The NCAA, the top college basketball league in United States and Canada, ended with the Michigan Wolverines beating the Connecticut Huskies 69-63. Michigan won the NCAA for the second time ever after 1989, denying the Huskies, one of the most successful teams of the league, with six titles between 1999 and 2024.
And the Michigan Wolverines had an unlikely star, 21-year-old Aday Mara, who became the first Spaniard to compete in the NCAA, and naturally the first one to win it. Mara scored 8 points in the final and was named one of the best five players of the tournament, alongside two teammates (Elliot Cadeau and Morez Johnson Jr) and two from Huskies (Tarris Reed Jr. and Alex Karabab). In a semifinal against Arizona, Mara scored a career-high of 26 points on 11-for-16 shooting.
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Mara was born in Zaragoza on April 7, 2005, and is the son of Angélica "Geli" Gómez, a professional volleyball player from the Spanish national team. Mara played for his local team, Zaragoza Basket, before joining the University of California in 2023. After two seasons, he was then transferred to the University of Michigan, where he became champion in his first season.
Internationally, Mara has played for Spain at the 2022 FIBA Under-17 Basketball World Cup and the 2023 FIBA U18 European Championship: in both tournaments, Spain lost the final to United States and Serbia, earning him two silver medals.