WEST ORANGE, NJ — Fresh off being named the No. 1 point guard in the Class of 2024 in the country by ESPN, Elliot Cadeau is heading to Sweden.
The West Orange resident and Bergen Catholic High School sophomore will be playing with Sweden’s U18 National Team, first training for a week with the team in Sweden before heading to Finland for the Nordic Cup tournament. A top player in the United States, abroad Cadeau will have to get used to a new team and style of play.
“I’m expecting it to go well,” he said in a phone interview with the West Orange Chronicle on Aug. 2. “There’s a lot of new kids, so I’m not the only one. It’s a different style of basketball; it’s more cutting and screening. Here it’s more one-on-one.”
Cutting is when an offensive player without the ball moves to get open from a defender, and screening, also called picking, is a legal block by an offensive player on the side of or behind a defender to free a teammate to take a shot or receive a pass.
Cadeau has played with the Swedish team before, but this will be his first time competing with the Swedes against other countries. He qualifies for the Swedish team because his mother, Michelle Cadeau, is from Sweden.
“I’m excited to play,” Elliot Cadeau said. “A lot of people don’t get to go to other countries to play basketball.”
When he’s not playing for Sweden over the summer or the BCHS Crusaders during the school year, Cadeau plays for the New Heights Lightning, run by the Amateur Athletic Union. But it’s not the same as being on the roster for a national team.
“AAU is one thing, but playing with a flag on your uniform is different,” Michelle Cadeau said in a phone interview with the Chronicle on Aug. 2.
There are advantages to playing on more than one team per year, Elliot Cadeau said.
“I’m able to be coached,” he said. “I know how to be coached by the Swedish coaches, and then by different coaches in AAU and school.”
In addition to the point guard rating, Cadeau was ranked by ESPN as the seventh overall top player in the country. But he doesn’t let the rankings influence his playing or his humility.
“I try not to think about it too much,” he said. “I don’t think it makes a difference, because I’m going to play the same way.”
Photos Courtesy of Michelle Cadeau
West Orange teen heads off to play basketball for the Swedish 18U national team added by Amanda Valentovic on
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