mike smith

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: 

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: 

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]

9/4/2021 – Michigan 47, Western Michigan 14 – 1-0

I've got a spreadsheet now. I put it together a month ago when the idea of doing something, anything at all, was appalling. It has columns and if I do the thing in the column I get to bold it. Some columns are daily, or at least they're daily without the extraordinary intervention that causes the "shruggie" column to get bolded. Others are, uh, less daily. Kind of got knocked off a thing I wrote about in a column this March.

please come weed my backyard

The idea is that as we go along more things get bolded. Just two things are currently getting hit 90% of the time: walking, and people. I get to bold "people" when I undertake an activity (that does not count as another activity) in which I interact with another human, socially. Not usually 110,000 of them.

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Being in Michigan Stadium was an experience bifurcated into competing feelings. One was a sense of unreality that this was actually happening. Carl Grapentine's "good afternoon" was met with a roar unlike any other "good afternoon" to date. Before the formal pre-game festivities were initiated it was just… nice? To sit in the stands as people filed in and the team went through its pregame warmups was nice. These days people use the word "nice" to mean "not nice" when describing an experience. Here I am saying that there was a real, mild pleasure derived from sitting in a place and doing a thing I used to do and then did not do as part and parcel of massive society-wide problems. It felt strange, like amnesia lifting.

The other was a sense that life had finally, truly resumed. Like the last year was about to be dumped out of the movie, replaced by a smash cut to kickoff. There was a guy with bad jokes on a microphone narrating three guys parachuting into the stadium.

we gotta talk about the smoke color though [Barron]

The band came out. I was vexed by first-quarter playcalling against a MAC opponent. A man holding a toddler was incensed enough to stand up and berate an official.

those are daddy's sports words, kiddo [Barron]

This was undoubtedly after the Bell OPI call and was thus justified. It was all very normal.

For a window on a fall Saturday you could believe that 2020 was a bad dream. I have to admit that I was not much moved by the game itself—I'm spending this fall's emotional capital on things closer to home—but even I, person about ready to drop-kick college football into the next town, could do nothing but see a real college football season as a ribbon-cutting ceremony for something called Real Life.

We can talk about whether all of the above was, you know, wise*. Even outside of the context where young men hurl their heads at each other for our entertainment and now the occasional sliver of NIL money, what with a pandemic on. But we can all admit that even in the depths of our collective malaise, sitting with our people and experiencing our thing together felt better than it had any right to.

There were some preteen kids sitting behind me who predicted a screen, and then a punt, on a third and long. (They were wrong, but correct spiritually.) They were possessed of a world-weary cynicism that made me wonder if the thing actually oozed from pores in the stadium concrete and seeped its way into our bodies, the environment guiding us into a common way of being. COVID was probably the less transmissible thing in that stadium Saturday. That just goes in your lungs. Michigan goes in your bones.

That's why we're all still here, in whatever capacities we are. Not hope or fun or desire, but a giant "we." A community, one that may be loosely bound but is nonetheless real. I felt that when I posted The Story and got hundreds of comments, DMs, emails, and texts expressing support, asking if there was anything they could do. The answer is both no, and also you've already done it. I bolded my people box Saturday, continuing the thing that's letting me climb out. Hopefully it meant something to you, too.

*[For me the combination of vaccinations, open air, and the fact that vaccinated people apparently don't transmit Delta readily if asymptomatic is makes me comfortable with the situation, though I'd prefer Michigan require proof of vaccination to attend games.]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Ronnie Bell (RIP). Well... crap. Bell had the catch of the year taken off the board by John O'Neill Crew Hijinks, scored a long touchdown, and ripped off an impact punt return... on which he was lost for the season. This set off a firestorm on Michigan twitter, which is addressed later.

#2 Blake Corum. Corum had the most touches of anyone on offense with 14 rushes and two catches; he had two TDs and averaged 7.9 yards per carry. He also had a 79-yard kickoff return. That eases him out in front of Hassan Haskins. The two guys will likely continue splitting carries right down the middle, and that's fine by me.

#3 Dax Hill. Hill's your new spacebacker; he deleted every attempted screen to the wide side of the field and had a PBU on slant that looked impossible about a second before he made it.

Honorable mention: Seth's likely to hand some hardware to Andrew Vastardis in UFR. AJ Henning deleted a pursuit angle on long reverse TD. Mike Sainristil blocked like a demon that's into blocking instead of torturing souls. Haskins ripped through a tackle on short yardage to score and did well otherwise. Aidan Hutchinson had a sack-strip on which the WMU QB wanted to leave the state.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU)
5: Blake Corum (#2 WMU)
3: Dax Hill (#3 WMU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU), AJ Henning (HM WMU), Mike Sainristil (HM WMU), Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU), Hassan Haskins (HM WMU)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

[Barron]

McNamara nails Bell on his 76-yard touchdown, which followed on from the Bell catch wiped off the board and may indicate dude has a deep ball. Would be a major development.

Honorable mention: Swing pass to Corum on the first drive causes me to say "touchdown" as soon as Corum motions out. Henning and Wilson rip big gains on end-arounds. Corum's kick return.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Bell is lost for the year. Awful.

Honorable mention: Bell's catch is taken off the board, violating every principle from "it's too cool to call back" to the actual rules dictating college football. WMU drives down the field and scores a touchdown on their first drive, resulting many "here we go" feelings in the stands.

[After THE JUMP: Baldwin is crazed]

Less than a week after Michigan dominated the NHL Draft, the NBA Draft rolled around and presented the Wolverines with another opportunity to show out. Though the basketball team isn't oozing the pro talent of the hockey team (because what other college team of any sport does?), it was a solid showing for Juwan Howard's team. Franz Wagner was picked early in the first round, while Isaiah Livers went in the mid-second round, making Michigan one of just two B1G teams to have multiple NBA draft pick this year. That'll help sell the program to recruits. 

How do Wagner and Livers fit with their new teams? And what about Michigan players who didn't get drafted? Let's run through each and examine the futures of our departing Wolverines, as well as take stock of how other familiar names and rival programs fared at the NBA Draft: 

[AFTER THE JUMP: a few dudes got drafted, a few dudes didn't]