Michigan's Dusty May, Yaxel Lendeborg lead Wolverines' Big Ten awards sweep

The Michigan Wolverines dominated the Big Ten this season, winning the league by four games. Now, it has dominated the conference’s awards cycle.

After a 19-1 run through the Big Ten, honors have poured in for the No. 2-ranked Wolverines. Forward Yaxel Lendeborg has won the Big Ten Player of the Year award from both the coaches and media, also making the conference’s first team. He is Michigan’s first Big Ten Player of the Year since Nik Stauskas in 2013-14.

“He’s still scratching the surface,” head coach Dusty May said on Monday. “As you saw a couple of the plays last night, he had one rebound that I was shocked he could jump that high. And so because he’s so new to the game, he doesn’t understand how impactful he can be. And he’s already incredibly impactful.

“To me, if he’s not Big Ten Player of the Year, then I’ll be shocked. But whatever, he’s done everything. He’s outperformed his contract; he’s outperformed all expectations up to this point, but he still has to get better. And we still have one big goal to chase, actually two big goals to chase in the Big Ten Tournament Championship and in the NCAA Tournament.”

May himself was honored, too. winning the Big Ten Coach of the Year vote from the media. Nebraska’s Fred Hoiberg was voted Coach of the Year by his peers. May is U-M’s first Coach of the Year honoree since Juwan Howard in 2020-21.

Even he would tell you that his staff deserves the recognition, though.

“I could go on for the next three or four hours just talking about those guys,” May said Monday. “Just like our players, that’s our staff’s superpower as well. To see how well they work together, we work together, how we support each other, how we live in our strengths.

“We bring our own unique thing to the table and then try to improve our weaknesses, but it’s very similar to our players. They’re all overqualified for the position they’re in. They’re all probably underpaid market value for what they bring and they’ve all outperformed their contracts as well.

“They’re very deserving of the success we’re having and whatever’s next for them is well earned and they’ve been awesome. You could go down the line, ask our players, ask their families. There’s constant feedback, there’s daily improvement, there’s a real investment in developing human potential in our program.”

The rest of the Michigan honors

Junior center Aday Mara won the Big Ten’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, and shared the All-Defensive team nods with Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr., who was also named to the All-Big Ten second team by the media and third team by the coaches. Mara was also a third-team honoree per both the coaches and media.

Michigan’s three defensive team members match how many it has had combined over the last two decades, with Zavier Simpson (2018-19), Jordan Morgan (2012-13) and Ekpe Udoh (2007-08) being the last three players named.

Michigan’s guards also took home some hardware, with Trey McKenney being named to the All-Freshman team. Illinois guard Keaton Wagler took home the Freshman of the Year honors. Point guard Elliot Cadeau was named an honorable mention All-Big Ten performer by the media.