For a third straight season, Michigan men's basketball has delved into the transfer portal to find a point guard.

And at the first two are any indication, Jalen Llewellyn will be a critical piece for the Wolverines next season.

Mike Smith is the interesting comp because Smith, like Llewellyn, came to Ann Arbor from an Ivy League school.

Like both Smith and Devonte Jones last year starting point

guard for the Wolverines, Lou Ellen yearns for that opportunity, his first opportunity at the NCAA

tournament. But unlike both Smith and Jones, Lou Ellen has not had nearly as many opportunities

at the dance. He's been in college for four years,

yet he's only seen two seasons fully come to an end,

and he's only played three seasons at all.

The Ivy League was the first league to shut things down back in March of 2020 when COVID was starting to take hold on our lives

and most certainly on the sports world.

Then while every other league tried to scrape out a season in 2021, along with an NCAA

tournament, the Ivy League did not return to sports.

Llewellyn spent that quote unquote season in Virginia away from Princeton's campus

taking online classes and not playing basketball.

So it's been the double whammy for Llewellyn, not getting to the NCAA tournament and not

getting the normal number of chances at qualifying. Now he is, you'd assume, the favorite to be

the starting point guard for a program that has reached five consecutive suite 16s.

That's a change.

There is no guarantee that he will be able to continue what Smith and Jones did, with Smith

almost instantly becoming one of Michigan's best players en route to a spot in the elite

eight, and Jones steadily improving from a slow beginning to become one of Michigan's best players in route to a sweet 16.

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