This Week in B1G Drama

There have been many debates over the transfer portal and whether it is good or bad for college sports. A smarter and wiser website would have a proper debate about this subject, with pros and cons and logic and whatnot. The website you are on will instead gleefully exploit the biggest positive of the transfer portal, which is unrelenting Twitter drama.

Let’s Set the Scene

Michigan basketball last year was, at least until the end of the season, a big disappointment. Returning Hunter Dickinson and Eli Brooks plus a tops in the country recruiting class had fans thinking Final Four. Instead, the frosh looked extremely raw, Dickinson’s limitations on defense were exposed, and they generally looked pretty rough as a team. One problem is they had no wings. So, skull smacker Juwan Howard hit the transfer portal and looked hard at Texas Tech transfer wing Terrence Shannon Jr. Things looked good, and Shannon’s old coach even congratulated him on committing. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, it wasn’t meant to be, and Shannon eventually committed to Illinois.

Drama Ensues

Michigan, never one to simply accept bad news without thinking of a vast conspiracy against them, went into action. Hunter Dickinson put some shots fired into his Twitter account, and coach’s son Jace Howard backed him up.

So, this requires some explanation. Michigan fans, and apparently their players, think Michigan has some arcane transfer requirements. Shannon could transfer to Michigan the basketball program no matter. However, Michigan the university may only accept some of his credits if he hasn’t graduated, whereas they could accept him as a graduate student if he has, you know, graduated. Dickinson and Howard are accusing Tech coach Mark Adams of scuttling his ability to graduate by not approving him for summer classes. Is a school ethically required to offer free courses for players who plan to leave? That’s a question for a better website.

The truthiness of this is a gray area. There is some evidence that Shannon was much more motivated by the dollars he was going to get at Illinois verses Michigan. In any event, the man isn’t going to Michigan, which meant Michigan needed to go in a different direction. That direction landed Princeton transfer Jaelin Llewellyn, who is more of a shooting guard option than a wing. All good, right?

Nope!

Shortly after Llewellyn committed to Michigan, sophomore point guard Frankie Collins did the Epic Drama Move of erasing all references to Michigan in his social media, and then today entered the transfer portal.

The reasoning here is unclear. Collins was expected to be the dude at point guard next year. Did he think Llewellyn was recruited to take his spot? Did he realize his coach was a bit unhinged? We may never have an answer here, but we do get the sweet, sweet nectar of Transfer Portal Drama.