Will the Big Ten FINALLY breakthrough with Michigan? Or will UCONN cement its legacy?

Will the Big Ten drought finally end? On this episode of the Splash City Basketball Podcast, host Steve Hartman breaks down a lopsided Final Four weekend that has set the stage for a historic Monday night in Indianapolis.

Steve dives into why UConn is the modern dynasty of the sport and how their "European-style" movement system left Illinois gassed in the semi-finals. Then, we look at the Michigan juggernaut—a team that just "smacked" Arizona despite their best player, Yaxel Lendeborg, being sidelined by fouls and injury. Steve explains why Michigan’s defensive flexibility and veteran "juice" make them his pick to take home the 2026 title.

We also head to Phoenix to celebrate UCLA’s dominant Women’s National Championship run and discuss the controversial "short-circuiting" of Geno Auriemma after UConn’s undefeated season went up in flames vs Dawn Staley and South Carolina. Finally, we wrap up with some local Minnesota love for Tessa Johnson and Will Schetter, participants in this year's NCAA Men's & Women's Championships, a look at the Will Wade/LSU drama, and a grim "live look" at the injury-plagued Timberwolves.

Monday night determines it all—will the Huskies cement a dynasty, or will the Wolverines bring the trophy back to the Midwest?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Bag in that bag in that bag again. Whoa, whoa, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the Splas City basketball podcast. I'm your host, Steve Hartman. And if you've been paying attention, you know exactly what time it is. It is a national championship game, Monday night, April 6th. We are recording Sunday, April 5th. We'll recap everything from the Final Four, women's Final Four, and we'll break down the Michigan Yukon battle Monday night for the national championship. This weekend in Indianapolis, a little bit of a dud, to be honest. Um, couldn't couldn't really get a lot of fireworks. The Elite Eight delivered with the Yukon Duke ending, but Illinois Yukon was kind of a slog, and Arizona, Michigan was billed as the game of the year, and it did not deliver unless you were maze in blue. So, does the title game have that factor? Will we see fireworks? Will we see an epic game and a back and forth battle between Dan Hurley and Dusty Mays squads? Or will we see another blowout in Michigan rolls to dominance in the 2026 national title? We'll talk about that and more right now. All right, so first I want to talk about the Yukon Illinois game. This was a slog from the get-go. Um kind of expected a little bit different flow, knowing that Illinois came into the game with one of the country's best offenses. Uh, they're very big. They find mismatches, they hunt those, they get their switch, and then they attack. They play a lot of isolation basketball. The problem for Illinois in this game was Illinois was able to punish teams who switched on them, but they weren't able to punish Yukon. Yukon did a great job of battling on switches, and then they stayed home and forced Illinois into tough shots. A lot of times Illinois likes to force a double team, swing the ball, rotate, but Yukon up to the task inside and out, and Illinois just never really got it going. On the other side of the coin, Illinois um Achilles heel all year had been their defense until the tournament, until March, when they really turned around their defense. But in this game, I think what you saw is that it is hard to chase Yukon around, screen after screen, solo ball, Braylon Mullins, Alex Caravan, constantly for 40 minutes without giving up something. And Illinois didn't have quite the quickness to stay with those players. And what you ended up have what ended up happening is Terrace Reed would post up down low, he'd get real deep after the ball swung a couple times. No help there because you're chasing, you got to stay home on shooters. And UConn was able to do just enough at the end. Now Illinois got it to within four in the last minute, um, but then Braylon Mullins hits a big time three to go up seven. Keaton Waggler comes down and responds with a three, but there's only about 50 seconds left, and UConn salts this one away and wins. So um we got to talk about Yukon as the dynasty in the last 30 years. Um, they've got all five national championships since 1999. The next closest team has three. And um Dan Hurley, as you know, polarizing as he may be, might be the best coach in the sport right now. Just ask him, he'll tell you. And um, as you know, I will admit I don't love the antics, I don't love the personality, but the results speak for themselves. Three championship games in the last four years, could be three titles in four years. Very impressive stuff. Gets a lot of his offensive system from Europe, and you can see it, constant movement. It's very fun to watch their offense play. Um, UConn is just a juggernaut. They are uh, you know, they kind of self-proclaim uh home of college basketball with the men and the women on that side. In the other game, we have Michigan-Arizona. Build as kind of the game, the top two teams basically all year. Size, strength, interior defense, interior rim protection, uh going up against each other. What was gonna be the difference? I thought Yaxo Lenenborg was the difference, um, but Yaxo goes down, only played, I think, 14 minutes in this game, and Michigan was still able to dominate. Leninborg got in fall trouble immediately, and Michigan was still able to dominate. I think two reasons I see here. Experience. Uh, we've kind of talked about this a lot this season. A lot of these teams are older. You get the transfer portal, you got guys that are graduate students playing for five, six years in college. Big difference there. Um, I also think Michigan's activity, they just seemed to have more juice. They were quicker to loose balls, they were quicker to rebounds, they had better hands, they were getting deflections. Um, and Coa Pete and Braden Burries, it's not all on them. Jaden Bradley got in fall trouble. That really hurt Arizona. But um overall, it just seemed like Michigan overwhelmed a team who hadn't been overwhelmed. Largest halftime deficit all year was seven points, and that was the Purdue game. Michigan's up 12 at halftime. Uh, by far the worst defeat of the year for Arizona. Um, never really that close. And Michigan looks as unbeatable as someone can be in basketball, knowing that any game, anything could happen. Um, you know, Michigan's three-point shooting was a big difference. I think Arizona, you know, all year they kind of lived and died by their inside presence. They were bigger than everyone, they were more physical, they were longer, they could get to the basket, they could get to the paint on anyone and score. And in this game, they found somebody who could match them inside, and they don't have the other things. Um, they have been notorious all year for being one of the teams that shoots the least amount of three-pointers, makes the least about a three-pointers. And when you looked at the box score, I'm pretty sure I read this right. Michigan made six more threes than Arizona. Six times three, my public school math tells me is 18. The margin of victory is 18. And so when you have two teams that uh, you know, you have a team like Michigan who can match you inside, negate your strength, and you have nothing else, really, you're not gonna beat them. And so Michigan to me has this complete package. They have length on the inside, they have toughness and physicality, they have bench scoring, they have some three-point shooting, not great, but enough. They have a guard who controls the game. Elliott Cadeau was really good at times, really bad at times, but he outplayed uh the point guards from Arizona. Bradley, obviously, getting in fall trouble. Uh, and then Braden Burry's having a dribble, you know, bring the ball up more, got him out of sorts. Um, Del Orzo didn't have a you know, a really, really impactful game. Karchenko, he made some shots, but again, Michigan's guards, Burnett, Cadeau, McKenney, the freshman, um, very huge for Michigan in this game. So Michigan Yukon should be a really interesting game. My thought here is that what Yukon did to teams, for instance, when they played Duke, you had Cam Boozer trying to guard Alex Caravan chasing around screens. That is a mismatch for Yukon. Against Illinois, you had guys like Mirkovich and uh Stoyakovich trying to, and Keaton Waggler trying to chase guys all over the place around screens. And they aren't uh though most of those guys, Waggler's very good, but he's a freshman. Um, but the foot speed is different there. Michigan has more foot speed. Michigan can chase guys around. They played another team who does some of this, Fletcher Lawyer for Purdue, and Michigan dominated uh Purdue in Purdue in that game. So I think Michigan also guarding Terrace Reed, a lot of times what will happen is Michigan switches a lot, right? On the perimeter. That's like one of their hallmarks of their defense. So they're switching, and again, UConn is hoping that they get Terrace Reed on a mismatch. But if you go, for instance, if you switch and you're switching perimeter and you're switching bigs, you're you're gonna switch Mara with Morez Johnson. That isn't much easier, or with the Axel Lendeborg, which isn't much better. So Michigan's flexibility in what they do defensively, I think is gonna present unique challenges to Yukon. I'm again not gonna say that Yukon cannot win. Uh, they have proven enough, they have shown enough in this season. Uh, but you look at a couple of the games they lost, right? They got smoked by St. John's twice. What is St. John's really good at? Pressure and physicality down low. And Michigan won't press you full court a lot, but their guards are really good and crafty. Kell Cado had four steals the other night. Um, Burnett, older player, good defender. McKenny, physical, point of the tack, strong on the ball. And then they just have so much length, they have so much toughness inside. Um, I have a hard time believing that UConn can do the things against Michigan that got them here. Um so I was not always a the biggest believer in Illinois. I think that was a little bit smoke and mirrors matchups, right? They got past Houston and then they had to play Iowa to get to the final four. Um Michigan is on another level as they showed Saturday night. I think the couple keys for me are gonna be can solo ball and Brylon Mullins make shots? If those two are say, you know, six for thirteen from three, that's gonna be huge for UConn. Um and the other side of it is the rebounding battle. Um, you know, Arizona, very good on the glass all year long, and Michigan punished them. Um Michigan was just tougher, more physical, faster to the basketball. Now that's one thing you're not gonna see much out of um uh Yukon, right? They're not gonna get punked very often, but they did this year once against St. John's. And so, you know, that that's they had 11 offensive rebounds. Arizona ended up with 18 offensive rebounds, but that game was so far out of um out of hand so early. Um 40 total rebounds for Michigan and 44 for Arizona. They didn't make up the difference considering they shot, they missed 34 shots. Um, you know, Arizona's a good offensive rebounding team too, but Michigan just dominated that. So um, you know, turnovers are always gonna be a thing in big games like this. Um, but you know, the three-point shot, super important. Michigan was 12 for 27, um, you know, well above their season average, but let's say they go nine for 27, um, 33%, and you're still feeling like you know, you you run away with that game against Arizona. So um that'll be the big the big thing for Yukon, I think. Can Mullins and even Caravan, Caravan didn't have a great game uh against Illinois, and Yukon was able to, you know, I I wouldn't say comfortably win that game, uh, but they did they did win that game, um, you know, down the stretch by nine. So Caraban was only had nine points. He was one for seven from three. Demory was one for six from three. Um, so you got Mullins had four for seven, and Solo Ball three for seven. Uh, if you can get one more guy to knock down some shots, Jaden Ross, perhaps, he was two for two against Illinois. Um, but Caravan, uh kind of an uncharacteristically quiet game for Caravan. I expect him to show up big time in this one. Him and Lundeborg, if they're matched up on each other, should be should be really interesting. Uh, I could see Michigan putting maybe Merez Johnson then on uh Demory as kind of that helper, um, so that he doesn't have to chase Caravan around. Lendeborg can do that. Uh, but that that'll be some really interesting uh coaching, I think, in that game, just to kind of see what style wins out here. I just don't know that Michigan, Michigan can play any style, and there's they've shown that. And so to me, that's just really hard to beat them. They're gonna have to have an off game. Even Connecticut, if they play an A game and they play really well, Michigan's gonna have to play like a B minus, I think, for UConn to beat them. I think that that's how good Michigan is. And um I I'm having a hard time seeing it, but again, Connecticut's 6-0 all-time in national championship games. So you never know. Uh, they're they're tough to beat for sure. Uh love, love the way they play. Again, not the biggest Dan Hurley fan, but definitely got to respect what he's doing and uh the team he puts on the court. They are they are clicking at the right moments. UConn, by the way, had lost to Arizona, St. John's twice, Creighton and Marquette. So none of those games are like Arizona, obviously very good. Uh, and that was early in the year. So when I look at Michigan, I just man, I just don't I don't Wisconsin had a very like a crazy amount of threes. Duke got him by five, and Purdue got him in the Big Ten tournament. Those are some quality teams with big-time veteran players. Wisconsin's backcourt was elite. Duke's in that game, Duke played the game that they needed to play to win. That was probably as good as Duke can play. If they would have played that way against Yukon, they probably are in the final four, but here we are. So my prediction, I'm going Michigan 84, Yukon 72. I think the line was seven and a half. I think they're the Vegas books are probably begging people to take UConn here because people just don't um because people believe in Yukon. They seem like they kind of have a little destiny going on. They just have this aura about them, right? Um, but Michigan's met most of the challenges this year, and I just don't really see a lot of weaknesses with that team. Now, Lendeborg is supposed to play. Solo ball also notified today that he had a foot sprain. He was in a boot. Um, no solo ball honestly might be a bigger deal than no Lendeborg for Michigan. Uh, even though Lendeborg's big time player of the year, first team All-American, um, you know, Michigan kind of proved he got 14 minutes the other night, and they just smacked the second best team in the country all year. So I got Michigan, I'm calling it 84-72. Let's move over to the women's side and talk briefly about the final four there. We had all four one seeds. Um, one thing I've always struggled with the women's brack uh tournament is just the frequency at which the top seeds get through. Um, it's very top heavy. Used to be even more so, but now I think we're still in that era. Um, with the top four to five teams are just so far above everybody else. But we get fireworks at the end of the South Carolina Yukon game. Yukon's undefeated record out the window. South Carolina punks them, beats them by 14. Gino, not happy. And he let uh Don Staley, South Carolina's head coach, know about it. Thought this was a really low-class move from someone who's been around a lot and won a lot of games, but also lost some big games. Um, Gino Oriama just looked like he short-circuited. Uh, I don't really get it. He said that was about a handshake before the game, but even if that's the case, you take that offline, you do it behind closed doors. What you come across as is a sore loser. Your team hadn't lost all year, and you get beat in the final four, and you're just you're mad, and you're big mad at Don Staley, and um there's no real reason to do that there. He he made himself look really silly. He did apologize for it um today on Sunday. Uh, he apologized for his actions, but damage already done. Stories about you, stories not about South Carolina or UCLA. Everybody's talking about this. So really, you know, I'm just kind of sad for a man his age who's coached as long as he has when you're supposed to be, you know, instilling values and talking about, you know, how to how to play the game and how to respect the game and your opponents. So just disappointed in that. Um, but on the other side of it, UCLA beats Texas. UCLA out of the Big Ten, gets the national championship today, comfortably beating by 28. I think it was the fifth largest victory in the national title game history for the women's side. Their first title for the Bruins in the NCAA. They did win a title before there was the NCAA women's basketball championships. So the Bruins, um, I was always worried a little bit about their quickness, but man, Gabriela Hawkes looked awesome today. Lauren Betts, best player in college women's basketball. Uh, maybe AZ Fud and you know, Sarah Strong from UConn also in that conversation. But man, Lauren Betts just the way she impacted the game offensively and defensively, felt like every time she got a good post-up, she was scoring. And it felt like anytime somebody drove in, she was blocking it or changing the shot. So UCLA had a bunch of seniors. Again, experience, continuity matters in basketball, and it showed on the women's side big time. UConn or UCLA, sorry, just um just too tough all the way around. They kind of marched through the Big Ten, won the Big Ten regular season, win the Big Ten tournament comfortably, and they marched through this. Um, get a tough game against Texas. Texas quickness definitely bothered them, which is what I kind of noticed would bother them. But um today against South Carolina, they had no problems. Um, just want to give a quick shout-out, though, since this is a Minnesota-based podcast, and I do try to you know take the Minnesota angle on this for local listeners. We got Tessa Johnson from uh St. Michael Elberville playing for South Carolina women in the title game, and you may have Will Cheddar, Stuartville native, playing for Michigan in the national title game. So two Minnesotans playing for national titles over uh a two-day span. So pretty exciting, pretty cool to follow that as well for the local fans here. So shout out to them, big accomplishments. Uh Tessa Johnson, no stranger here at this point with South Carolina being there last year as well, losing to Yukon and Paige Becker's, where we had two Minnesotans in the women's championship last year. But um, yeah, so that's the that's the Minnesota angle. We'll take that. We'll take that. Um, and then lastly, I wanted just to briefly mention that um one of the things I wanted to talk about at the end of the show here was about Will Wade. I haven't brought this up yet, but for those who don't know, uh Will Wade, LSU, gets in some trouble legally, uh, FBI, things like that. It was part of the Arizona uh Sean Miller uh scandal as well. And so he goes to McNeese State, McNeese State's in the tournament, kind of raises his profile. He goes to NC State this year, you know, talked about bringing the Wolfpack back to national prominence, and he's all excited, and he's all in on NC State. And immediately within that one season, he's gone. And guess where he's going back to? LSU. Um, and so there's this kind of double standard about how we talk about players jumping versus what we talk about with coaches jumping like this. Um now you don't see this very often in coaching where you leave for one year and you go back, let alone go back to the school you kind of started at or where you you where you first got you know some prominence. But um just again, not a good look. Like, I don't know what Will Wade's attraction is with LSU. Maybe he feels like he can there's more resources there with football money or something, but um, you know, they had a tournament team this year, and for whatever reason, it he's just bolting and chasing that next thing. And I think it's um, you know, again, we're asking as fans, you want your your student athletes, student athletes in quotations, um, to stick around and buy into the program, and like coaches will tell that in their recruiting, like, come here, we're building something, we're doing, and then you're bolting within a year, and I think that's just kind of wild to me. Um, you know, Ben McCollum at Drake got offered his dream job at Iowa and and brought some players with him, and so there's there's that side of it too, where you're like, Yeah, you you went for a year and you hopped, and I don't love that either. But um, dream job comes open. Most of us leave, right? If you got if you start a new role today and you're six months in, you just get through all your training, for instance, and then you get your dream job offered, you would bolt too. So I I get that a little bit. Um, Will Wade's record just doesn't pass the smell test for me. And I and I don't I don't like the way that that felt. But um anyway, I just wanted to briefly talk about that. And not that it's uh huge news related to Minnesota, but I just I thought that was kind of uh kind of bizarre uh story out of college basketball as well. But we're wrapping up the season. Uh Monday night we'll have a champion in men's basketball. We'll talk about it. Will the Big Ten finally break? Their 26th season losing streak without a national title. Can Michigan bring it home or will UConn cement themselves as the dynasty of this generation with their seventh title since 1999? We'll find out. So thanks a lot for listening. If you want to give a follow, we are on Blue Sky, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to YouTube. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Leave a review. Love to hear what you have to say. I got a really fun uh topic coming up here in a couple weeks. We'll be talking a lot more Wolves basketball as well. They are taking on the Charlotte Hornets tonight. You should check in quick with that score. Um, little live look-in, live look-in. Charlotte up 116.96. No ant, no Jaden. Wolves are limping, limping to the finish line here in the playoffs. Nas Reed right now, three of 14 from the field. Dante DiVincenzo, two for nine. They're gonna need to get right, and they're gonna need Ant, and they're gonna need Jaden if they want to do anything in the playoffs. But talk more wolves later. Thanks a lot for listening. This has been the Splas City Basketball Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Bag and back in and back again. Whoa, whoa, yeah, yeah, hey.