Next year's Yaxel Lendeborg? Six mix-major transfers leveling up who have star potential

Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg was the best transfer in college basketball this season — and arguably the best of the recent portal era: A 6-foot-9 Swiss Army knife of a forward who earned first-team All-America honors and led Michigan to its second national title.Lost in the gravitas of Lendeborg’s excellence was his winding journey to Ann Arbor and college hoops stardom in the first place. Lendeborg played his first three college seasons in junior college at Arizona Western, broke into Division I with two years at UAB, then finally matriculated to the Big Ten last season. Nothing about Lendeborg’s journey was normal — or relatively replicable.But it’s a fun thought experiment during college basketball’s transfer season, at least: Who is the next Yaxel Lendeborg?Advertisement