Wolverines, Huskies to Clash for the National Championship
4/5/2026 9:32:00 PM | Men's Basketball
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Big Ten regular-season champion and No. 1 Midwest seed University of Michigan men's basketball team (36-3, 19-1 Big Ten), ranked No. 3 nationally, will face either No. 2 seed UConn (34-5, 17-3 Big Ten) or No. 3 seed Illinois (29-8, 15-5 Big Ten) in the national championship game Monday (April 6) at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Tipoff is set for 8:30 p.m. on TBS, with additional coverage on TNT and truTV. Ian Eagle, Grant Hill, Bill Raftery and Tracy Wolfson will call the action.
Notes
• Michigan is making its eighth national championship game appearance after winning its seventh straight national semifinal.
• U-M punched its ticket to the 2026 national title game with wins over No. 16 Howard (101-80), No. 9 Saint Louis (95-72), No. 4 Alabama (90-77), No. 6 Tennessee (95-62) and No. 1 Arizona (91-73).
• The Wolverines are seeking their second national championship, having won the 1989 title in Seattle with an overtime victory against Seton Hall.
• Michigan is playing in its third national title game since 2013, tied for the second-most in the nation with North Carolina and trailing only UConn's four.
• Head coach Dusty May is coaching in his first national championship game.
• Michigan in the national championship game
> March 20, 1965: UCLA (L, 91-80) in Portland, Ore.
> March 29, 1976: Indiana (L, 86-68) in Philadelphia, Pa.
> April 3, 1989: No. 3 Seton Hall (W, 80-79 OT) in Seattle, Wash.
> April 6, 1992: No. 1 Duke (L, 71-51) in Minneapolis, Minn.
> April 5, 1993: No. 1 North Carolina (L, 77-71) in New Orleans, La.
> April 8, 2013: No. 1 Louisville (L, 82-76) in Atlanta, Ga.
> April 2, 2018: No. 1 Villanova (L, 79-62) in San Antonio, Texas
> April 6, 2026: vs. UConn (TBD) in Indianapolis, Ind.
• Michigan has recorded 90-plus points, 25-plus field goals, 15-plus assists and 10-plus three-pointers in all five NCAA Tournament games.
• U-M is the eighth team to win five NCAA Tournament games by double digits entering the national championship; six of the previous seven went on to win the title, including UConn (2023, 2024) and Villanova (2018).
• Michigan's 18-point win over No. 1 seed Arizona (91-73) marked the largest margin of victory ever between No. 1 seeds. It also represented the first loss by 18-plus points for a No. 1 seed since UMBC's 74-54 (+20) win over Virginia in 2018.
• Six Wolverines are averaging double figures in the NCAA Tournament, with a seventh at 8.8 points per game. Yaxel Lendeborg leads the way at 19.0 points per game.
• Lendeborg is the first Wolverine with three straight 20-point NCAA Tournament games since Juwan Howard recorded four in a row in 1994. He is the fourth Wolverine to accomplish the feat, joining Glen Rice (6; 1989), Howard and Cazzie Russell (3; 1965).
• Elliot Cadeau has recorded at least seven assists in five straight games, including back-to-back performances with 10 assists. His 43 assists (13 turnovers) rank second in a single NCAA Tournament in program history, trailing only Rumeal Robinson (56; 1989).
• Cadeau's two 10-assist performances against Tennessee and Arizona match Gary Grant for the second-most such games in a single NCAA Tournament in program history. Robinson holds the record with three.
• Cadeau recorded the program's first NCAA Tournament point-assist double-double since Derrick Walton Jr.'s 26-point, 11-assist effort against Louisville in 2017. It also marks just the second such double-double in a Final Four, joining Rumeal Robinson's 23-point, 10-assist performance in 1989.
• With 43 assists in the NCAA Tournament, Cadeau has set a new single-season program record with 232 total assists.
