Elliot Cadeau’s MOP message perfectly described Michigan’s championship mindset

Last spring, Elliot Cadeau, a former five-star recruit who was supposed to be the next great North Carolina guard, unceremoniously split with the Tar Heels. A year later, he was cutting down the nets in Indianapolis as a national champion and Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player after a 19-point performance in Michigan’s 69-63 win over UConn on Monday night. 

You don’t complete that journey without eating a few slices of humble pie along the way, and Cadeau certainly had his share. Most of Michigan’s starting lineup of transfers had taken their licks on the path to Ann Arbor, and that’s seemingly how this team’s championship mindset was molded. 

“The unselfishness that everybody has,” Cadeau responded to TBS’s Ernie Johnson on the podium postgame when asked what the lasting memory of this team will be. “Nobody cared about stats the whole season. Nobody cared about nothing but winning. I’m just glad to be a part of that.” 

Elliot Cadeau got the last laugh by cutting down the nets

The former five-star point guard was much maligned through his two seasons in Chapel Hill. His shot was slow to develop, and turnovers were a persistent issue. That’s a major reason he was ultimately cast aside amid a $14 million offseason spending spree from the Tar Heels that ended with a first-round NCAA Tournament exit. Clearly, Cadeau wasn’t the problem. 

Against Arizona, the shooting struggles that plagued his Tar Heels tenure reappeared, going 5-17. Yet, he was one of the best players on the floor, controlling every aspect of the game and getting his bigs, particularly Aday Mara, involved with his game-high 10 assists. That’s not just unselfishness, that’s trust from the coaching staff. 

It’s not just Cadeau. It’s not often that the Big Ten Player of the Year and a first-team All-American averages just 15 points, but that was Yaxel Lendeborg. Then, when the man whose teammates have repeatedly called ‘the best player in the country’ was hampered by a knee and an ankle injury in the Final Four, the rest of the Wolverines' "nine starters" stepped up. 

That’s what championship teams do, and that’s what Cadeau captured on Monday night in Indianapolis. That unselfishness is also how Cadeau, Mara, Morez Johnson Jr., Lendeborg, Nimari Burnett, and so many others played the best basketball of their careers simultaneously this season. 

Dusty May created that environment in just two years. And it doesn’t appear to be a culture that will be going anywhere soon.