WTKA Roundtable 5/29/2025: The Yaxel Hour

MGoBlog: The MGoPodcast

Things Discussed:

• On early: Talkin Detroit Tigers.
• How this went down: Yax started with college as a fallback, Michigan visit shifted things.
• NBA side of it stayed—if anything the measurements at the Combine improved his NBA stock.
• But Michigan convinced him. Laid out the red carpet. Coaches went to the Combine to support him.
• Did we out-recruit the NBA? Yes, because the NBA wasn't recruiting him, and we are very good at recruiting.
• Good sign for the future: Dusty May knows how to convince a fringe NBA guy to come back to college. Going to have an advantage when they're the competition because we're always going to want these players more than the NBA for the same money.
• What does this do? Cross between Danny Wolf and Johni Broome. Danny measured 6'10.5, but Yaxel is 6'9", much better about turnovers, much better free throw shooter, better face-up guy, close to that level of defender.
• Team: Cadeau and Yaxel are your creators, need Cason to be a breakdown threat, need Gayle and Nimari to be your finishers, and then center is Johnson's defensive presence.
• Big Ten next year: Purdue is still #1, they are going to have a 7'3" guy from Belgium so they don't die whenever TKR gets in foul trouble. Michigan is in that tier with them.
• Proven shooting on this roster? Uh, Tschetter? Need three or four of Cason/Gayle/McKenney/Burnett/Grady to be that.
• Minutes? Cadeau most of them at the point with Cason taking some. McKenny backup up Gayle and Nimari at the SG spots, Tschetter backing up Lendeborg, Johnson/Mara at center.
• Upside: Team is all about creation: Cadeau, Lendeborg are creators, Gayle and Cason are secondary creators, McKenney has that upside.
• Rotation: 8+2 like Dusty likes. Think they'll work in the freshmen some but Goodman probably redshirts unless there's an injury, Grady gets maybe 10% of minutes as a spacer depending on how the others are shooting, Trey develops into a major part of the rotation by season's end but needs time to adjust.
• Defensively this team will be a nightmare to play against.