Michigan's ugly championship, plus Angel Reese on the move

The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Start fresh today. Coming up: 🐺 An ugly championship 🏎️ WNBA’s speedy offseason ⚾ ABS data delivers again March Mildness: Michigan plods to titleMemes get famous for a reason, and I still find Kombucha Girl to be endlessly applicable. Perhaps never more so than for capturing the gist of last night’s NCAA men’s basketball title game, where an ugly shooting performance from both sides yielded but a few moments of true excitement. Michigan’s offense had bulldozed its way through the tournament to this point, but that wasn’t the case here as the Wolverines shot 38 percent from the field and went just 2-for-15 from 3-point range in their 69-63 win over UConn. The Huskies shot a paltry 31 percent. It was not a pretty watch — a possible side effect of playing basketball in a football stadium. But the allure of March briefly took hold with 37 seconds left as UConn cut the lead to 4 points with a clutch 3 — might the Huskies do it again?! — and Michigan missed two free throws. Alas, the favorites held on. You likely know the bottom line already, but if not: It’s the second-ever title for Michigan, ends the Big Ten’s 26-year men’s basketball national championship drought and prevents a third UConn win in four seasons.Advertisement