air to flutter around them. "It's important to get the right people on the bus," assistant coach Justin Joyner said. "It's important to get unselfish guys that are about winning, that are about the group. We had that with the best of our players. Yaxel Lendeborg's one of the most unselfish superstars you'll ever be around. "So when you have that from the top, it permeates through your locker room, it permeates through your group. And eventually you can become a unit that's about winning." ___ This story corrects a typo in McKenney's last name. ___ AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness