There are such things as too many options. There is the old adage that if you have two quarterbacks, you have none. I have seen it work exactly once in the last 20 years, and it was a Michigan team that couldn't tell Cade McNamara he was bad so they split his snaps with J.J. McCarthy. It was rare, and it only worked for one year. If you have too many options, you may have no great ones, and it will be impossible to make everyone happy.
Unless: you are one of the elites of 2026.
Tonight, Michigan and Arizona will tangle in a battle of the titans. Our staff will cover something unique about all four teams this weekend, and my responsibility of Michigan has left few stones to uncover. They're a pretty open book: Yaxel Lendeborg loves to talk, Aday Mara dresses like a 2000s Cartoon Network villain, and Elliot Cadeau and I have the same nut allergy. Dusty May's lone thing he won't reveal is if he's talked with North Carolina, which is fine.
However, I think I know everything I need to know about Arizona, too. Their four most-used five-man lineups, pictured above, are four of their five best lineups with 75+ possessions together. You can't say the same about Michigan, who has a very strange reverse split going on:
With Gayle at the 3 and Lendeborg at the 4, Michigan is demolishing opponents. 147.1 points per 100 would be nothing to sneeze at on its own, but when paired with 85 points allowed per 100, it's a death lineup. But it's not the Death Lineup. A lot of people clicking this article will believe that I am insane, and that the Big Three is the Death Lineup. Totally fine to believe this, and of course, a +47.3 net rating per 100 possessions is death for most.
But I think there is a true Death Lineup available here. Using Evan Miyakawa's data, it's plausible that Michigan's single best lineup of 2025-26 is one that barely gets used at all. It is a lineup that has outscored its opponents 82-29 in 59 possessions. It is a lineup that outshoots its opponents by 24% from 2. It is also a lineup that has played eight (8) possessions together in the NCAA Tournament.
The fivesome of Elliot Cadeau, Trey McKenney, Yaxel Lendeborg, Will Tschetter, and Morez Johnson offer this astonishing firepower when out there together. Even beyond that insanity of +53 in 59 possessions, the pluses the lineup offers are numerous. All five players, even Johnson and Tschetter, shoot 35% or better from three. Lendeborg is the second-best two-way player in America. McKenney has nearly broken through to the EvanMiya top 100. Despite not having Mara, even Michigan's non-Mara lineups still allow just a 47% hit rate from two and are +13% from two overall.
In terms of offensive production, it can be argued that these are Michigan's five best you can find on the team. Their production together is frankly pretty nuts:
- An 11-0 run together against Illinois on February 27.
- An 8-2 run against Purdue in mid-February.
- Outscored Michigan State 18-6 on the road in late January.
All three of these runs were potentially game-deciding events. The spacing with this lineup is predictably nuts. Watch this possession from the Michigan State game, pre-Cason injury, with a fairly rare item from 2026 Michigan: a true 5-out possession that ends in exploiting Michigan State having to cover 5-out. You tell me: Nebraska...or the Wolverines?
Well, Wolverines, obviously. Yet Michigan has barely taken the proverbial cover off the Ferrari at any point of the season. Michigan barely used this lineup at all until said Michigan State game, when they were forced into it for 10 possessions due to foul trouble and some other underperformances. I also left out an important note: whether you use actual efficiency margin or predicted efficiency margin, this is the single best 5-man lineup in America in 2026.
Looking further at Miyakawa's data, there's so many major plusses and so few flaws with the lineup that it's kind of stunning they don't use it more, save for the whole "we have Aday Mara on our team" deal. (Also, I guess the perimeter defense wouldn't be great, but you can get around that with every other thing you have going for it.)
Coaches do or don't adopt lineups for any number of reasons, and the analytically-savvy Wolverines would certainly have real rationale (and possibly internal analytics not available to the public) for why the Death Lineup doesn't get used. In a game like this, where everything goes and everything is on the table, I won't be surprised if Michigan pulls it out. Then again, they haven't used it for more than 10 possessions in a game and have pulled it out for a total of eight possessions this Tournament. Does Dusty have a surprise for us?
Maybe you're a fan reading this and you're thinking "yes, idiot, of course the Death Lineup But Not Mara isn't going to play much when Mara is Mara." Okay, then. I have an alternate proposal for you. How about a lineup that has Michigan's five best players - the Big Three, Cadeau, and McKenney - but has played a total of 51 possessions together this year, with just one happening in the NCAA Tournament?
This one doesn't have fancy data going for it. In fact, at 'just' +40.2 per 100, it's about average for the Wolverines. (I'll note that adjusted for bad 3PT% luck, the 'true' number is +47.) Yet the time this lineup got the most use all season by far was against Michigan's single toughest opponent. Against Duke, Dusty used this lineup for 14 possessions, or just over 27% of its full-season usage. In a game Michigan lost by five points, that lineup was +2 and put up 19 points in its 14 possessions.
Unsurprisingly, a lineup Miyakawa's data says would be elite defensively, on the boards, and at the rim was all three in that Duke game. Could the below be dorking? Maybe, but because of the immense value this lineup provides in rebounding and with the >50% likelihood of a miss, Cam Boozer opts to head to the paint to help rebound instead.
And yet: Michigan pulled this out for one single possession against Alabama and never again in March.
All of this could be pointless. Dusty and Michigan have more than enough options at their disposal that it's entirely possible neither of the lineups mentioned will get used. However, if Michigan is to defeat a titan, it may have to pull out its one remaining weapon capable of a kill shot against a titan.
It takes heroic work to defeat heroes. Can the Death Lineup, #1 or #2, pull it off? We'll see if they're given the chance to cheat death themselves.
