Friedlander: UNC has championship dreams, but can the Heels trust Elliot Cadeau in big moments?

The immediate knee-jerk reaction to North Carolina’s loss to NC State in Saturday’s ACC Tournament championship game was to simply flush it.

The Wolfpack were highly motivated. The Tar Heels, a little overconfident. A few shots that usually fall, didn’t this time.

Nothing to see here. Chalk it up to experience and move on to the real tournament.

Right?

Maybe to some extent.

But upon closer inspection, the red flags waved by all those joyous State fans at Capital One Arena aren’t the only potential warning signs for UNC as it regroups and sets its sights on a 2nd Final Four run in the past 3 years.

Hubert Davis’ team enters the NCAA Tournament as the top seed in the West Region with odds of +1300 to win the national championship, according to ESPN BET sportsbook.

The Tar Heels are armed with one of the best inside-out combos in the country in Armando Bacot and RJ Davis. Their roster, with an average age of 21.5, is among the most experienced.

And yet, as heavily as they’ll lean on their veteran stars throughout a run they hope will lead back to the Final Four for the 2nd time in 3 years – beginning Thursday in Charlotte against 16th-seeded Wagner – their fate will lie squarely on the shoulders of a player who should still be in high school.

UNC will go as deep into this tournament as Elliot Cadeau will take them.

The freshman point guard, who reclassified to come to Chapel Hill a year early, has been a big part of the Tar Heels’ return to prominence this season. He earned ACC All-Freshman recognition while averaging 7.6 points and 4.2 assists.

His 2.29 assist-to-turnover ratio is the 4th-best in school history for a freshman, behind only Jeff Lebo, Ty Lawson and Kendall Marshall.

But as good as he’s been at facilitating others, particularly Davis, handling the primary ballhandling role, defending and attacking the rim, his balky shooting touch can become a liability.

Especially when UNC is forced out of its preferred up-tempo style and into a halfcourt slugfest.

There’s no better example of the contrast than last week’s ACC Tournament.

Cadeau got the Tar Heels off and running, literally, with a dynamic opening half in his team’s quarterfinal win against Florida State. He dove for loose balls, scored on a couple of aggressive drives in traffic, picked up 3 assists and 3 steals while helping to dictate a fast pace that sent UNC on to a 92-67 win.

Elliot Cadeau was everywhere in his ACC Tournament debut ?@UNC_Basketball | #ACCMBB pic.twitter.com/9G4aohSbI6

— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) March 14, 2024

One day later, though, he was just 2-of-9 from the floor and was so ineffective in a slower, more physical semifinal against Pitt that he spent most of the 2nd half on the bench in favor of the bigger, stronger Seth Trimble.

He was better in the championship game against State, with 8 assists and only 1 turnover in 29 minutes. But his inability to consistently knock down shots allowed the Wolfpack to play off him in halfcourt sets, concentrate on defending others and daring him to shoot.

The result was a 2-of-8 performance and a stagnant offense when it wasn’t able to get out and run. UNC got little to no production from anyone other than Davis and Bacot, who combined for 48 of its 76 points.

While other factors obviously come into play, Cadeau’s performance has been one of the most noticeable barometers for determining the Tar Heels’ success this season. He’s shooting 44.2% from the floor (84-of-190) in his team’s 27 wins and only 34.3% (12-of-35) in its 7 losses.

That begs the question: How much can UNC trust its talented, though sometimes erratic young point guard under the 1-and-done pressure of the NCAA Tournament?

We’ll find out quickly enough.

Assuming the Tar Heels get by Wagner in the opening round, their next game on Saturday will be against a power conference foe with similar styles. Neither of which are conducive to UNC’s strengths.

The Tar Heels are averaging 1.11 points on their 529 possessions in transition this season, according to Synergy. While their .95 points on their 2,180 halfcourt possessions isn’t that much less, the number is inflated by UNC’s proficiency out of timeouts (1.2 ppp on 429 possessions).

“I think we’ve just got to do a good job playing our pace and getting out in transition,” RJ Davis said Wednesday. “I think if we can get easy transition buckets, that can affect the whole flow of our game and we don’t have to play the slow pace.”

That might be easier said than done.

Whether it’s 8th-seeded Mississippi State or No. 9 Michigan State, the strategy will be to control the pace, be physical, limit UNC’s fastbreak opportunities and force it into a gritty halfcourt battle.

If they succeed, it will be incumbent upon Cadeau to keep the ball moving, penetrate and not fall into the trap of shooting too many jumpers when left open.

And he will be left open for a reason. Not only did he miss all 6 of his 3-point attempts during the ACC Tournament, he’s only 8-of-44 from beyond the arc (18.3%) this season.

His shooting woes aren’t that dissimilar to those experienced by previous UNC point guards Marshall and Marcus Paige as freshmen. Both eventually developed into reliable perimeter threats. Cadeau could, too, but it might be too much to ask for it to happen in the next 3 weeks.

While the pressure will be on everyone now that the season has come down to its lose-or-go-home conclusion, especially upperclassmen getting their final shot at cutting down the nets, it’s likely to weigh even heavier on a freshman being counted on to be his team’s postseason catalyst.

That’s why Hubert Davis is already doing what he can to temper expectations for Cadeau by taking the “Just relax and have fun, kid” approach.

“I want these guys to enjoy this experience and have fun,” Davis said. “That’s something that is expected of them throughout the rest of the tournament.”

However long that might be.