Michigan landed transfer G Jaelin Llewellyn out of the transfer portal last week, a move that then sent repercussions across the roster as Frankie Collins decided to exit for the portal himself. Frankie's decision is neither here nor there, and today we will be focusing on Llewellyn himself. A four year player at Princeton who only competed in three seasons (due to the Ivy League canceling athletics for 2020-21), Llewellyn was twice named All-Ivy League for the Tigers.

He attended Virginia Episcopal School to close out his HS days, but Llewellyn is actually Canadian, hailing from Mississauga, Ontario. That gargantuan Toronto suburb may sound familiar to Michigan basketball fans, as it is also the hometown of Nick Stauskas and (Llewellyn's possible teammate) Caleb Houstan. Llewellyn measures 6'2", 175 lbs., not terribly tall, but also a rather skinny frame. For context, DeVante' Jones was listed one inch shorter, but had 25 extra lbs. on Llewellyn.

Another interesting piece of information on Llewellyn before we get really rolling from his HS days is that from a scouting standpoint, he's not your everyday Ivy League recruit. A quick scan at his 247 page from the class of 2018 will tell you that he was actually a solid 4* recruit, landing in the top 100 of the composite (!). He had offers from several P5 schools, including B1G rivals Ohio State and Purdue before committing to Princeton. Finally, I know his name is a bit confusing to look at, but it's pronounced "Lou-well-in". Not super difficult! 

 

STATS 

We have to start the stats section by providing a bit of context conference-wise. The Ivy is a decent mid-major conference, and Michigan obviously has some reference with it, having acquired a player out of that league just a couple years ago (Mike Smith and Columbia). KenPom's conference ratings had the Ivy as the 18th-best conference in 2021-22, one spot below the Sun Belt, which produced Michigan's last transfer guard (DeVante' Jones). 

Princeton was a good team for a mid-major last season, finishing 23-7 overall and 12-2 in the Ivy, which netted them the regular season crown. From an efficiency standpoint, they were in line with the worst teams in the B1G, like Minnesota. They won their Ivy League semifinal matchup against Cornell but lost the conference tournament title game to Yale by two points, and thus were shipped to the NIT where they lost to VCU. At Princeton, Llewellyn was playing PG, but was both on-ball and off-ball in terms of his role, with a nearly even distribution of possessions split between the two. 

The distribution of play types didn't change much at all over his three seasons playing for Princeton. In each one, about 30% of his plays were spot-ups, 20-25% were as the pick-and-roll ball-handler, ~13% were in transition, 5-10% were dribble hand-offs, and ~10% were isolation.

Though the play type distribution didn't change that much between 2019 and 2022, Llewellyn's ability to execute those plays with efficiency did, as he became considerably more efficient as a scorer. As a freshman, Synergy rated his abilities in four of those five play types as bottom quartile in college hoops, with only his transition possessions being considered "average". This past season, however, all but his spot up game were ranked in the upper quartile, and even his spot ups were still 37th percentile, good enough for an "average" rating. 

Here are his three seasons at Princeton, with numbers pulled from KenPom: 

	USG	ORtg	eFG%	TS%	ARate	TO%	FTRate	FT	2P	3P
2018-19	25.1	82.0	37.9	39.4	15.2	13.7	15.2	21-37 (56.8%)	58-153 (37.9%)	23-91 (25.3%)
2019-20	28.7	101.5	46.0	50.6	14.7	12.5	30.9	85-109 (78.0%)	92-200 (46.0%)	47-153 (30.7%)
2021-22	27.5	106.6	52.7	54.1	13.1	13.1	15.2	39-56 (69.6%)	101-206 (49.0%)	62-162 (38.3%)

You can see how grisly that freshman season was offensively, a ghastly 2P% and TS% and an ORtg in the gutter despite high usage. His eFG% improved steadily over the years despite the usage not changing all that much, and the big change in his game was the development of that three point shot. His free throw percentage improved some, but not the same consistent slope upwards. The assist rates are not that of a typical point guard, which is how you can see the role Llewellyn played in the offense, working off-ball at a pretty consistent clip. 

We shouldn't dip too deep into the defensive metrics, but here's a few: 

	DReb%	Stl%	Fouls/40	DBPM
2018-19	8.2	1.0	2.0	-0.8
2019-20	13.0	1.8	1.6	-1.5
2021-22	11.3	1.2	1.9	-2.3

Llewellyn is a decent defensive rebounder for a point guard. He doesn't produce a ton of steals, but his big talent among these stats are his ability to stay out of foul trouble. His fouls/40 clip was top 200 in college basketball all three seasons. The DBPM numbers are not good, and while it's pertinent to point out that Princeton was a bad defensive team (250th in defensive efficiency), Llewellyn's DBPM is worse than that of some of his fellow starters. That said, those sorts of stats often paint inconclusive pictures of a player's ability. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Some video and takes]

 

SCOUTING

For this post, I've watched all the highlight videos available on YouTube, as well as the full game tape from Princeton's matchup with Yale in the Ivy League tournament title game. What I found in watching Llewellyn is a player who can do a lot of different things for Michigan's offense. Want him to be a catch-and-shoot perimeter piece as a passing recipient from Hunter Dickinson? Check. Want him to orchestrate the ball-screen offense? Plenty of experience in that. Want him to be a dribble drive option? He's got a few tricks up his sleeve. Want him to be a bail-out, pull-up option late in the shot clock? Llewellyn can do it. 

An important thing to know about Llewellyn is that the offense in which he played wasn't totally different from Michigan in personnel. Both have a dominant big who is a terrific passer, and Llewellyn should be well conditioned to play with Dickinson thanks to the presence of Tosan Evbuomwan. Princeton's big is Ivy League sized and not quite Dickinson in height, standing only 6'8", but his ability to pass out of the post was Dickinson-like on tape. Evbuomwan finished top 50 in assist rate, doing it mostly from the block (!) and kick outs from the paint to shooters were a staple of Princeton's offense, as they surrounded Evbuomwan with four ~38-40% three point gunners. With Llewellyn improving his shooting the previous offseason, he benefited from these passes: 

Tell me that doesn't look like passes we've seen Dickinson dish out to the perimeter. As a 38% three point shooter this past season, Llewellyn was finally shooting the required clip to feast on those kick out opportunities. Here's another: 

Catch-and-shoot is an area that showed up in the film, but he was also asked to shoot off the dribble plenty. Pull up shots featured in the dying moments of the Yale game, when Princeton was desperate for points late. He made a couple of them: 

One thing I picked up on from Llewellyn's jumper is its form seems conducive to drawing contact. While his body fades away, his feet often kick forward, and I saw him draw several whistles while shooting three pointers for that reason. As a shooter overall, I expect Llewellyn to translate to the B1G. We've now got back-to-back seasons of transfer PGs from leagues like the Ivy on record, and in both cases, the perimeter shooting of the guards translated. DeVante' Jones' shooting clip at Michigan was nearly identical to his career clip at CC, while Smith saw an increase compared to his Columbia 3PT numbers. I would expect Llewellyn to be in the same mid-to-high 30s range he was last season. 

His dribble drives found some success. The scouting reports from his HS days regard Llewellyn as an explosive athlete, but there weren't too many blow bys that I got to see. Defenders mostly stayed in front of him, but here is one instance where he gets a step and is able to get a floater to go down: 

More often, he encountered resistance in the key and here I was able to see some of the craftiness that Llewellyn has added to his game at Princeton. When he runs into trouble, he'll begin pulling some tricks out of the bag. Here's one where he keeps the dribble and puts a big in the spin cycle: 

Here's another instance with a nice move, weaving and laying it up with the left hand:  

In other cases, he'll become stationary, keep the pivot foot, and toss out some 1980s post moves. I have some concerns about his ability to pull off a lot of those moves against B1G length, but it's nice to know that Llewellyn has answers when he runs into adversity. 

As for his specific role in the offense, in the game I saw, Llewellyn would generally bring the ball up the court, but then would pass to one of the other guards or wings, who begin orchestrating the offense. On some plays, the ball would make its way back to him, and then he'd run the play through a ballscreen, or simply pull up.

If Michigan wants him to be a true on-ball PG, there will be some adjustments moving to Michigan's offense. While the presence of a passing big is constant, the Wolverines run significantly more ballscreens, as noted by Dylan Burkhardt. However, he seemed comfortable enough running the screens in the game I saw, and the Synergy numbers confirm that he has the skills to execute those with pretty good proficiency. Here's an encouraging look of him passing out of a ballscreen: 

That leads us to his passing, which I think is decent. He was known as a scorer coming out of college, and while he's never been a true ball-dominant PG, there's enough on the tape to think he can perform that role admirably, as you could see above. This drive and kick through traffic was memorable, even if the shot taken by the recipient is comically poor: 

Defensively, I thought he was fine in the game I watched, but it wasn't an easy game to get a read on. Llewellyn was mainly asked to check Baz Mbeng of Yale, who is a Zavier Simpson type when it comes to perimeter shooting. Thus, Llewellyn was playing off quite a bit, nibbling down to pay attention to players in the post and daring Mbeng to shoot. Mbeng is a defensive stopper, but a dreadful offensive player and so Llewellyn wasn't asked to guard the ballcarrier much. This was maybe the best instance of on-ball defense I have: 

I'd have to delve deeper to get a better picture of Llewellyn defensively, but I didn't get the sense that he will be a major liability, but neither did I get the sense that he'd be the kind of impact perimeter defender that Terrance Shannon promised to be. 

 

VIDEO 

Condensed highlights of his game against Harvard: 

A shorter one from his game against UPenn: 

Highlight reel from his 2019-20 All-Ivy season: 

 

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE 

So here's where we get to talk about the Frankie departure and the 2022-23 team more in depth. In moving from Frankie Collins to Jaelin Llewellyn, Michigan is moving from upside to experience, from defense to perimeter shooting. Collins had the potential to grow into a Simpson-like player, a lockdown defender and distributor who can score in unorthodox range, but that player may still be a ways off, and in the near-term, Collins' total lack of shooting was going to be a major detriment to Michigan's offense if he became a 30+ minute player.

Llewellyn doesn't have that concern. He adds perimeter shooting that will play to Hunter Dickinson's strengths as a passer, and  brings far more experience running ball-screens than Collins offered. It gives Michigan a higher floor offensively, and probably overall, even if a small bit of defensive ability might be sacrificed. That said, I'm not entirely sure what Llewellyn's role will be. At Princeton, he was more of an Eli Brooks-type player, doing a variety of things for the Tigers. Will he be more Brooks or DeVante' Jones at Michigan? Remains to be seen. 

As I've said previously, I think the shooting should translate alright. The rest of his game should be okay, but there are some reasons for concern. Llewellyn has not done particularly well in his games against major competition, and while we should point out that it is a small sample size and thus could be unrepresentative, it is a concern creeping into my mind. In 2021-22, Princeton faced South Carolina, Minnesota, and Oregon State, and Llewellyn's results were subpar. He posted ORtgs of 95, 82, and 77 in those three games, respectively, and shot just 39% from two and 33% from three. If you want to toss in VCU in the NIT as a non-P5 team but still in a decent conference (A10), the results aren't much better. He shot better from two in that one but worse from three and had an ORtg of 82. Is that a big enough sample size to pass judgement? No. But that two point percentage does spook me a bit and is worth mentioning. 

As it stands currently, I'd expect Llewellyn to play substantial minutes for Michigan. He averaged over 30 minutes per game in every season at Princeton, and given the depth at guard with Frankie Collins now gone, the Wolverines will desperately need him to play quite a bit. Scholarship chart, as it currently stands: 

PG	SG	SF	PF	C
Llewellyn	Bufkin	Houstan	Diabate	Dickinson
McDaniel	Jett Howard	Barnes	T. Williams	Reed
		Jace Howard	Tschetter	Glenn

Two big decisions loom for Houstan and Diabate, and it remains to be seen if Terrance Williams II will stay in the program (there have been some rumblings, but for now he is still on the roster). As you may notice, the guard depth is dangerously thin. It is currently Llewellyn with three young kids, two of which will be true freshmen and the other only played occasionally this past season. The exit of Collins places quite a bit of stress on Jett Howard and Dug McDaniel, because one of them will need to play substantially the way it falls at the moment. 

However, I struggle to believe this is what the roster will look like when it's all said and done. The odds remain greater than 50% that at least one of Diabate and Houstan will exit, which frees up one spot, and the possibility of two vacancies remains very plausible. If Juwan needs to delve into the portal again, targeting a second transfer guard makes a lot of sense. 

For now, we'll say that Llewellyn is slated to be the primary point guard (that could change) and he should be competent at fulfilling those responsibilities. He gives Michigan extra perimeter shooting and experience in a moderately similar offense. There are worse places to be. How much he plays at PG vs. SG likely depends on how the rest of the roster shakes out moving forward.