INDIANAPOLIS — He calls her his “guardian angel” and the “strongest person I’ve ever known,” but when Yaxel Lendeborg limped off the court Saturday night, grimacing in pain, his mother felt helpless.

“I was so scared, and I was down,” Yissel Raposo recalled Monday night, just as the scene was turning celebratory inside Lucas Oil Stadium following Michigan’s gutsy win over Connecticut to claim the national championship. “But he’s a warrior, and I knew he was gonna be OK.”

He was, and so were the Wolverines in the end, as Lendeborg — the team’s All-American star forward — fought through the pain of a debilitating knee injury to help as best he could.

Lendeborg logged a team-high 36 minutes in Michigan’s 69-63 victory, and he finished with 13 points, including six straight in a critical second-half stretch as the Wolverines held off UConn’s bid for a third national title in four years. But it was the participation even more than the production that made the difference Monday, after Lendeborg spent most of the previous 48 hours undergoing treatment for the MCL and ankle sprains he’d suffered in Michigan’s semifinal win over Arizona.

“That boy’s resilient,” said Roddy Gayle, the senior guard who is one of Lendeborg’s closest friends on this tight-knit Michigan team. “He was playing on one leg almost. So that just speaks to his character. Wasn’t nothing stopping him from being able to give his all tonight.”

The Big Ten Player of the Year had promised as much after he insisted on returning to the court in the second half of Michigan’s rout of Arizona.

“I knew there was no way I was gonna miss this game, no matter what was going on,” he said.

Still, Lendeborg admitted he barely slept that night worrying about what an MRI might reveal Sunday morning. The scans showed no more structural damage, though, and after going through more treatment and Monday’s shootaround, he was cleared to play without restrictions.

Other than the ones his body set for him once the ball was tipped, that is. As the title game got underway, Lendeborg quickly realized he wasn’t going to be the difference-maker he’d been all season for the Wolverines.

He couldn’t turn the corner and get past defenders on the perimeter. He couldn’t push off on the knee to attack the basket and finish drives with his usual explosive force. And when he set his feet to shoot 3s, it didn’t feel right, either. He missed all five of his attempts from behind the line Monday. At halftime, he told sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson he felt “awful” and “super-weak” after playing the full 20 minutes. He returned from the locker room wearing a compression sleeve on the knee, but joked afterward that "it didn’t really help too much — I still played terrible the second half."

He let the frustration show, at times. And after Lendeborg airballed a 3-point attempt and finally checked out for the first time with 8:43 left in the second half, he flopped down on the bench and buried his hands in his face. Will Tschetter, a fifth-year senior captain, offered some consolation on the bench. Sophomore LJ Cason, whose season ended with a torn ACL in late February, did as well.

"Yeah, he was telling me to stop being so hard on myself," said Lendeborg, who knew playing through this injury could affect his preparation for the NBA draft this spring. " He was basically saying I'm one of the reasons why we're here, one of the biggest reasons we got to this moment. Nobody is going to downplay what I've done this year, because of one bad game. So he told me to keep going, no matter what."

That was easier said than done on this stage. Especially against this UConn team, as tenacious at both ends of the floor as any in the country. Lendeborg was 1 for 5 from the field in the first half, and didn't have a rebound or an assist.

“I was very tentative,” he said. “I felt like I was pretty much holding our team down. I thought we could have been up by way more early in the game. And later on in the game, I kept having opportunities to make plays, and I couldn't make the play. But these guys stuck with me no matter what. They all believed in me.”

How could they not, after what he’d given this team? Lendeborg, the crown jewel of Dusty May’s impressive transfer portal class last spring, was more than Michigan’s leading scorer this season. He was also their hype man, the face and voice of a group that took everyone’s best shot in college basketball this season — opponents and critics alike — and gave it right back.

“I mean, it meant a lot, because Yax didn’t have to play,” said Trey McKenney, the freshman guard who hit arguably the biggest shot Monday night — a 3-point dagger with 1:50 left. “But he went out there, and he showed why he’s the best player in the country. This is why he came to Michigan. He came to Michigan to win a national championship.”

Once he had, he made sure everyone knew it, too.

“I know the keyboard warriors aren’t gonna like that,” Lendeborg said, smiling, as he pushed back on the narrative that this team and its success were somehow artificial. “I know they’re gonna hate that. The ‘mercenaries’ showed and did the best that they could. ... And we’re the national champions. So it doesn’t matter what anybody says. They can’t take that away from us.”

No one could take this away, either: The emotions that Lendeborg felt as he guided his mother through the celebration on the court Monday night as the maize-and-blue confetti fell.

She’s the one he credits with "saving my life" as a wayward teenager, forcing him to set some goals and then stay on the right path to achieving them over the last few years, from junior college at Arizona Western to his mid-major breakout at Alabama-Birmingham to this headlining final act at Michigan.

But now in the middle of this joyride, she’s also the one battling Stage 4 appendix cancer, a diagnosis that rocked both their worlds earlier this winter. Raposo recently completed her 11th chemotherapy treatment, and says she has one more remaining before possibly undergoing radiation and surgery.

"I owe you everything,” Lendeborg told her on the stage during the postgame trophy ceremony. “You mean the world to me. You're superhuman. You're Superwoman. I wouldn't be here without you … and I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure you're OK forever."

In this moment, nothing else really mattered. Not the throbbing knee or the frustration he’d endured all night at the culmination of his collegiate career. No, the fact that they’d come through this together was more than enough for both of them. And as she watched her son climb the ladder and take his turn cutting down the nets Monday night, it was one shining moment, indeed.

“I’m just so happy, thankful and proud,” Raposo said. “We dreamed about this. And today it’s a dream come true.”

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