Michigan commit Yaxel Lendeborg is withdrawing from the NBA Draft and will play for Dusty May and the Wolverines next season, he told On3.

Lendeborg was the No. 1 ranked player in the transfer portal this offseason after averaging 17.7 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks, and 1.7 steals per game this season at UAB, taking home Defensive Player of the Year honors in the AAC.

ESPN’s most recent NBA Mock Draft projected Lendeborg to be taken with the 26th pick.

With Lendeborg now headed to Ann Arbor, Michigan has the makings of a top-5 team in the sport.

Yaxel joins a strong transfer haul, joining Aday Mara from UCLA, Morez Johnson from Illinois, and Elliot Cadeau from North Carolina.

The Wolverines will also welcome in two freshmen — four-star SG Trey McKenney (No. 21 NATL) and four-star Winters Grady (No. 59 NATL).

In Year One of the Dusy May era, Michigan won the Big Ten tournament, taking down Wisconsin 59-53 in the championship game. The Wolverines made a run in March Madness, reaching the Sweet Sixteen before falling to Auburn, 78-65. Their overall record on the year was 27-10, a huge jump from their 8-24 record the season prior.

Two Michigan Wolverines earn invites to USA Basketball U19 National Team training camp ahead of World Cup

Michigan Wolverines basketball has two players that have received and accepted invites to USA Basketball U19 National Team training camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., beginning June 14: sophomore guard L.J. Cason and sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr.

In total, 33 athletes will participate in the tryout, with 12 roster sports on the line before the team departs for the 2025 FIBA U19 Men’s World Cup in Switzerland.

The 6-foot-2, 190-pound Cason appeared in 30 games at Michigan last season, averaging 4.3 points, 1.4 rebounds and 1 assist in 11.8 minutes per contest.

Johnson, meanwhile, had a standout freshman year at Illinois and transferred to Michigan with a commitment soon after the 2024-25 season ended. The 6-foot-9, 225-pounder registered 7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in 17.7 minutes per game with 30 appearances.

Training camp participants recently concluded their freshman year of college or will represent the high school graduating classes of 2025 and 2026. Team selections will be made by the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee.  

Cason and Johnson are two of the seven returning college players that will be in the training camp, joining San Diego’s Tony Duckett, Purdue’s Daniel Jacobsen, Marquette’s Royce Parham, San Francisco’s Tyrone Riley IV and Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner.

Clayton Sayfie contributed to this story.

GREENWOOD, Ind. – Five members of the Saint Joseph’s softball team have been named 2025 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District as announced by the organization on Tuesday afternoon.
 
Sarah Cancila, Sierra Fretz, Hailey Malito, Meghan Sinkus and Taylor Trowbridge earned the honor. Malito was selected by CSC as a finalist for Academic All-America. She is one of seven Atlantic-10 players who will now be entered into a vote by organization members for AAA honors.
 
To be eligible, student-athletes must have achieved sophomore standing or higher and have a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or above. Position players must have played in 90 percent of team games or started 66 percent of team games. Pitchers must have appeared in 17 contests or pitched 35 innings.
 
Malito was First Team All-Atlantic 10 for a year where she ranked sixth in A-10 in slugging and OPS, seventh in walks and 11th in RBI. Overall, she hit .333 with three homers and 32 RBI. She collected her 100th career hit as her first career homerun in a hometown game at Loyola Chicago.
 
In the classroom Malito graduates with a 3.69 GPA in HR and people management and was on the Atlantic-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll three times.
 
Fretz was also First Team All-10, ranking fourth in the conference in homeruns, sixth in slugging, seventh in OPS and 10th in RBI. She led A-10 and was in the top-60 nationally in HBP (12). She hit .282 and her 10 homeruns are fourth in a season in team history. She had five consecutive hits that went over the fence from March 26-April 9 and only committed one error in 189 total chances combined between catcher and third base.
 
Fretz graduates with a 3.48 GPA in chemical biology. She was also CSC Academic All-District in 2023 at UAlbany.
 
Cancila became the 27th player in Saint Joseph’s history with 150 career hits and finished 20th with 161. Her 37 walks are second all-time in a single season at SJU and her 41 runs scored are fifth. Overall, she hit .302 with three homers and 22 RBI, ranking eighth in the A-10 in OBP, fifth in runs scored, fourth in walks and ninth in SB.
 
A three-time member of the Atlantic-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll, Cancila is a nominee for Allstate NACDA Good Works Team and graduates with a 3.57 GPA in health sciences.
 
Trowbridge was a two-time A-10 Pitcher of the Week and was on the Atlantic-10 All-Tournament Team. She finished sixth in A-10 in IP, 10th in ERA, seventh in strikeouts, seventh in wins and sixth in complete games.
 
On the Atlantic-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll twice in her career, she has a 3.83 GPA as a political science major.
 
Sinkus hit .280 and was fifth in A-10 triples, ninth in at-bats and sixth in A-10 sac flies. She collected her 100th career hit during the season and had six RBI against Saint Bonaventure, most in a game for SJU since 2021.
 
The junior has been on the Atlantic-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll twice and has a 3.57 GPA as an international business major.
 

Looking in the full-length mirror, I realized why my wife encouraged me to change clothes before going in public. We were heading out to watch Lexington SC, the new professional soccer club in town, and I was dressed like I was about to take the pitch as the team’s new chubby, out-of-shape midfielder.

I had on the official Lexington SC black jersey gifted to the KSR crew at our remote show at the new stadium back in February, matching black shorts, a Lexington SC scarf draped around my neck, my long hair slicked back, and a Lexington SC quarter-zip in hand in case I got chilly. To her point, I, a soon-to-be 40-year-old man, had on the entire Lexington Sporting Club kit for our Saturday date night. So, I changed the shorts and threw on a Kentucky hat to tone down the identity theft.

Then, we made the short trip to the Athens-Boonesboro exit off I-75 for Lexington Sporting Club vs. the Tampa Bay Rowdies on Memorial Day weekend, part of the USL Championship league.

Let me tell you all about it and why I will soon be back for more.

The new stadium is really impressive and fun for the whole family

Lexington SC’s brand new, 7,500-seat stadium is a state-of-the-art venue unlike anything the area has ever seen. Designed specifically for soccer, Lexington SC Stadium features the club’s green and black colorway throughout the facility, video boards on each end, an Endline Club for VIPs, a merchandise store, training areas for the men’s and women’s teams, and plenty of fun surrounding the pitch, including food trucks, play areas for kids, cornhole boards, a concert stage, and a small barn where fans can pet the club’s two tiny mascots, Thunder and Lightning.

I don’t have a kid–I only wait in line at the petting zoo with them–but I noticed that the Lexington SC experience is very kid-friendly. In fact, they were everywhere. You should consider a match for your next family outing. It’s affordable, and dads can enjoy a sporting event (perhaps with a cold beer) while the young ones stay entertained. Or, make it a date night. We enjoyed ours.

Cheap beer, cheap hot dogs

To be completely honest here, the $1.50 beer night promotion lured me in. I’d been trying to attend a match for a long time, but admittedly, it took cheap beer, great weather, and a free Saturday night to finally do it.

For those who partake, there were 16-ounce domestics (Coors Light and Miller Light) for $1.50 or a special on 12-ounce drafts of West Sixth Brewing’s Stadium Ale, the official craft beer of Lexington SC, for only $3.00. As a craft beer enthusiast, I went the Stadium Ale route and found that those things are delicious, maybe even too delicious. They’re also available in Lexington SC-branded cans at all matches.

Adding to the budget-friendly date, hot dogs were only three bucks, too. A craft beer and hot dog combo for six U.S. dollars? I’ll take two of each, please.

Vamos Lexington!

Lexington SC’s most loyal supporters, known as The Railbirds, bring the energy to the stadium, beginning with a pregame “March To The Match.” Once the action starts, Lexington’s hooligans sit in the end zone, leading chants of “LSC!” and “Vamos Lexington!” over the beating of drums from the crowd. The Railbirds also set off green smoke from the stands when the home team scores a goal, a tradition seen across professional soccer.

Another familiar soccer tradition: each team is escorted onto the pitch by little kids in the pregame ceremony. Every player on both sides held hands with a young child for their walk into the stadium, each child wearing the Lexington SC jersey. It was at this moment in the night when my wife seized the opportunity to joke about my outfit. Even worse for me, Lexington SC wore its black jersey with black shorts.

Lexington scored first in a 1-1 draw

As for the actual match, Lexington and Tampa were two teams needing a win, each in last place in their respective conferences, with one win apiece in 10 matches played. Lexington struck first on Saturday, scoring in the 31st minute to go up 1-0, conveniently while I was in the restroom. It sounded exciting, though. The green smoke was still billowing in the air when I got back to my seat.

The visiting Rowdies would tie it up in the second half, capitalizing on a corner kick in the 62nd minute to even the score. Lexington nearly added a go-ahead goal late when a shot attempt clanked off the right goalpost in front of the Railbirds, but the score remained at 1-1 until the end, awarding each team one point in the standings.

Still, the night was a win overall. I’ll be back for another one this summer, likely the Commonwealth Cup vs. Louisville FC in July, if not sooner:

• Saturday, June 14 – vs. New Mexico United
• Friday, June 20 – vs. Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC ($1.50 Beer Night)
• Saturday, July 26 – vs. Louisville City FC (Commonwealth Cup)
• Saturday, August 9 – vs. Phoenix Rising FC

Learn more about Lexington Sporting here. Maybe I’ll see you at the next one. Vamos Lexington.

There’s no question that it has been a strong 2024-25 athletic year for Texas Tech. The Red Raiders captured eight total Big 12 championships, the most of any team in the conference.

In addition, the Red Raider men’s basketball team reached the Elite Eight and came within a blink of playing in the Final Four before a late collapse cost them a win against eventual National Champion Florida.

Off the field, the Texas Tech success has been evident as well. That’s especially true in the case of the football program, which has brought in a historic transfer class, one that is rated by some recruiting services as the No. 1 transfer haul in the country.

Of course, all of that winning was topped off this past weekend when the softball program qualified for the Women’s College World Series for the first time in its history. That remarkable accomplishment was powered by Texas Tech’s unprecedented NIL investment in softball, a non-revenue sport. The money poured into that program brought star pitcher NiJaree Canady to Lubbock for a reported $1 million per season and changed the trajectory of Tech softball almost overnight.

Now, as the Red Raiders prepare to play in this week’s world series in Oklahoma City, the attention the softball program and the entire athletic department is receiving has ramped up, and the conversation for most around the nation is about the success that Tech has had via the NIL market. But, as one might expect, not everyone is happy to see the rise of the Red Raiders.

Fans across the nation are jealous of Texas Tech’s success

Almost as soon as Tech recorded the final out of last weekend’s Super Regional victory over No. 5 national seed Florida State, criticism from jealous fans across the nation began to flow freely on social media. It wasn’t just Seminole fans that were angry, though.

Rather, fans of schools from all corners of the nation tried to claim that Tech’s World Series run is less legitimate than the accomplishments of the other World Series participants simply because of the NIL investment that Tech made in the program. Claiming that Tech was guilty of just buying a World Series appearance, those fans showed that there is going to be pushback against Texas Tech’s efforts to improve their standing in the highest-profile sports by using the current system that the NCAA has in place.