Chicago – You don’t notice until he tilts his head to the right and leans in with his left ear. He listens intently, nods politely, speaks softly.
For a guy who can’t hear everything, Elliot Cadeau translates and dictates fluidly, especially on the court. Michigan has towering presences and personalities, in the Sweet 16 as a national-title favorite partly because of its imposing height, led by Yaxel Lendeborg and Aday Mara. But the truth is, they’re going only as far as Cadeau can lead them.
UM’s 6-1 point guard controls the show, looking for the right place and the right pace. In victories over Howard (101-80) and St. Louis (95-72) last weekend, Cadeau had 17 assists and three turnovers. When he wasn’t in foul trouble, he was on the floor nearly the entire time, handling the frenetic pace, which is about to get considerably more frenetic.
The Wolverines (33-3) will face Alabama’s guard-heavy, volume-shooting attack Friday night in the United Center, and once again, Cadeau will have minimal room for error. The Crimson Tide (25-9) shoot more 3s than any team in the country, and Cadeau’s stamina will be tested. Since top backup L.J. Cason was lost with a knee injury last month, Cadeau keeps taking on more in his first season at UM.
With blunt confidence, he’ll tell you his supposed handicap – deaf in the right ear since birth – is an advantage, helping tune out the crowd. He also deals with asthma, and as a freshman at North Carolina, he required surgery to save diminishing vision in his left eye. Now he can see the whole floor and hear half the chatter, adapting to circumstances as point guards are required to do.
“It’s not really difficult, I’m kinda used to it now since I spent my whole life like this,” said Cadeau, who ditched his hearing aid a few years ago because he felt he didn’t need it. “I’m half deaf, so if you whisper in my right ear, I wouldn’t be able to tell what you’re saying. I think it’s kind of an advantage to me, in stadiums that get really loud.”
In the noisiest arenas, a hard-of-hearing player faces most of the same challenges as any player, without having to hear all the heckling. As the only small accommodation for Cadeau, Dusty May and his staff might use hand signals or written instructions, and make sure to lean into Cadeau’s good ear in the huddle.
“He’s so smart, if we can’t communicate, I trust whatever decision he’s gonna make,” May said. “We call him QB-1. He’s a savant with what he’s doing, and probably doesn’t even realize all the things he’s doing because he’s so intelligent.”
Opportunity knocks
It does take quarterback-level command to lead Michigan’s free-flowing offense, which has topped 100 points nine times this season. Cadeau didn’t arrive quite as celebrated as UM’s other transfers, Lendeborg, Mara and Morez Johnson Jr., and his demeanor is more cerebral than exuberant. But when pushed, he pushes back.
He showed that feistiness in a verbal spat with St. Louis players early in last Saturday’s game. He kept his composure and spent the rest of the game tormenting the Billikens any way possible. He had 12 points, eight assists, two turnovers and shot 3-for-5 on 3s. Mainly, he made sure to feed the big guys, and Lendeborg scored 25.
“These last two games, we felt like offensively we could get anything we wanted,” Cadeau said. “We didn’t have to make any home run plays. We could just hit singles and score every time. That was our mentality going into the game.”
It’s the mentality Cadeau hoped to refine when he arrived from North Carolina as part of May’s four-man transfer class. It was a slight risk for both sides. In 68 starts for the Tar Heels, Cadeau was a pass-first, turnover-prone playmaker. Eager to accelerate and reluctant to shoot, he was second in the ACC in assists last season but recorded the most turnovers.
The Wolverines had all sorts of openings as six rotational players from May’s first UM team – which went 27-10 and won the Big Ten tournament – either transferred, graduated or turned pro. May’s debut season in Ann Arbor caught Cadeau’s attention, and May was interested from the first time he saw him play.
“When he’s in neutral, he’s an elite processer and thinker,” May said. “Because he’s so competitive, sometimes a jersey grab or a push gets him out of his stuff. We’re trying to get him in that moment to just freeze, take a deep breath, and get recentered. We’re trying to get him to where we’re not responding to a missed call.”
Important for any player, obviously. Vitally important for Cadeau, whose average minutes have risen to 31 per game since Cason went down. Shooting guard Nimari Burnett is a capable ballhandler and freshman Trey McKenney is quickly developing into a fine two-way guard.
It helps that Cadeau’s shooting has elevated nicely. He hit 28% from 3-point range in two seasons at North Carolina and has upped it to 37.5% with the Wolverines, fourth on the team in scoring (10.1 ppg).
“The difference between (Cadeau) now and earlier, he was more pass first,” Lendeborg said. “He’s still pass first, but he’s become way more of a scoring threat. You can’t guard him anyway. So trying to stop him when you think he’s going to pass, it’s good night pretty much, honestly. He’s done a great job controlling the tempo and being instant offense whenever we need it.”
‘Incredibly impressive’
Cadeau’s unique tale runs far deeper than just the hearing issue. His father, James, is Haitian and his mother, Michelle, is Swedish. He played for the Swedish National Team and speaks the language, developing maturity beyond his 21 years.
Once May laid out the plan, the decision to transfer to UM was an easy one for Cadeau, who went to North Carolina as a five-star recruit out of West Orange, N.J. He wanted to be a well-rounded, fully-wired guard, and May’s offense provided that – pass-first but shoot-when-needed.
“It was time for a new start, and I wanted to play in a different system,” Cadeau said. “I feel like the (previous) two years of my life I haven’t been wired like that. But thanks to my coaching staff, I’m now wired like that. I was wired like that in high school. Them giving me confidence, my teammates giving me confidence to just shoot it again even if I miss, they don’t care if I miss again.”
Although they sometimes make it look easy, the Wolverines were toughened by the rigors of the Big Ten. Six conference teams are in the Sweet 16, making UM’s 19-1 league record even more logic-defying.
Of course, the cruel (and captivating) nature of the NCAA Tournament is, a season worth of successes can be wiped out by a handful of misses. For a No. 1 seed, the only preventative measure is to be prepared for anything – teams that play sticky defense, teams that fire up 3s, teams that slow it down and test your patience.
Again, no guarantees, but the Wolverines have faced all kinds, and Cadeau is wired to play all ways.
“His ability to read the floor, read the game, manipulate defense, is incredibly impressive,” May said. “And then you factor in his speed and quickness to get wherever he needs to with the ball, you can’t really pressure him. He’s what we want in a point guard. He’s a guy that makes everyone on the team better.”
Cadeau is the stealthy connector, on and off the floor. He can’t always hear what’s coming, but he can see it and sense it, and has learned how to handle it.
@bobwojnowski
