INDIANAPOLIS — As the song “One Shining Moment” began to fill Lucas Oil Stadium, Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg tried his best to maintain focus while answering the rapid-fire questions coming from the reporters surrounding him.

But Lendeborg abruptly stopped speaking as the video reached its concluding sequence, which began with the NCAA tournament title game opening tip and ended with the Wolverines on the podium.

“That was crazy,” said Lendeborg, his arms draped around teammates Trey McKenney and Roddy Gayle Jr. “That was really crazy.”

On a night Lendeborg’s team celebrated its first national championship in 37 years, a sprained ankle and bruised knee kept the 70,000 fans in attendance from seeing Michigan’s best player at the top of his game. But despite being hobbled, Lendeborg deserves credit for putting his health on the line to help his team conclude a 37-win season with a title.

“I played terrible, but you know, I still had fun and we won the championship,” Lendeborg, 23, said on the court following the win. “I know I get a long break after this, so I’m going to do the best I can to recover.”

Lendeborg’s play fell far short of his performance for most of this season that earned him Big Ten Player of the Year and consensus first-team All-America honors. He missed nine of 13 shots, including all five 3-point attempts, and grabbed just two rebounds, willing himself to 13 points and a block.

After air-balling a 3-pointer in the second half, Lendeborg left the game, pulling his jersey out of his shorts in obvious frustration.

“I couldn’t get any lift, couldn’t make any moves and missed some easy bunnies,” said Lendeborg, who played a team-high 36 minutes. “My leg hurts real bad. It hurts right now. I felt like I was hurting the team, but I did the best I could.”

At least Lendeborg, known to teammates as Dominican ‘Bron, had a reason for his poor shooting. The execution on offense for both teams? Let’s just say video showing the offense of this game isn’t worth preserving, as UConn shot 30.9% to Michigan’s 38.2%.

Winning a championship concludes an incredible journey for Lendeborg who, at his best, demonstrates all the tools necessary for NBA stardom. He started his college career at Arizona Western (earning second-team junior college All-America honors) and then spent two seasons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he led the NCAA with 26 double-doubles last year.

As the top player in the NCAA transfer portal following his second season at UAB, Lendeborg chose Michigan, which pooled its resources to pay top dollar for four players who wound up in the starting lineup. Credit the Wolverines players with buying into a system where a group of individuals who could have been the main guy at other programs made sacrifices in pursuit of a title.

“Those Twitter warriors, they’re gonna hate the way we did it,” Lendeborg said. “We did all we could; the mercenaries showed up, and now we’re national champions. So, it doesn’t matter what anybody says.”

What you should say about Lendeborg: He’s extremely tough to even take the court after being injured early in the national semifinal against Arizona, a game in which he logged just 14 minutes. And, in the words of Michigan head coach Dusty May, “played the second half like a 38-year-old at the YMCA.”

Prior to coming to Michigan, there were questions about Lendeborg’s maturity. He even admits to being “a goofy kid,” which is clear to anyone who’s watched his social media videos and saw him wield a belt after each of the Final Four wins.

“We’ve challenged Yax to think about how he’s perceived,” May said after Michigan’s Elite Eight win last week. “We didn’t expect Yax to have the best practice habits because once he got here, he didn’t have them. But we also tried to pull every single day and just get him a little bit closer, and we didn’t judge him.”

In addition to the coaches not judging him, his teammates fully embraced Lendeborg.

“For me, the whole University of Michigan welcomed me with open arms,” Lendeborg said Monday. “And shout out to Will [Tschetter], Roddy [Gayle Jr.], Nimari [Burnett], and L.J. [Cason]. They could have easily gotten hurt or something because the new guys were coming in, stealing their minutes, stealing their points, but they didn’t care. All they cared about was winning, and look where it led us.”

Where it led Michigan was to the school’s first national championship since 1989, with Lendeborg’s play this season improving his status in the NBA draft. Some projections have Lendeborg as a lottery pick. A recent ESPN draft board had Lendeborg at No. 12.

Lendeborg put all of those projections at risk playing on the injured leg.

“I hope I didn’t mess anything up more than it already was,” Lendeborg said “It took a lot to get on the court. … I was dealing with a lot of mental issues today. These guys all leaned in on me and helped me out, helped me dig myself out of the hole and just continue to keep fighting.”

For Lendeborg, the health risks leading to “One Shining Moment” proved to be worth it, even while not being physically capable of being the best version of himself.

“I did the best I could,” he said. “This is the best year of my life. I’m super grateful to be here and to win a championship.”

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