Unverified Voracity Is Like No Way

Re-recruiting. With Beilein in as coach there are two major items on the Michigan agenda before the season: hiring assistant coaches and trying to keep the recruiting class intact. Beilein has implied in his numerous -- four appearances yesterday, Rome today -- radio appearances and press conferences that while most of his staff would be coming from West Virginia, there was at least one spot he was earmarking for someone with local recruiting ties.

An interesting name that a couple commenters have brought up is former Arkansas assistant Oronde Taliaferro. Taliaferro played at Detroit Mumford and Wayne State, coached Detroit Central for four years, and was hired by Heath, then at Kent State. Heath may want him on his staff at South Florida, but if he wants a more prominent job and a bigger paycheck Michigan could probably tempt him. Nathan Fenno floats Taliaferro and Amaker assistant Mike Jackson, who just took a job at Illinois State, in an Ann Arbor News article today. There's also been purely internet-based speculation about bringing in a Fab Fiver. Jalen Rose is probably not an option just yet, but Jimmy King has been hanging around the program in recent weeks. Maybe he's looking for a job?

On the recruiting front, the News got this quote from Legion's mom:

"Al talked with him (Beilein) for an hour on Wednesday," Williams said. " When you have a ballplayer like Al, it's not about him. What's important are the players you have around him."

I have no idea how to parse that quote or what it means. But there you go. It is good that they talked for "about an hour" yesterday and are meeting in person today. There's been a lot of chatter that Legion isunlikely to stay on board, but at least he's giving Michigan a shot. Meanwhile, a brief, dubiously-sourced panic spread on Michigan message boards about an imminent Manny Harris decommit to Tennessee. That hasn't transpired. Harris took in Michigan's first practice under Beilein and was reportedly going to meet with him again today or tomorrow. Kelvin Grady remains on vacation in Mexico.

Meanwhile, at least three WVU players are getting R-U-N-N-O-F-T by new 'Eer head coach Bob "Satan" Huggins. The Charleston Gazette pulls no punches:

But according to a source at Kansas State Thursday night, Huggins had already contacted one of his other signed recruits, North Carolina shooting guard Dominique Sutton, and told him that three West Virginia players were going to transfer and that there would be room for Sutton, Beasley and perhaps more.

It should be interesting to see not only whom it is that plans to transfer, but also whether they’ve been told they plan to transfer yet.

Zing! If Legion or another recruit defects and there's a WVU player out there Beilein likes he might end up here. (Sidenote: I was all set to have a lasting fondness for the WVU basketball team and then they had to go and hire the bar-none most loathsome coach in all sports. Yuck.)

About supermega recruits. They're often cited as a reason that the Beilein hire is a bad idea: he's not going to reel in Oden and Conley and etc. But let's compare Team A and Team B side by side. 1-5 is the starting five and 6 and 7 are the first players off the bench.

	Team A	Team B
Player 1	4*, #31	4*, #28
Player 2	4*, #36	4*, #36
Player 3	4*, #75	4*, #71
Player 4	3*	3*
Player 5	3*	3*
Player 6	4*, #45	4*, #31
Player 7	3*	3*

The teams are nearly identical. If you want to give one team a slight edge in recruiting it's team B, which happens to be this year's Michigan team. (Somewhat shocking: Lester Abram was an unranked 3-star.) Team A?

Florida.

More sale! Note to anyone contemplating a "Jimmy Clausen is an Emu" baseball jersey purchase...



Be advised that entering the code "FASTBALL" in the designated savings field will result in 21% being hacked off its price.

Speaking of Jimmy King and four other guys (warning! dangerously high Stuart Scott levels!)...



For the love of God. Don't click here. I'm mortified.