caleb love

Why does this keep happening, says the only school where this regularly happens:

It is possible there is some explanation other than the one that keeps doing this to Michigan's transfers. I really hope so, but I'm not going to bet on it.

A year after Michigan's policies sank the transfer Terrance Shannon, the school with the only admissions department that acts this way appears to have done it again. The #16 overall recruit of 2020, Caleb Love must have thought his North Carolina credits would transfer to Michigan, a fellow AAU member, when he committed here on April 7. He also must have believed Michigan couldn't possibly be obtuse enough to let this happen again when Love shot down (with a now deleted tweet) rumors that his plans had hit a snag.

If there was a belief that Santa Ono could fix this, that's now dead as well, if he ever could do something about it.

The loss of Love is another severe blow to a program that missed the Tournament last year for want of a high-usage defensive wing like Shannon, and was already looking shaky this year thanks to Hunter Dickinson signing a top-market free agent deal with Kansas.

Michigan's Byzantine transfer policies have been a long-term issue for the school's athletic programs. Going back at least 30 years, transferring undergraduate credits have been under a severe chill effect, with the burden placed on the student to convert their previous coursework to Michigan equivalents, plus a high minimum of credits that must be taken in Ann Arbor.

One or two semesters usually aren't an issue—see football transfers Ernest Hausmann and Josiah Stewart--but mid-career athletes tend to have a particularly hard time. Their problem here isn't "Admissions" per se but the individual schools, e.g. LSA, which make the students submit their transcripts, wait a few weeks, then find out they're a year or more away from graduating than they should be. There's an appeals process, which might explain why rumors of Love's transfer being up in the air were quickly shot down by Love, with today's news triggered by a denial of appeal. Other schools may have similar processes, but Michigan's schools are particularly obtuse and opaque about it, with credits exchanged at rates well below reasonable, and little to no interest in expediting the process for recruited candidates.

Grad students are also not a problem (e.g. Olu), but completing a hurried degree after entering the portal is its own challenge, as a player's old school isn't particularly motivated to help the process. That was the Shannon situation, and also might have been what tripped up Love, who entered UNC in Fall of 2020 and presumably, like most athletes, took summer courses along the way. Most schools have a good enough working relationship with their athletic programs that they can work with transferring athletes, or at least work quickly enough to set expectations before the program recruits a guy.

With the transfer portal now a major part of major college athletics, Michigan's transfer office needs to call Illinois and ask how they managed to make Terrance Shannon work, and find out exactly what it cost them in academic integrity. Who knows, maybe it's worth missing the dance.

There is swearing in the comments after the jump.

Michigan kick-started a roster overhaul when former Alabama guard Nimari Burnett announced his transfer to Michigan two weeks ago. 

It's been a long road to Ann Arbor for Burnett, spending his freshman campaign at Texas Tech prior to landing at Alabama via the portal at season's end. A torn ACL cost Nimari his sophomore season with the Crimson Tide and he was once again limited this year with wrist surgery that forced him to miss a month of action after starting the first nine games of the season.It's fair to say this addition isn't quite the splash it would've been in 2020 when Burnett was a 5-star HS prospect, but it is a move that projects to give the Wolverines some much needed perimeter defense.

SCOUTING

Nimari's role at Alabama was very much that of a catch + shoot floorspacer. Of Burnett's 125 FG attempts last season, 84 were from beyond the arc, with only 8 of the aforementioned being of the pull-up variety. 

While a 32% mark from distance doesn't do much to move the needle independently, there were some nice flashes of movement shooting across multiple games to suggest some upside there.

While I think Nimari is a better shooter than the percentages indicate, the ability to finish at the rim is also intriguing. Burnett is very lengthy for a guard, with a reported wingspan of 6'9.5 and some explosiveness when going off two feet. It doesn't appear the ACL injury compromised the verticality based on film review as seen below, as he can finish over bigs with authority. 

There's enough flashes in tandem with the HS pedigree to suggest he's a good release valve against a compromised defense, particularly in a B10 conference that is limited from an athletic perspective. 

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest]

In the second transfer pickup of the day, Michigan Men's Basketball has gotten a pledge from former UNC guard Caleb Love: 

go rewrite your story kid…🙏🏽〽️ pic.twitter.com/bsUglz55GW

— Caleb Love (@caleb2love) April 7, 2023

Love was a 5* recruit back in the class of 2020, a 6'3" guard who was the #14 national prospect and the #2 PG in the 24/7 composite. His career for the Tar Heels was a mixed bag, a three year starter who scored plenty of points but was never efficient at doing so. Love's career FG% is just 36.0% and the past two seasons he attempted an average of 14.3 field goals per game. For reference, Hunter Dickinson led Michigan with 12.8 FGA per game this season. Love had the ball in his hands a lot, put up a lot of shots, but not all that many actually went in. That's demonstrated in a 98.9 ORTG on 25.8 USG this past season, per Bart Torvik. After shooting 34.8% and 38.0% from two(!) over Love's first two seasons due to a love of long twos and pull-ups, he upped that number to 45.5% in 2022-23. The downside was his 3PT clip crashed from an acceptable 36.0% as a sophomore to 29.9% as a junior. A version of Love that shoots 45.5% from two *and* 36.0% from three could be a dynamite player given his athleticism to slash to the rim.

Sethcharts for Love's last two years:

Sophomore	Junior

Beyond just the shooting clip, the results were a rollercoaster too, as Love averaged 18.8 PPG during UNC's run to the title game last year, but that included a 5 point game against Baylor and a 30 point game against UCLA and a 28 point game against Duke. He was generally seen as a hero of that run, but also a scapegoat behind UNC's stunning fall from pre-season #1 to a team that missed the NCAA's this season. The raw talent and name-brand made Love one of the most highly touted names in the portal, ranking 10th on 24/7's list of the top portal targets, and there is a lot to like about him. There's also a lot to dislike. The hope should be that in a new situation with a new coaching staff that Love gets a fresh lease on life and puts it all together. 

Love comes to Michigan having played three seasons at UNC, meaning he's got a fourth year + a possible COVID shirt to play in Ann Arbor. With the addition of Tray Jackson this morning, Michigan is now up to 13 players on the roster for the upcoming season. For now, they are at the scholarship limit but as is well known, in the NIL era there are easy ways to cut around that. Making Jace Howard a walk-on is the easiest option, before we get into the presumed NIL package type deals that the football team has been using. That leaves space for Joey Baker to come back, if his waiver is granted (doesn't seem likely right now), or additional pickups in the portal. 

Matt D will get a full scouting post up sometime later. There is no content after the jump.