Who Holds the 2025-26 Michigan Championship Belt?

Ann Arbor — In a year when every major Michigan winter program is surging, the school’s most coveted piece of symbolic hardware is once again up for grabs. The Michigan Championship Belt—part Heisman, part Olympic gold, part pop-culture litmus test—will leave its 2024-25 owner, two-sport revelation Kalel Mullings, and find a new waist to adorn. After trimming a field that resembled a 30-wrestler royal rumble, the race has distilled to a final two: freshman hockey goaltender Jack Ivankovic and first-year basketball phenom Yaxel Lendeborg.

Ivankovic arrived on campus billed as the heir to Marty Turco. A mid-season injury paused the hype, but his return coincides with the Wolverines’ push to end a 28-year national title drought. “All it takes is a four-game heater,” one staffer said, noting that the freshman will start every remaining game with the capacity to steal victories single-handedly.

Across campus, Lendeborg has stuffed every column of the stat sheet—leading the balanced roster in minutes, points, rebounds, steals and viral belt-to-ass videos—while energizing a team on pace for its best regular season ever. With six postseason wins, Michigan would match the 1989 national champions; the versatile forward will have the ball in his hands throughout that quest.

The tiebreaker, according to the Belt’s nebulous criteria, is cultural resonance and probability of a storybook ending. Enter Elliott Cadeau, the pass-first point guard whose unselfishness should amplify Lendeborg’s two-way brilliance deep into March. The synergy gives the rookie forward the slightest of edges over Ivankovic, whose time, many around the program insist, is simply being deferred.

When the final horn sounds on 2025-26, expect Yaxel Lendeborg—stat-stuffing alien, defensive Swiss-army knife, and now wearer of Michigan’s most prestigious imaginary strap—to stand at mid-court, maize and blue confetti falling, championship belt raised overhead.

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