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NCAAM Men's Final Four LIVE 3m ago Yaxel Lendeborg leads Michigan into a semifinal battle with Arizona. Michael Reaves / Getty Images The Athletic has live coverage of Illinois vs. UConn in the 2026 Men’s Final Four. We bring out the ceremonial onions, double order. We dress it up and make it real. It’s the Final Four, one of the coolest nights in live sports with back-to-back semifinal tension. Saturday’s stage opens with UConn, author of the loopiest March Madness moment we’ve had since … ever? ! The relentless Huskies draw Illinois, proud owner of the nation’s most efficient offense. The second matchup has a seismic pull — No. 1 Arizona versus No. 1 Michigan, the two top-rated defenses in college basketball. Winners bid for a national championship on Monday. Legends are about to reveal themselves. All times ET. Efficiency stats via Ken Pom. It’s Ian Eagle on play-by-play. His calls are energetic, impassioned, even hilarious. Grant Hill, Hall of Famer and two-time NCAA champion, gives his analysis. The timeless Bill Raftery joins for color commentary and aphorisms, while Tracy Wolfson reports from the sidelines. This broadcast team is together for a third Final Four. Advertisement Pregame coverage starts at 3 p. m. Adam Lefkoe hosts the first show, joined in the studio by Jamal Mashburn, Candace Parker, Jalen Rose and Chris Webber. Yes, Rose and Webber have moved past their very public beef. Of those distinguished four former players, the only national champion is Parker — she cut the nets down twice for Tennessee. At 5 p. m. , the network switches to a second pregame show, with Ernie Johnson anchoring around Charles Barkley, Clark Kellogg, Kenny Smith and Bruce Pearl. No one here won a collegiate title, though Barkley now gets an anthropomorphic basketball friend. After UConn and Illinois go final, we get separate musical interludes from the Chainsmokers and Zac Brown Band. Two performers somehow necessitate different presenting sponsors. Far cooler cameos pop up for the Michigan-Arizona game. Rose, Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson are reuniting for a Fab Five simulcast watchalong. Those Wolverines were something of a cultural revolution, but they lost back-to-back championship games in 1992 and 1993. The Fab Five alt-cast airs on tru TV and HBO Max. The NCAA Tournament is an institution that brands chaos. Improbability is the product. Yet UConn’s Elite Eight flip felt like a new kind of stunner, a previously undiscovered strain of Madness that we were finally ready for. The Huskies erased Duke’s 19-point lead, then forced the panic turnover, then buried a 35-footer as the clock ticked to near-zero. Their coach gave the referee a light headbutt. It still sounds fake. Braylon Mullins, from the logo to “The White Lotus” meme. Dan Hurley’s Huskies are rolling behind Tarris Reed Jr. The senior center finished the Duke upset with 26 points, nine rebounds, three assists and six stocks (steals + blocks). Reed also had a 20/5/4/3 line against physical Michigan State in the Sweet 16 win. He’s tough on the block but has touch around the rim. Fellow senior Alex Karaban brings a steadying presence, plus heat-check potential. Advertisement UConn leads the field in clutch-time heroics and championship experience. Illinois counters with tallness and buckets, first in offensive rating and third in offensive rebounding percentage. Scorers abound. Andrej Stojaković led the second-round romp of VCU with 21 points on 12 shots. David Mirkovic had a hard-fought double-double to muscle past Houston in the Sweet 16. Keaton Wagler scored a game-high 25 in the Illini’s Elite Eight win over Iowa. Brad Underwood’s group won each of the previous rounds by double figures. The Illini are playing like they know the secret. UConn: 6 Jim Calhoun won the first three (1999, 2004, 2011). Kevin Ollie went all the way with a No. 7 seed in 2014. Hurley is going for his third national title in the last four seasons (2023 and 2024), alongside Karaban. Illinois: 0 The Illini reached the 2005 championship game but fell just short of North Carolina. That Illinois team finished with a 37-2 record, its losses by a combined six points. This is as close as close gets. Michigan is 35-3; Arizona is 36-2. They’re the two best teams by net rating, sitting in the top five in offensive and defensive efficiency. Ken Pom’s prediction model sees a 50-50 win probability split and a one-point margin of victory. This is the good stuff. Tommy Lloyd and his Wildcats haven’t lost since mid-February. In last week’s two wins, freshman forward Koa Peat averaged more than 20 points on better than 58 percent shooting. While Peat works inside, tandem freshman Brayden Burries maps heat along the perimeter. Through four tournament games, Burries is at 58 percent from the floor and nearly 69 percent on 3s (! ). Balancing out the youth is steely senior Jaden Bradley and 7-foot-2 junior Motiejus Krivas. Advertisement Arizona beat Arkansas, SEC tournament champ, by 21 points in the Sweet 16. After a slow first half, it knocked off Purdue, Big Ten tournament champ, by 15 in the Elite Eight. Now comes the toughest test yet. Michigan has cracked 90 points in all four advancements, and it held both second-weekend opponents below 40 percent shooting. Yaxel Lendeborg is the only first-team All-American still dancing. He’s led Michigan in scoring for the past three rounds — 25 points versus Saint Louis, then 23 versus Alabama, then 27 versus Tennessee. Lendeborg can initiate full-court offense through long strides and ambitious vision. He’s also strong at the rim. Point guard Elliot Cadeau has clean tourney averages of 8. 3 assists to 1. 8 turnovers. Aday Mara matches up with Krivas, standing an inch taller at 7-foot-3. His versatility as a dimer and shot-blocker unlocks both sides of the free-flowing Dusty May scheme. Like Arizona, Michigan thoroughly handled its second weekend. And like Arizona, Michigan is clear-eyed in pursuit of a second NCAA title. The mirror shimmers on Saturday night. Arizona: 1 Arizona survived Kentucky in the 1997 overtime finale, thanks to Miles Simon’s 30-piece. Michigan: 1 Just like its opponent, Michigan’s lone national title came in an OT classic. That one-point win versus Seton Hall in 1989 made a legend out of Wolverines forward Glen Rice … and a goat out of referee John Clougherty. Ticketing links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply.  The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process, and do not review stories before publication. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Steven Louis Goldstein is a Staff Writer for The Athletic. He lives in Los Angeles and graduated from Northwestern University.