Men’s basketball senior guard Jaelin Llewellyn will continue his basketball career as a Tiger, but not at Princeton.
On Tuesday, April 12, the Ontario native officially announced via social media that he will be transferring to Clemson in South Carolina. Like Princeton, Clemson’s mascot is also a Tiger.
Llewellyn left an incredible legacy at Princeton basketball over the last four years. During his senior season, he helped his team secure the Ivy League regular-season championship, averaging 15.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.6 assists. His senior season honors included First Team All-Ivy League and NABC Second Team All-District. Llewellyn also entered the 1,000 career point club in his final Ivy League regular season game at Penn.
While he had great success in his final year as a Princeton Tiger, the 2021–22 season for the team did end on a sour note. The team’s hopes of making it to the NCAA March Madness Tournament were crushed by Yale in the Ivy League Tournament, sending Princeton to play in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) instead. The team lost in the first round to the Virginia Commonwealth Rams, 90–79.
“I think a lesson I learned was how hard it is to win games, and how much focus and effort it takes to do so,“ Llewellyn told The Daily Princetonian. “The hardest thing about moving on will be leaving my current teammates, especially the Class of [2022] because I’ve been with them the longest.”
Llewellyn now has the opportunity to play one more year of basketball at the college level. He officially entered the transfer portal on March 14. Within 24 hours, he heard from a number of major Division I schools, including Alabama, Vanderbilt, West Virginia, Miami, Memphis, Washington State, Oklahoma State, and Oklahoma.
His ultimate selection, Clemson, ended this past season on a low note. They finished in the bottom half of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) at No. 10, with a 17–16 overall record and an 8–12 conference record. Llewellyn will look to step in and revitalize the winning culture familiar to the Tigers, playing underneath Head Coach Brad Brownell. Brownell is the No. 1 coach in Clemson men’s basketball history in terms of winning percentage against Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) competition.
“They have a great team coming back,” Llewellyn told the ‘Prince.’ “They were in need of a lead guard to have the ball in their hands. The ACC has high level competition every night.”
Llewellyn will, again, get the chance to play next to an elite forward. This time, instead of Princeton’s junior forward Tosan Evbuomwan, he will run the offense beside sophomore forward P.J. Hall. Hall is a 6’10”, 240 lb talent inside the paint, averaging 15.5 points and 5.8 rebounds this past season. Other key contributors around Llewellyn will include junior guard Al-Amir Dawes and senior forward Hunter Tyson.
Matt Drapkin is a staff writer for the ‘Prince’ sports section. He can be reached at mattdrapkin@princeton.edu or on Twitter at @mattdrapkin.
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