INDIANAPOLIS -- Michigan put an exclamation point on a historic season in Monday’s national championship game, defeating UConn 69-63. Cadeau was named Most Outstanding Player after finishing with 19 points.

The Wolverines won the program’s first national championship since 1989 -- and became the first team to beat UConn in the Sweet 16 or later since Michigan State beat the Huskies in the 2009 Final Four.

“When you bring a group this talented together, and they decide from the beginning that they’re going to do it this way and they never waver and they never change, that’s probably the most uncommon thing in athletics now,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “For these guys to cut down the nets after all they’ve sacrificed is pretty special.”

Michigan wasn’t as dominant as it had been early in the NCAA tournament, when it became the first team to score 90 or more points in five straight games in a single tournament. But the Wolverines’ strengths all season -- size, length and more size -- were the difference- makers again Monday night.

“They’re legit,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “They definitely deserved to win the national championship. They’re clearly the best team in the country this year. They’re just so hard to score against at the rim. I could talk about the 3s that we missed, and I thought we had a lot of good 3s that we missed. But they just made it so tough on us around the rim.

“That was probably what even got us more than the missed 3s was some of those rim shots, all those transition baskets. I think they cut it to four. Could have put some serious game pressure on them. They changed so many shots around the rim. They’re just so tall.”

UConn’s plan from the outset wasn’t much different from the first few rounds of the NCAA tournament: get the ball to Tarris Reed Jr. He attempted three of the Huskies’ first four shots but struggled to finish against the length and size of Michigan’s Aday Mara. The Wolverines’ edge in that area was a factor at the other end, too, as Michigan collected three offensive rebounds and six points in the paint before the first media timeout.

The first 15 minutes of the game, however, mostly trended in UConn’s direction. The Huskies kept Michigan out of transition, with the Wolverines having zero fast-break points in the first half and only one opportunity to get out and run. UConn was controlling the tempo, holding its own on the backboards and getting a boost from Michigan’s shooting struggles; the Wolverines missed their first 10 3-point attempts.

Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg looked like a shell of the player who earned All-American and Big Ten Player of the Year honors. He played all 20 first-half minutes but went 1-for-5 from the field and was ineffective at both ends of the floor.

But the second half belonged to Michigan. which wore down UConn with its size and ability to withstand the Huskies’ physicality. UConn’s season- long issues with foul trouble caused problems. Solo Ball had four fouls early in the second half, and Silas Demary Jr. fouled out.

The Wolverines overcame their shooting issues by dominating two areas that are familiar to them: the paint and free throw line. They had a combined 61 points in those areas, compared with the Huskies’ 34.

UConn ran out of answers midway through the second half. The Huskies missed 13 consecutive 3-point attempts at one point in the game. Entering the final four minutes of the game, UConn was 5-for-21 on its first-shot offense in the second half, per ESPN Research, and the Huskies were 1-for-9 on shots contested by Mara. Michigan’s size and length around the rim -- four blocks after halftime -- were a major deterrent.

Lendeborg had nine points and three rebounds in the second half, looking much more like the two-way battering ram who overpowered opponents all season. Mara’s counting stats weren’t as impressive as his 26-point semifinal performance, but he held Tarris Reed Jr. to his worst game of the postseason. Morez Johnson Jr. had 12 points and 10 rebounds.