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INDIANAPOLIS — The day before his team took on Michigan in the Elite Eight in Chicago, his head swimming in search of solutions for the Wolverines’ terror triangle — 6-foot-9 small forward Yaxel Lendeborg, 6-foot-9 power forward Morez Johnson Jr., 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara — Tennessee assistant coach Gregg Polinsky nodded knowingly at a question about someone else.
Are people missing how important Elliot Cadeau is to Michigan?
“I love fans, without fans we don’t have a game, but a lot of people are missing it,” Polinsky said of the 6-foot-1 junior point guard. “He snaps the ball. He beats the defense just with the velocity of his passes. And then his vision? You can talk about all their guys, but if you take him off their team — and I think Dusty (May) would feel the same — you’re missing the straw that stirs the drink.”
In other words, you’re missing Taurean Green. Remember him? The last time a men’s college basketball team had a 3-4-5 that felt this much like Captain America, Spiderman and Iron Man joining forces was 20 years ago, when Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah and Al Horford led Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators to the first of consecutive national championships. They were the stars, the focus, the certain first-round picks.
Green simply ran both teams, quietly leading the 2006-07 Gators in scoring (13.3 per game) and in assists both seasons, producing countless clutch moments along the way. If May’s Wolverines (35-3) beat Arizona (36-2) in the national semifinal main event Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium, then win it all Monday to initiate “best team ever” discourse, Cadeau will be just as central. And ideally, more recognized as such.
“Taurean Green, that’s a big-time comparison,” said Michigan assistant coach Akeem Miskdeen, who has been Cadeau’s closest coaching confidant this season. “(Green) was probably undervalued nationally, and I think it’s the same with ‘EC.’ But locally and certainly in our program, we know his value. Need a big play? He goes and makes that play.”
All of which makes a larger statement about May’s staff and its ability to evaluate, nurture and develop players. It’s not just that Michigan wouldn’t be in this position without Cadeau, who averages 10.2 points and 5.8 assists per game and got All-Big Ten media honorable mention for it; it’s that when Michigan landed Cadeau last offseason, the Wolverines’ 2025-26 external forecast didn’t improve much, if at all.
The coveted 2023 recruit from Link Academy in Branson, Mo., who grew up in West Orange, N.J., averaged 8.3 points and 5.1 assists in two frustrating seasons playing for Hubert Davis at North Carolina, shooting 29 percent from 3-point range. He turned it over 113 times as a sophomore, 3.1 per game. Why was that sloppiness and that shooting the answer for a team that otherwise was shaping up to be formidable? Why was that better at the point than Tre Donaldson (11.3 points per game in 2024-25), who transferred to Miami?
“No brainer,” Miskdeen said. “We were looking for a pass-first point guard. Coach May’s system is a lot about ball movement. We felt we could help him with the turnovers.”
Cadeau’s assist-to-turnover ratio went from just under 2 to 1 in his sophomore season at UNC to 2.5 to 1 (222 to 89) this season. His 3-point shooting jumped to 37.7 percent. He has a lot of thoughts on why.
“I think it’s a lot of the coaching,” he said. “Just giving me the freedom to shoot these shots, and just believing in me and just giving me the freedom to shoot pretty much any shot I want without being criticized about it. … It wasn’t mechanical. I’ve never been a bad shooter in my life.
“It was just coming and getting a fresh start in this program with a coaching staff that allowed me to come out and shoot whenever I wanted without second-guessing myself. I think that’s what really helped me make the jump. I didn’t change nothing about my shot. It was just the mental side of it.”
Lendeborg, from UAB, and Johnson, from Illinois, were celebrated offseason pickups for the Wolverines and figured to put them within shouting range of preseason No. 1 Purdue. Cadeau was a question mark, at least for people who aren’t on May’s staff. So was Mara, a reserve for Mick Cronin at UCLA who showed flashes last season but hadn’t put it all together.
Mara doubled or nearly doubled his production in every key stat this season and was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. At Michigan and previously at FAU, May and his coaches have done similar things with players such as Vlad Goldin, Nick Boyd, Alijah Martin, Johnell Davis, Xavian Stapleton and Anthony Adger.
“I went from a bad environment at UCLA, where almost nobody wanted to go practice because it was, as I say, a bad environment, to a great one,” Mara said. “It was the opposite. So it took me a couple months to realize I was in a good place and I was on a good team that they wanted the best for me.”
It took Cadeau one day in Ann Arbor to realize May was different — the coach grabbed some furniture and helped him move into his apartment, of which Cadeau said: “I don’t think a lot of coaches would do that, grab a table.”
“When a player is moving in, it’s a lot quicker if we walk across the parking lot and help them move in rather than just mom and dad,” May said. “That’s kind of how we run our program.”
Before long, the Wolverines started to realize how special they could be. Cadeau’s new teammates realized how well he could see and anticipate movement on the court.
“I knew he was a really good passer,” Michigan senior shooting guard Nimari Burnett said. “I didn’t know he’s a great passer. And some of the reads he makes are exceptional, to say the least. He sees things before they happen.”
The coaching staff came to learn that Cadeau and Johnson are “psycho competitors,” May said, who should never be put on opposing teams in practice. Miskdeen started working extra with Cadeau on a daily basis, getting shots up and quizzing him in brief film sessions.
Cadeau, extremely quiet upon arrival — he said he’s “a ball knower when it comes to watching anime” — started to assert himself vocally. He’s got snappy one-liners ready at all times, Miskdeen said. He’s always up for an argument.
And it wasn’t just that Michigan’s coaches gave him freedom to shoot; they demanded it.
“There were times early in the season when he had to take a shot and didn’t, and I finally said, ‘I’m going to stop working with you if you don’t start shooting the ball,’” Miskdeen said.
“Most of my development this year is thanks to Coach Akeem,” Cadeau said, and the confidence jump helped him get buckets when opponents were doing the job on Michigan’s featured weapons.
At Michigan State and at Purdue, Cadeau hit shots to fuel Michigan runs and halt those of the Spartans and Boilermakers. He outplayed MSU point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. (All-Big Ten first team, All-America second team) down the stretch in East Lansing and Purdue point guard Braden Smith (All-Big Ten first team, All-America first team) in the first half in West Lafayette as the Wolverines built a massive lead that would hold.
Cadeau has overcome deafness in his right ear and a progressive eye disease called keratoconus that required surgery when he was a freshman at North Carolina. He has asthma and a nut allergy, which came to light this week when he was briefly hospitalized for accidentally eating something that caused hives — Cadeau said he was “totally fine” after two hours in the hospital.
Through it all, he has found a home. Likely more than a one-year home.
“I definitely want to come back,” he said on Friday.
“Toward the middle of the season, he started to become real vocal, and now he’s the guy that guys are like, ‘Man, whatever ‘EC’ says, we have to do it,’” Miskdeen said. “It’ll be that way for the coaches and recruiting this offseason. ‘EC’, do you want to play with this guy?’ And whatever he says, it goes.”
First, two more wins and the second men’s basketball championship in Michigan history await. Ball knowers will give more credit to Cadeau — who admittedly hadn’t heard of Green but knew Brewer, Horford and Noah — than casual observers if the Wolverines get it done.
If they do, Cadeau could be a good trivia question someday. He will certainly be up for an argument.
“I do think we have the potential to be a really, really good team when you compare us to other teams in history,” he said. “But it will only be a debate if we win the championship.”
