Shortly after star UAB transfer Yaxel Lendeborg officially announced his withdrawal from the NBA Draft — thus reinforcing his commitment to Dusty May and the Michigan Wolverines — May joined Brian Boesch, the voice of Michigan basketball, on an episode of the 'Defend the Block' podcast, which was released Tuesday morning.

May addressed the entire roster, breaking down Michigan's incoming transfers, freshmen and returners, but the main focus was, of course, on Lendeborg. The 6-foot-9, 240-pound forward was almost unanimously thought of as the best player in the Transfer Portal, and his commitment to the Wolverines immediately made May's 2025-26 squad one of the best in the Big Ten and a bona fide national title contender.

The Michigan head coach explained the recruitment process and what it took to land Lendeborg.

"We thought at the end of the day, we might have a chance to recruit him if he went into the portal," May said. "And so, in the back of our minds, we were kind of just monitoring the situation after they lost. He [Lendeborg] came up with a very concise plan of what he was going to do, and immediately after going into the portal, myself and the staff drove to Chicago, where he was interviewing or meeting with agents. And we asked if we could just carve out an hour or two just to visit face-to-face. And some other schools did that as well."

"And they immediately narrowed everything down to just a handful of schools that they were considering based on what he was looking for and what was important to him. And it moved pretty quickly at that point. But we also felt like this was a year that we could gamble on someone we thought, who we felt was the best player, and the most productive, best player in the portal."

Of course, Lendeborg committed to Michigan but wanted to test the NBA Draft waters. After competing at the NBA Draft Combine in May, the star forward announced that he would remove his name from NBA Draft consideration and enroll at Michigan for his final season of college basketball.

May explained what makes Lendeborg such a key addition to next year's team.

"The beautiful thing about Yax is we think we can play him all over the board. And so we have guys that can slide up, slide down. ... We'll simply use him as a weapon — as a queen on a chessboard — like Derik Queen at Maryland, like Danny Wolf, just guys that can create and make plays."

"He raises our ceiling exponentially."

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