Michigan basketball: Dusty May calls Elliot Cadeau a ‘savant’ as Wolverines eye Sweet Sixteen win

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines are in the second weekend of the tournament for the second year in a row under Dusty May. The play of junior point guard Elliot Cadeau is as much a reason for it as anything else.

Over the last three games, dating back to the 80-72 loss to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament title game, Cadeau has 26 assists to 5 turnovers.

May called Cadeau a “savant” on Tuesday and praised how he has seen the floor in the postseason.

“I was actually watching film with one of the guys yesterday, and I was showing him a few of Elliot’s clips and just basically trying to help him see what Elliot saw,” May said. “He’s a savant with what he’s doing, and he probably doesn’t even realize all the things that he’s doing because he’s so intelligent. He’s able to get us in and close out opportunities without really having to run any offense. His ability to read the floor, read the game, and manipulate the defense is incredibly impressive.

“Then you factor in his speed and quickness to get wherever he needs to with the ball, because of that, you can’t really pressure him. He’s done a lot for us, and he’s continued to improve — his shooting is valuable when they try to go under for him to punish that coverage, but he’s what we want in a point guard, he’s a guy that makes everyone on the team better.”

Cadeau, who is in his first season with Michigan after transferring in from North Carolina, is a former five-star recruit, meaning May never got much of a glimpse of him on the recruiting trail. His Florida Atlantic staff tried to focus on guys it actually had a chance of landing.

But North Carolina’s First Four win over San Diego State last year, where Cadeau had 9 points and 12 assists for the Tar Heels, caught May’s attention.

“We didn’t watch a lot of the top-tier teams, and he was on the circuit at Peach Jam and the EYBL events,” May said. “At that stage, I tried to avoid those events because if someone played really, really well, everyone saw it, and you weren’t going to compete with the highest level teams. So I saw him play a few times.

“We saw him play the game in Dayton against San Diego State. I remember we were all watching that game, and that was probably the first time I watched a full Carolina game that year and thought wow, this kid’s really good, they all played well, they had several guys. Obviously, we were very familiar with Nick [Boyd] at San Diego State as well.

“But we scrimmaged him his freshman year, and I don’t remember him well enough that he didn’t have a great game against us when we’re at FAU, but just always being familiar with him and then when we just did a deep dive we thought that this is someone that we think we could we could really help and and and become better and develop.”

Michigan will need more of the same heady play from Cadeau the rest of the way. Its next test comes in the form of a Sweet Sixteen showdown with No. 4 seed Alabama on Friday in Chicago. Tipoff is set for 7:35 p.m. ET on TBS.