Yaxel Lendeborg’s second-half explosion offers glimpse of his potential

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Among the players on the No. 7 Michigan men’s basketball team who were looking for answers after a shaky first half was Yaxel Lendeborg, the talented 6-foot-9 graduate forward who turned down the NBA draft to commit to Michigan this offseason.

Lendeborg, who had only scored five points on six shots in 15 first-half minutes, bore little resemblance to the dynamic, athletic shot-maker and play-creator that the Wolverines saw in practice and on film when they recruited him. And Michigan, even without sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr. and junior center Aday Mara, looked like a basketball team that had never played an actual game together, down 52-34 with a 5-to-14 assist-to-turnover ratio in the first 20 minutes.

So on his walk from the bench to the locker room at halftime, Lendeborg turned to Aaron Johnson, his trainer from UAB, for advice.

“He just said it to me straight,” Lendeborg said. “You know, ‘I’m playing soft, and I should be dominating these guys.’ When he says it, it just puts it in a different perspective for me. And I tried it one time, it worked. (I) looked at him, said, ‘Thank you,’ and then just kept going.”

In just a few plays, Lendeborg went from being relatively uninvolved to the focal point of the Wolverines’ offense.

After a missed three from Cincinnati and a steal from junior point guard Elliot Cadeau put Michigan in transition, Lendeborg made his first 3-pointer of the second half on an assist from Cadeau. He didn’t slow down from there, taking the ball on a fast break a few possessions later and driving to the rim twice for consecutive and-one finishes.

Less than three minutes had transpired in the second half, and Lendeborg had already scored 9 of Michigan’s 12 second-half points to cut the deficit to 11.

“It just got to a point where they need me to be more, or do more,” Lendeborg said. “And I just thought ‘attack and be more aggressive,’ and just using my physical talents to make extra plays and get extra points up for our team.”