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Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg vows to win National Championship for Fab Five
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- Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg vows to win National Championship for Fab Five
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Chris Webber , Jalen Rose , Juwan Howard , Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson never brought the Michigan basketball program a national championship. The Fab Five may be the greatest team in school history, but if Dusty May's 2026 squad can bring home the title, they may leapfrog the school's most famous team. After beating Arizona 91-73 to reach the final game of March Madness , Wolverines star Yaxel Lendeborg said his team is honoring the Fab Five during this run.
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"It's going to take a full 40 minutes of fighting and bringing our best effort," Lendeborg said when asked what it would take to beat UConn and become the best Michigan basketball team ever. "We have the squad to do it. We all love each other, and that plays a big part in the games like Monday night. So, we're going to do the best we can, and the Fab Five is here, so we're going to do the best to honor those guys, too."
A 2026 title would be the second national championship for the Michigan basketball program. Steve Fisher won the 1989 title after surprisingly taking over for Bill Friedel right before March Madness . That was a Cinderella run for the Wolverines, so that team is not considered the best in program history.
Two seasons later, Fisher brought in five freshmen from Detroit (Webber and Rose), Chicago (Howard), and Texas (King and Jackson), leading to one of the biggest cultural phenomena in college basketball history. While the Fab Five changed the way the game looked and was played, that group never won a championship.
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In 1991-92, they reached the final game of March Madness only to fall to Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley's Duke team. A year later, they lost in the same spot to Eric Montross and North Carolina after Webber infamously called a timeout with none left late in a two-point game.
While the 2025-26 Wolverines may ultimately accomplish more, they have nowhere near the cultural significance (or likely overall talent) that the Fab Five did. Additionally, this year's squad feels a bit mercenary, especially when compared to the homegrown Fab Five. This year's starting five includes transfers from UAB (Yaxel Lendeborg), North Carolina (Elliott Cadeau), UCLA (Aday Mara), Illinois (Morez Johnson Jr.), and Alabama via Texas Tech (Nimari Burnett).
Related: Michigan basketball's biggest X-factor in national title game vs. UConn
