Led by 'unselfish' Elliot Cadeau, Michigan basketball has 'more playmakers' than last season

All in all, Michigan Wolverines basketball was a great passing team in 2024-25, ranking 49th nationally by notching assists on 58 percent of its buckets. But the Maize and Blue ran a lot of their offense through seven-footer Danny Wolf and head coach Dusty May said on multiple occasions that the squad didn’t have great “playmaking.”

The Wolverines hope to boost their playmaking this season, and brought in North Carolina point guard transfer Elliot Cadeau, who averaged 6.2 assists per game a year ago, to help those efforts. The 6-foot-1, 180-pounder arrived on campus late last week to start training with his new teammates.

“Man, I’m excited about Elliot,” Michigan assistant coach Akeem Miskdeen said on the ‘Defend The Block’ podcast with host Brian Boesch. “Obviously, I love everybody on our team, but I played point guard [collegiately at Laramie County Community College in Wyoming and Queens University in North Carolina].

“Just to watch him share the ball — he averaged 6 assists a game. There were two people running down the court in one game I was watching him, and instead of taking a layup, he threw it back to his teammate so he could dunk it. And he could’ve easily taken a layup, so that shows you how unselfish he is.

“There are gonna be some times when we ask him to be a little bit more selfish, look for his game and play his game. But man, I think his bread and butter is gonna be running the team and getting people shots, and that’s what I’m most excited about.

“He’s gonna be thinking pass first, and hopefully if we’re up by eight or nine, we can just put the ball in his hands sometimes and he can make a play for someone — and I think he’s well-capable of it.

“The last thing I like about him: He’s a tough dude, man. He’s really tough. He’s gonna blow up some screens, he’s a feisty guy. Those points guards tend to survive in the Big Ten.”

An ‘equal’ offense with ‘more playmakers’

Michigan doesn’t have another true point guard on the roster, but the Wolverines possess plenty of players with the ability to initiate offense. Sophomore L.J. Cason is the next closest thing to a point guard, senior Roddy Gayle Jr. has handled some of those responsibilities and graduate Yaxel Lendeborg, a UAB transfer, is a big playmaking forward at 6-foot-9.

“Our offense is pretty equal,” Miskdeen noted. “So, whoever gets the rebound becomes the point guard anyway. Obviously, if [7-foot-3 junior center] Aday [Mara] gets the rebound, he’s not gonna be bringing it up. But if they score or we’re running a play, we’ll put the ball in Elliot’s hands.

“If he’s not in the game, you got other guys like L.J. Cason and Roddy Gayle. By the end of the year, Roddy Gayle took on some point guard responsibilities, so it’ll be a good change up for Roddy and L.J. to play some point.

“You’ll see, at times, Yaxel bringing the ball up. Some people may have watched the combine — he was bringing the ball up in the combine — so we feel like we have more playmakers than we had last year, and some of those guys will be L.J., Roddy Gayle and Yaxel.”

Roddy Gayle Jr. and L.J. Cason ready to break out

Gayle has a big jump to make this season, after struggling during the middle of last year. He went 18 games without making a three-pointer before breaking out of his slump in the postseason, including by splashing 4 triples in an NCAA Tournament win over Texas A&M to advance to the Sweet 16.

“In the NCAA Tournament run, he averaged 14 [points per game], shot 45 percent from three,” Miskdeen pointed out. “I think that’ll propel him into this season.

“We got a lot of trust in Roddy. He’s such a great young man. I think he’s gonna have a great season for us. He’s a worker, he’s in the gym working on his shot and doing all the things he needs to do. But I think that tournament run will propel him to be a great player for us this season.”

Cason also gained confidence at the end of last season, making a huge impact with 11 points against Texas A&M in one of his best performances of his freshman season at Michigan. Miskdeen believes he’s primed to break out, too.

“I thought he earned some minutes down the stretch, and he had some games down the stretch that he played great in and didn’t play so great,” Miskdeen explained. “But him earning those minutes in big-time games, I think that’s gonna give him confidence, too, like, ‘I’ve played against Texas A&M, I’ve played against the best of the best,’ so he knows how to play against those teams. 

“The other thing is just being in our system for two years. It’s a rarity now that a freshman doesn’t play as much as he would want to and stay at a school. For his commitment to stay here, that’s significant for us, and I think that’s gonna help him, being in the system for two years, and knowing what you’re getting from the coaches and your team for two years is important.”

Cason and Gayle are two of four returning scholarship players on the Michigan roster in 2025-26, joined by graduate forward Will Tschetter and graduate guard Nimari Burnett, and having that continuity will go a long way. (Forward Oscar Goodman enrolled early in the winter semester but wasn’t with the team the entire season.)

“It’s such a luxury, because they know our drills, they know our habits, they know everything about our coaching staff and how we want to run our program,” Miskdeen said. “When we start putting together a drill, I’m sure they’re gonna be the first people out there, to show the other guys that are here. It’s great to have those guys, and they’re gonna play a huge role in what we’re trying to do here.”