Michigan Basketball: 3 takeaways from addition of Jaelin Llewellyn

The role will be different

Llewellyn is a really good addition to the roster, there’s no question about that. He’s from Princeton and is a graduate, so there won’t be any admissions issues like with Terrence Shannon, who is going to likely go to Illinois.

Llewellyn is also a former top-100 recruit and averaged more than 15 points a game the past two seasons. However, there is also a danger in assuming a player can produce in the same way in the Big Ten as he did in the Ivy League.

Mike Smith played really well but he was a completely different player for Michigan than he was at Columbia and Llewellyn will be different too. There’s a natural fit and he could easily be the Wolverines’ third scorer next season but he won’t be taking the majority of the shots anymore.

At Princeton, Llewellyn took the same amount of shots as Hunter Dickinson last season and that’s not going to be the case at Michigan. At the same time, playing alongside Dickinson should lead to some higher percentage shots, although finishing near the rim will be more difficult.

His defense also isn’t as good as Eli Brooks and while the veteran addition is a positive one, the Wolverines could still use a defensive wing and are relying heavily on the second-year leaps from players like Collins, and Bufkin, as well as (hopefully) Houstan and Diabate.