Michigan basketball will be going up against UConn in the national title game, and both teams are looking to be at full strength for the matchup. For the Wolverines, they had an injury to their star player, Yaxel Lendeborg, in the Final Four game against Arizona.
He was injured with around nine minutes left in the first half of the game when he twisted his ankle on the foot of an Arizona player. He left the game and went to the locker room, and didn't return for the remainder of the half. He came back out in the second half and played around nine minutes, and made two three-pointers.
After the game, Lendeborg noted that he was going to play in the title game regardless of what was going on with his knee. Well, this is his injury status ahead of the game.
Yaxel Lendeborg's injury status vs. UConn
From the looks of it, it seems as if Leneborg will play against UConn, and he's very optimistic that he'll be on the court, according to ESPN's Pete Thamel.
“Michigan trainer Chris Williams told ESPN the MRI on Yaxel Lendeborg’s knee looks ‘very clean structurally, all the ligaments are very strong.' He says Lendeborg has a ‘low-grade' MCL sprain and a ‘small bone bruise' in his knee. He's ‘very optimistic' Lendeborg will play, Thamel wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
It's uncertain how much pain Lendeborg will be in, and with it only being a two-day turnaround, he couldn't have gotten that much rest on it. At the same time, there's a good chance the medical staff was working on his knee around the clock to make sure he's in the best possible shape.
It's uncertain how effective Lendeborg will be on the knee as well, so that is something to keep an eye on.
