Dusty May believed in Elliot Cadeau, and the Michigan point guard is making his coach look smart

In an effort to convince Alabama’s Latrell Wrightsell it was pointless to present a full-capacity effort over the final four minutes of his team’s Sweet 16 game against Michigan, UM point guard Elliott Cadeau twice repeated, “It’s over” and offered a small, non-offensive gesture to affirm the message.

The Wolverines owned a double-digit lead at the time. They also featured the best player on the floor, forward Yaxel Lendeborg. So Cadeau’s statement seemed correct at the time, and turned out to be exactly so.

Michigan’s second-half rampage to a 90-77 victory, which advanced the team to the NCAA Midwest Region final Sunday at Chicago’s United Center, was sort of a statement game for Cadeau. His counterpart in this game was Tide All-American Labaron Philon Jr., and though Philon scored a career-high 35 points in the game, Cadeau is Elite Eight-bound for the first time in his career because he’s playing like he never has before.

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At North Carolina as a freshman, he started against Alabama at this same stage of the tournament and lasted only 13 minutes before being benched. As a veteran last year with the Tar Heels, he was in charge of a squad that reached March Madness by the thinnest of margins, then lost their first-round game.

When UM’s Dusty May chose to make Cadeau the point guard in his impressive recruiting class/transfer haul, there was cause to wonder if the coach had access to the internet: 9.4 points per game, 3.1 turnovers, 33.7 percent shooting from long range, 67 percent at the foul line? OK, so we skipped over Cadeau’s average of 6.2 assists, but you get the point, right?

It’s starting to appear May was right all along.

He contends Cadeau has an extraordinary understanding and ability to read the game. That enables the Wolverines to play a free-flowing offense that’s less dependent on ball screens than many March Madness teams.

“He’s a savant with what he’s doing,” May said earlier this week, according to On3 Sports, “and he probably doesn’t even realize all the things that he’s doing because he’s so intelligent."

His performance against Alabama was a microcosm of his entire career. Early on, he allowed his teammates to do as they wished and to get trapped into a one-on-one style game that did not suit their strengths. In the second half, he took command of the offense and began working over the unstable Tide defense.

As one can imagine, it has not been a direct climb to this point. Cadeau has cut down his turnovers as a Wolverine. He has changed from a player who rarely shot from 3-point range, primarily because he made few of them, to one taking roughly half his shots from deep. If someone’s going to shoot from point-blank range, it makes sense it would be 7-3 Aday Mara or 6-10 Morez Johnson. (His dismal 3-of-10 performance against Alabama was an aberration). Cadeau worked hard to turn himself into a long-distance threat.

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There have been some rough games. He went 2-of-9 from the field when Nebraska came into Crisler Arena and nearly upset the Wolverines at home. In a mid-February road game at Northwestern, he committed five turnovers in just 22 minutes. With the Wolverines in a double-digit deficit, Cadeau’s second half began like this: turnover, missed 23-footer, turnover, missed 25-footer. May benched him in favor of dynamic backup L.J. Cason, and the Wolverines went from 13 points down to a 12-point victory over the final 15 minutes.

When Cason was lost to a torn ACL 16 days later, the Wolverines lost that degree of flexibility, of insurance. If they were going to win the NCAA title for the first time since 1989, the only point guard available to drive them there was Cadeau.

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Whether that cost them in the Big Ten Tournament final against Purdue can be argued, but it hasn’t been an issue yet in this championship, the one the Wolverines really want. In the second half of Friday’s game, they jetted from a two-point halftime deficit to complete dominance. Cadeau finished with 7 assists, 5 rebounds, 3-of-8 shooting from 3-point range. He did have to sit with a couple fouls late in the first half, and at that point UM was trying to survive without a true playmaker, but he took care of that after halftime by not fouling at all.

It hasn’t hurt that UM’s last two games were against Saint Louis and Alabama, teams that rank No. 40 and 61 in defensive efficiency. The Elite Eight opponent will be more sturdy against Michigan’s attack.

Indeed, the greatest challenges are coming. That’s to be expected in an event such as this. The teams that perform best get to continue on and play more games. Cadeau never has been this far before, but if the Wolverines advance yet again, he’ll need to be the reason.