"It's just not worth it to transfer to Michigan as an undergrad in almost any context because the policy boils down to, "We won't respect any academic work you did anywhere, but for your effort, we'll be happy to charge you tuition at upperclassman rates."

Just not true.

If you're transferring in as a freshman or sophomore, and you've taken relatively similar classes - almost everything will transfer.

The issue is if you are an upperclassmen. 

Michigan is NOT going to let you come here for 20-30 credits and transfer 100+ credits and get a Michigan degree. You're going to have to earn at least half your credits at Michigan if you want a Michigan degree.

So this is an anecdote from another situation, and might be a slight humblebrag, but here goes:

I'm currently in a non-MBA program at a top 10-ish b school. The original pitch was that you could take the credits from this program, call it the core of an MBA, take a few electives and then get an MBA on the cheap.

Just for fun, I called a few comparable b schools to see if they would consider taking the transfer credits, and they all uniformly said they'd be happy to admit me, but would not take credits. So, my point is, never underestimate how much schools just want to take your money.

It's understandable that they don't make exceptions for athletes on this though.  And if they did this for any transfer, it wouldn't be fair to those who completed all the departmental requirements.

So maybe the payola's better at Illinois, or maybe the payola's better for Shannon at Illinois, or maybe we don't know. I'm pretty sure we don't know. We don't really know much about transfer credits, either. And we don't know which governed this situation.

Mostly speculation, up and down this board. Illustration number one of many more to come, though, that Michigan may not always come out on top of this situation about which we've had so much dubious exuberance here. 

Oh, and Shannon is from Chicago, so old-fashioned issues like comfort level and connections may have governed his decision, too. 

I like Llewellyn a lot though, agreed. In fact, we may all be sleeping on Tarris Reed and what Juwan sees about next year's rotation, farther ahead with Llewellyn in the fold than we might have been with Shannon.* Always a question of how the skills translate, never know until he suits up in the B1G. But he is crafty, knows how to get his shot. 

Still wish I saw in someone on our roster what I thought I saw in Shannon--a slashing, muscular presence who might give us a more physical edge. 

*Or maybe not. I don't know how Reed might translate at the four, or how much these guys can flex; Jet is supposed to be capable of playing the 2, 3, and 4, and handling the ball some. 

I suspect Michigan's general NIL policy is to favor efforts for existing student-athletes over prospective student-athletes. They were probably vague with Shannon on his earning potential and perhaps even emphasized the need to prove it on the court first.  

Yes, it is an "administrative" issue, even if not admissions.  Admissions let's all these guys in, the question is how much of their credits at prior institutions do they get UofM credit for which is a departmental decision.  And most departments say if there isn't an equivalent class, they can't give credit.  And for this, it makes sense.  And also is understandable that they can't make exceptions for athletes.  It is not a subjective thing the way admissions are.

I completely disagree that this is about getting people to pay for more years of schooling.  That's ridiculous.  Michigan has a certain capacity.  And they can take as many transfers as necessary to hit that capacity.  They don't need to make a lower number of transfers take more classes just to hit that capacity.  And in fact, the university benefits long term by accepting more transfers and graduating them quicker because that's more alums to ask for donations from. And to be able to take more transfers they need to graduate some of them quickly given the limited capacity.  So for example, instead of taking 2000 transfers that will take classes for 3 years each, they would prefer to take 3000 transfers and graduate them in 2 years.  It's a better use of class space.

This is 100 percent about fairness and maintaining the integrity of the Michigan degree.  Why should a transfer get a Michigan degree without taking the equivalent coursework that a non-transfer had to take?  You can't take three years of basket-weaving and then just come to Michigan for a year and get a degree.  I'm good with that rule.

Admissions:
1 bureaucracy at the University, controlled by the university in a general sense.

Departments: 100 different bureaucracies, each run by their own CEO, who get to largely decide their own internal policies, and not controlled by the overall university.

The university president or regents can go to admissions and say "change X".

They CANNOT force departments to change, and they have to deal with 100 of them... all of whom don't really care about athletics, only the prestige of their own department.

The only talk of concern over admissions were amongst people that have no clue / want to scapegoat the transfer credit issue every time we don't get a guy.

And I completely disagree that it's something someone would come out and say.  You don't want to seem like you're all the about the money.  You're much less likely to say, yeah, I took the biggest offer than you would be to say, my credits didn't transfer (since that's no reflection on you).

He took the biggest offer, simple as that.  Illinois must have a bunch of NiL money available since no one else seems to want it.  Speaking of which, his path to playing time is much easier at Illinois too.  If Houstan comes back and he and Bufkin take leaps, Shannon could have found himself as third one up amongst those three (I think it's unlikely but still possible).