So, Yaxel Lendeborg is an amazing player, but I hate some of the things that he says. There was a big debate because he mentioned Alabama didn’t recruit him and that Kentucky offered him $7 million to $9 million in NIL to transfer there before he chose Michigan, but he turned it down and took the $5 million offer for the Wolverines since it was a better fit. Both Alabama’s Nate Oats and Kentucky’s Mark Pope denied Yaxel’s claims, but who knows what is the truth.
But his press conference after the Alabama game really angered the Lunatic. To be fair, there are probably more viral things that I should be blogging about, but this for some reason has stuck with me.
Early in the second half, Lendeborg faked a drive to the basket, and literally caused Alabama’s Amari Allen to fall to the ground. Lenderborg made the step-back three and then stayed in his shooting pose over Allen to rub it in.
In the press conference, he said, “Honestly, I kinda felt a little disrespected having a freshman guarding me. I think that’s the first time I’ve made somebody fall since like middle school.”
So, it bothers me that he would basically make it sound like a freshman averaging 11.4 points per game is as bad as a middle-schooler is horribly respectful to Allen. I am sure he was embarrassed enough by falling to the ground. I am sure he was then really upset as Yaxel posed over him to continue to bring attention to it. To then compare him to a middle-schooler is totally uncalled for.
But here is my biggest problem. Lets assume that Nate Oats is going to put his tallest starter on 7’3″ Aday Mara. So, that takes away sophomore Aiden Sherrell. Lets also assume that Oats is not going to throw one of his two guards on him and give up 5-6 inches. So, that leaves the 6’8″ freshman Allen, or the 6’8″ freshman Jemison. Alabama’s starting two forwards are freshmen, so they were going to have to guard him with freshmen.
If Yaxel is going to be offended by playing against 19 year olds, then maybe the 23 year old shouldn’t have transferred to Michigan this year to play his 6th year of college basketball thanks to rules about JUCO eligibility (since he played his first three years at Arizona Western).
Well, Lindeborg is going to end up being disrespected again. Because chances are is that based on the Arizona Wildcats starting lineup, they are either going to put 6’8″ freshman Koa Peat or 6’7″ Ivan Kharchenkov on him. Of course, I suspect if you ask Purdue’s front-line, they will say that the two freshmen are pretty formidable defenders.
If Illinois beats UConn, they might choose to put their smaller forward at 6’6″, Jake Davis, since he is a junior. But more likely, they will put 6’9″ David Mirkovic on him, and of course, Mirkovic is a freshman.
So, Lindeborg will most likely only get the respect he wants if they beat Arizona on Saturday, and end up playing the UConn Huskies – since the two forwards for the Huskies, Alex Karaban and Tarris Reed, Jr are both seniors. Although since Reed will likely get forced to guard Mara and UConn plays three guards, there is a possibility the Huskies have to have their tallest guard sometimes defend Lindeborg – that of course is freshman Braylon Mullins.
The other part that leads to just silliness of all of this is that if Michigan runs a good offense, there will be times where screens and picks will cause the defense to switch defenders. So, it could be that it wasn’t the other teams disrespecting him by putting a freshman on him as much as Michigan’s offensive scheme forcing a freshman to guard him.
Anyways, if you remove the tallest person from each team, since that person likely would have to guard Mara, the options are 4 freshmen, a junior and a senior. So, most likely Yaxel will have to just settle on being disrespected more. What he considers disrespectful is going to end up being a logistical reality.