CHICAGO — Wisconsin’s Austin Rapp couldn’t miss, but it was Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg who called game.
Lendeborg, the Big Ten’s player of the year, drilled a 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds remaining to lift No. 3 Michigan to a 68-65 win against No. 23 Wisconsin in a Big Ten tournament semifinal at the United Center. The regular-season champion Wolverines (31-2) will face the Purdue-UCLA winner on Sunday in an attempt to claim their second consecutive Big Ten tournament crown.
YAXEL GIVES MICHIGAN THE LEAD IN THE FINAL SECOND!
THIS IS MARCH 🤯 pic.twitter.com/M74GAG6ru4
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 14, 2026
The final-second shot will go down as one of the top moments in Big Ten tournament history and rendered Rapp’s performance to footnote status, but the Badgers forward put on a shooting display for the ages. With Wisconsin trailing 54-39 and under 10 minutes remaining, Rapp hit five consecutive 3-point attempts on five straight possessions to push the Badgers ahead 62-58. His shots came from every part of the floor, both in set positions and off the fast break. His final 3-pointer sent the divided United Center crowd into a 113-decibel uproar.
“I came out and airballed my first 3 that I shot in the second half. I knew I was good from there. I don’t airball very often. That next shot went down, and I made a couple after that. Then yeah, it felt like I was throwing it into the ocean by the end of it. It was kind of cool.”
But the Wolverines rallied with a 7-0 run, sparked by a pair of Aday Mara buckets followed by an Elliot Cadeau 3-pointer with 46 seconds left. Wisconsin knotted the score at 65-65 on Nick Boyd’s 3 with 29.3 seconds left, giving Michigan one final possession. Without calling a timeout, the Wolverines worked the ball around the perimeter until reaching Lendeborg just right of the key for the game-winning 3-pointer.
“The play call was for me to get the ball down low in the post,” Lendeborg said. “I didn’t do a good job sealing. (Cadeau) had a driving angle. I tried to clear it out for him, and he kept his composure. Didn’t force up a bad shot, made the one more to the open guy, and I happened to be there to make the shot.”
The Badgers (24-10) largely held Lendeborg in check until the final shot. Lendeborg, a senior transfer from UAB, scored 12 points, grabbed five rebounds, and added three assists and two steals without a turnover. Mara led the Wolverines with 16 points, eight rebounds and five blocks, while Cadeau scored 15 points.
Rapp’s game-high 18 points all came on second-half 3-pointers, while the Badgers’ backcourt tandem of Nick Boyd and John Blackwell scored 14 and 13 points, respectively.