Over the weekend, Michigan learned that LJ Cason would miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL. The Wolverines now have one week left in the regular season to retool and regroup without their dynamic backup point guard.
Dusty May met with the media on Monday morning for his weekly press conference and shared some details about Cason’s injury and Michigan’s plans and expectations to replace his 8.4 points, 2.4 assists, and 18.6 minutes per game in the rotation.
He discussed how bittersweet it was for Cason to get injured while playing as well as any backup guard in the country, but also had confidence in Michigan’s ability to respond to the loss.
“The way he was playing, every single game was playing better than the last, and he played well the game before that,” May said. “So his habits had changed, his maturity was coming along at the right level for a college sophomore, so it stinks, but at the end of the day we’re going to attack it as the only way to look at this is this is going to be positive even though it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be. ”
No more insurance policy
Cason’s injury removes an insurance policy for the Wolverines and will force starting point guard Elliot Cadeau to be more disciplined.
“This will force Elliot to be much more solid with his defensive decision-making when it comes to fouling,” May said. “Because he doesn’t have that insurance policy of LJ behind him, because LJ has come in and carried the load several times for our group, and that’s not there anymore.”
The Wolverines think they have more than enough talent on the roster to shoulder the load without Cason in the lineup.
“But this is a great opportunity for Roddy, Trey, and Nimari to play more. Those guys are really good players and our rotation has been nine, and nine is too deep,” May explained. “That’s playing too many guys if you want to optimize everyone, but we felt like we had nine guys who deserved to play that gave us a different element, and there wasn’t any of those nine we felt like we could cut out of the rotation.”
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