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2 hours ago
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Yaxel Lendeborg admitted it himself.
Kentucky wanted to make the UAB transfer the highest-paid player in college basketball. He chose Michigan instead. That in and of itself is a brutal look on where the Wildcats currently stand as a program.
UK head coach Mark Pope didn't make it better this week.
Pope was asked about what Lendeborg said, and he decided to go on a rant about the media's reporting.
Except, well, Lendeborg literally told a reporter about the Kentucky offer.
Either Lendeborg is lying for really no reason, or Pope is just doing an odd form of damage control.
This is how The Athletic's Sam Vecenie summed it up on X:
This is so misguided from Pope that it's not even funny, it's moronic. This isn't just some unnamed report from a questionable media member. Yaxel Lendeborg literally said himself to the AP that he was offered 7-9M.
What are you even talking about, dude? https://t.co/ciViFnfmCk
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Kentucky would sure like to have Lendeborg. Maybe they should've offered even a higher total.
The Wolverines are a No. 1 seed and rolled past a pesky Howard team in the Round of 64. Kentucky is going to have some work to do Friday to dispatch Santa Clara in a 7-10 game.
Lendeborg is one of the best players in the country. Clearly, at least based on what he says, Kentucky knew that very well.
But apparently it was the media's fault for reporting on that, rather than Kentucky's fault for not positioning itself well enough to end up with Yaxel in the first place.
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