He scored or assisted on eight of the points during that first-half surge, but more importantly, the junior orchestrated the pace of a metamorphic Michigan team that throttled the Volunteers on the break and enjoyed equal success by slowing things down and sharing the ball like a hot potato.
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Cadeau, an extension of head coach Dusty May, brought the top version of his offense to life, balancing the accelerator with the brakes as the Wolverines made Rick Barnes’ stout defense look helpless.
Cadeau finished with 10 assists and a trophy in his hands as Michigan, one of the top ten most dominant teams of all time, advanced to the program’s first Final Four since 2018. The Wolverines head to Indianapolis to play in a national semifinal against fellow No. 1 seed Arizona.“This is Elliot. This is him,” his mother, Michelle, told Yahoo Sports, as music boomed through the United Center and celebratory chaos engulfed the court. “This is what he did in high school. This is what he’s doing here. This is what he’s going to continue doing.
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“It’s amazing to see him be him again.”
Because Cadeau was not himself, physically or mentally, in Chapel Hill. That’s where he spent the first two seasons of his highly anticipated college career after reclassifying and arriving at North Carolina as a five-star prospect who was the No. 13-highest-rated recruit in Rivals’ industry rankings in the 2023 cycle.
He started 31 games as a freshman for a Hubert Davis-coached UNC team that won the ACC regular-season title and earned a No. 1 seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, but he shot just 18.9% from 3 and averaged a career-low 4.1 assists per game.
Along the way, he underwent surgery to treat an eye condition called keratoconus, which causes the cornea to thin and bulge outward into a cone shape, causing blurred vision.
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During his sophomore year, Cadeau, a New Jersey native who is also partially deaf in his right ear and lives with asthma, faced another medical problem. He coughed and coughed. I couldn’t keep food down. Michelle Cadeau explained that Elliot was sick with an upper respiratory infection from November to February of last year.
“He lost that millisecond speed. They literally had to take him to the hospital and give him an IV before the games,” he said.
“It was never talked about though, but I know.”
Elliot Cadeau averaged 3.3 turnovers per game during those months and finished a season that culminated with a March Madness first-round exit at the bottom of the ACC in that category of ball security statistics, often a barometer for players at his position.
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Since transferring to Michigan, Cadeau has cut his giveaways to 2.3 per game and is shooting a career-high 37.7% from beyond the arc.
“Seeing him healthy, thriving like that… I mean, I’m a mother,” Michelle Cadeau said. “This is the best feeling he’s ever had. And he’s worked so hard to get here… He’s a 6-1 point guard. He has to work harder than anyone to even be relevant. And he has.”
Rediscovering your confidence
Michigan senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. also didn’t have the smoothest first two seasons of his college career. Gayle was part of Ohio State’s top-10 2022 recruiting class, most of which ultimately dispersed after Chris Holtmann was fired in February 2024 and the Buckeyes missed the NCAA tournament for the second straight year.
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Gayle said Sunday that the struggles he and Elliot Cadeau experienced at their previous schools have allowed them to connect.
“He came from a situation where he wasn’t really in it mentally, he just felt like he couldn’t do it,” Gayle said.
Elliot Cadeau spent the first two seasons of his career in North Carolina. (Photo by Ryan Hunt/Getty Images)
(Ryan Hunt via Getty Images)
Cadeau had to rediscover his confidence at Michigan after losing it at UNC. In the words of his mother, he had to “be him again.”
What does that mean?
“Having confidence. Being allowed to be the leader of the team, being allowed to be the extension of the coach on the court, that’s where he really thrives,” said Michelle Cadeau, who noted that at Michigan, Elliot has “total trust” from his coaches.
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That confidence was evident even when the Wolverines’ staff was recruiting him.
“They told me they wanted me to be the starting point guard,” Elliot Cadeau said Sunday. “They told me they wanted to win the national championship, so they thought I could be the point guard for the national championship.
“That meant a lot to me and they were just giving me the belief that I could be it.”
He is two wins away from realizing that potential after averaging 10.5 points, 8.3 assists and just 1.8 turnovers in the first four games of an NCAA tournament that followed Michigan’s record-breaking regular season.
The Wolverines racked up double-digit wins against 14 different Big Ten opponents, and joined Bob Knight’s undefeated 1975-76 Indiana team as the only teams in league history to win all of their Big Ten road games. Overall, the Maize and Blue went 19-1 in conference play, setting a Big Ten record for league wins in a single season. Their offense is among the top 10 nationally in points per game and advanced metrics favor their defense even more.
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This trip wouldn’t have been possible without Cadeau, according to May, who replaced his point guard from Day 1. Literally.
On the day of Cadeau’s last classes at UNC, his family moved him from Chapel Hill to Ann Arbor. May and other members of the Michigan staff were ready to not only welcome Cadeau but also help him move in.
“They’re like running up and down stairs with their couches and stuff. And Elliot literally said that,” Michelle Cadeau recalled. “He said, ‘Mom, the head coach at Michigan carried my boxes up the stairs.’
“I knew Dusty was different,” he added. “It means everything. We’re so grateful for Dusty. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to Elliot.”
Elliot Cadeau (far right) talks with Michigan teammates Roddy Gayle Jr. (center right), Morez Johnson Jr. (center left) and Yaxel Lendeborg (far left) during an Elite Eight victory over Tennessee on March 29. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
(Gregory Shamus via Getty Images)
Elliot Cadeau spoke Sunday in the locker room about how May is a leader and coach on the court and a friend and mentor off it. Cadeau also benefited from that kind of dichotomy at Link Academy in Branson, Missouri, where he spent his prep career with Bill Armstrong.
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Armstrong, now McNeese’s head coach, is close to May. That relationship played a role in Cadeau’s portal recruitment.
“We knew the way they recruited Elliot, that was the way they recruited everyone else,” Michelle Cadeau said of Michigan. “So we knew this was going to be a very selfless team because everyone who came to this team had to give something up.
“If it was a bigger salary, if I went to the NBA, if I wasn’t a starter, as if all the kids on this team had given up something.”
Michigan added four transfers, including Elliot Cadeau. He was joined by former UAB forward Yaxel Lendeborg, now Big Ten Player of the Year; former UCLA center Aday Mara, now the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year; and former Illinois forward Morez Johnson Jr.
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“When he’s at his best, he really stirs the drink”
Mara lights up when she talks about the moment she found out Cadeau was transferring to Michigan.
The two crossed paths before college at the 2023 Basketball Without Borders Global Camp in Utah. The event organized by the NBA and FIBA brought top international prospects to Salt Lake City. That’s where Mara, a 7-foot-3 big man from Zaragoza, Spain, met the much smaller Cadeau, who already had plenty of games under his belt representing Sweden internationally. After all, Michelle Cadeau is Swedish and her husband, James, is Haitian.
Fast forward to last season, and that’s when Cadeau’s Tar Heels took on Mara’s Bruins in the CBS Sports Classic. So when Mara saw Cadeau’s commitment chart, she knew what might be on the horizon: a point guard who would make her life easier.
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“Having him as a point guard, he can pass, he’s smart, he knows where to be, what he has to do. It’s a lot easier to play basketball like that,” Mara said Sunday after the game.
May has referred to Cadeau as the brain center of the Wolverines’ operation.
“Dusty hands him the keys a lot offensively,” said Kyle Church, May’s longtime assistant and also Michigan’s general manager. “Just, ‘Hey, Elliot, set up a ball screen, set these guys up, get the ball where they like it, where they’re at their best.'”
Church noted, “When he’s at his best, he really stirs the drink…And his performance in March Madness has been pretty special.”
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Along with Lendeborg and Gayle, Cadeau earned a spot on the Midwest Regional team. He has had at least seven assists in each round of this year’s NCAA tournament. The skilled passer has created countless other scoring opportunities.
That was evident during Michigan’s blitz that turned a two-point Tennessee lead into a 19-point Wolverines lead Sunday in the Elite Eight.
“He’s a wizard,” May said later. “I mean, to see what he was doing, he was turning down open shots. He was turning down layups to get everyone involved. And that really becomes contagious when you have someone who has shot the ball as well as him this year.
“He doesn’t care if he shoots. He supports his teammates. Sometimes he thinks for all of us and he’s very, very grateful because there is no way we would be in this situation if Elliot wasn’t here with us.”
Cadeau has overcome hearing, vision and breathing issues, along with an arduous first half of his college career, to become the accomplished point guard for Michigan, which is headed to the Final Four.
He’s back to being him.