Jaelin Llewellyn pulling from past hardships as he prepares for recovery from ACL injury

What was supposed to be a graduate transfer season playing Big Ten hoops as a starting point guard quickly turned into an ACL recovery for Michigan guard Jaelin Llewellyn, who tore his ACL in early December.

Now out for the year, Llewellyn is leaning on previous down times to push through the latest setback. From torn Achilles he overcame to lasting through the Ivy league opting out when he was at Princeton during the Covid year, he’s been through a fair bit.

“That first time, I tore my Achilles. It was the middle of the pandemic and it was challenging,” Llewellyn said. “I was working full-time and doing school online. And that just seems like — I got through that. And I think this is another opportunity to go through something similar but with less going on, I feel like. So, it’s an opportunity for me to learn from that first experience and take the good from it and try and improve on the bad days, as well.”

Llewellyn isn’t looking to make a decision on his future just yet

Llewellyn surely imagined his graduate transfer year going better than it did, with his season being cut short by a torn ACL in December. Now, the former Princeton guard is mulling what his future options might be.

With surgery still yet to happen — Llewellyn told reporters he’s slated to go under the knife the first week of January — he’s still taking things one day at a time. Whether he might play another year of college hoops isn’t front of mind right now.

“I’m still taking things day-by-day because I’ve got a long road ahead of me and I don’t want to get too far ahead into the future,” Llewellyn said.

While the injury happening so early in the season does open up the possibility of Llewellyn medically redshirting and preserving the year of eligibility, whether or not he actually wants to do that isn’t clear yet, even to him it seems.

“I’m just taking everything day-by-day right now,” Llewellyn said.