Over the last three weeks here on Defend the Block, you've met three new Wolverines, Olivier

Kamwa, Trey Jackson, and last week, Namari Burnett, all of whom joined the program as graduate

transfers. Before this season, Michigan had brought in a combined five grad transfers in

program history, Geron Simmons being the lone grad transfer in the John B-line era, and in the first four seasons of Joanne Howard's tenure, Michigan welcomed in by season 0,1, 1, and 2.

So in each of those four seasons, Michigan welcomed more freshmen into the program under Coach Howard than graduate transfers, which means that in every season, in the history of Michigan

men's basketball, that had been the case, more freshmen than grad transfers until this year.

Now, I admit that's extrapolating way too far, right?

Grad transfers and that automatic ability to start playing for a new team, that hasn't been a

thing for all that long, but still, this is a unique

complexion of an incoming class here at Michigan. The frequency of transfer portal use

by players and by programs certainly has opened up the question about just where this leaves

incoming freshmen in the pecking order, both during the recruiting process and

once they arrive, because there are so many players who have logged time in college basketball,

grad transfers, or just regular transfers, compared to a freshman that's just played high school

ball. And like the portal as a whole, things continue to evolve.

There is no perfect answer to that question, that inquiry.

And circumstances differ, player to player, situation to situation, program to program,

and season to season.

But I do think it will require a stronger approach for incoming freshmen in this era to have success,

especially with the program that they're starting with.

That's why someone like the young man you'll hear from here today, George Washington the third, feels like a uniquely strong fit for Michigan in a unique time.

He is the lone scholarship freshman on this roster, which

...