With just over 10 minutes remaining in the first half against No. 21 Auburn, junior guard Elliot Cadeau committed his second foul of the half. In order to preserve his starting point guard, No. 7 Michigan men’s basketball coach Dusty May substituted Cadeau out, bringing in sophomore guard L.J. Cason to eat some minutes and provide a spark off the bench.
But Cason remained in the game for the rest of the half while Cadeau sat.
In the ensuing 10 minutes, Cason was instrumental in helping the Wolverines break away from the Tigers in Tuesday night’s game. With Michigan’s offense running through Cason in that first half, he helped punch the ticket to the Players Era Festival championship game Wednesday by taking the wind out of Auburn’s sails.
“L.J. Cason is a guy with a very high ceiling, and we see growth in maturity every single day,” May said. “It seems like he’s becoming addicted to the process. He wanted to watch his individual clips first thing this morning. He wants to get better.”
With the Wolverines looking to find another guard to run the offense with Cadeau out of the game, Cason certainly made his case to be that consistent second option. While his numbers in the box score may not show it completely, Cason was effective in both the half-court game and in transition. He kept the Tigers off balance as he pushed the ball up the floor. When set in the half-court, he orchestrated strong ball movement and found sharp passes to open shooters.
When Cason wasn’t creating for his teammates, he was busy torching Auburn himself. He didn’t need many shots to be effective, knocking down 4-of-6 attempts. His facilitation in transition translated to his scoring ability, dropping one in on the fastbreak. He showed confidence from deep as well, draining two 3-pointers in the second half.
Typically heralded for his microwave scoring, Cason impressed on the defensive end as well. Displaying active hands, he poked and prodded the Tigers on the ball and forced turnovers, earning three steals. He also added three defensive rebounds to his strong night, helping him ignite the transition game with the ball in his hands.
“I thought their guards did a really good job of disrupting our timing and framing us and not letting us run our stuff to the 3-point line,” Auburn coach Steven Pearl said. “So I thought it was more of their guards then it was of their bigs.”
During the last possession of the first half, graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg missed a 3-pointer. With a loose ball on the floor, Cason flashed in to grab it, tripping over a defender’s leg as he gained possession. But Cason somehow got an acrobatic shot off as he attempted to regain balance, barely beating the first-half buzzer to extend Michigan’s lead to 29.
Jubilantly celebrating with Lendeborg, that bucket was emblematic of Cason’s play throughout the night: tenacious, active and timely. Subbing in when Cadeau was in foul trouble, Cadeau anchored Michigan throughout the game and especially in the first half, providing the Wolverines a spark on both sides of the ball.
