Baseball. If you've been hovering over mgo.licio.us on the sidebar and feverishly hitting refresh (and who hasn't?) of late you know that the baseball team is Big Ten champs. As a result, they'll host the conference tournament at Ray Fisher starting tonight. The bottom four seeds start play today; Michigan will face the winner with the lowest seed at 7 PM tomorrow. I am planning on attending if anyone wants to wander by and say high.
As far as the importance of the tournament: not much. Though Michigan's late season "slide" -- basically one bad series against Penn State -- has dented their tourney resume, Rivals still has them a three-seed in their latest projected brackets. Clunking out of the double-elimination tourney at 0-2 would probably hurt their positioning but they'd still get in. Winning might bump them up to a two-seed but they'd still be going on the road.
I am not a baseball blogger, but the fine Big Ten Hardball is and will cover the tournament for your edification. BTH's extensive tourney preview is self-described as "winding" but is worth a look.
Hey, yeah, that was totally voluntary! A reader passes along this Boston Globe interview with Amaker that has this hilarious softball passage:
You've spent the last 10 years coaching at Seton Hall and Michigan. Why did you accept the head coaching job at Harvard?Let's go ask Chris Shelton why he chose the job at AAA Toledo next, guys.
Obviously, it's Harvard, first of all. Its brand is as big, or bigger, than any other name or brand in higher education. So my wife and I were very intrigued, very interested, and as we grew to learn more, boy, did it become even that much more attractive.
Skepticism continues. So the Big Ten Network keeps claiming that it's signed up "40 cable providers" in an effort to reassure spooked fans like myself (and, probably, you). But then the loquacious president rolls into town and drops this nugget...
"We've had productive conversations with Comcast and feel they're moving forward in a very productive way," Silverman said. "... The fact that everyone's been really receptive to our meetings and we've gotten 40 deals done in the terms we're looking for are really encouraging."...and I'm just like "this guy has to be spouting a bunch of crap." How many cable providers are there in the country? And how can you possibly sign "40 deals" without, you know, covering Comcast? Maybe this will all work out, but I wouldn't take the sunny confidence being relentlessly churned out as anything other than PR.
Nice things said. There's this diving Braylon Photoshop thing that's been awarded to me; Maize 'n' Brew dubs me the Mike Hart of the Michigan blogosphere. w00t.
Etc.: NCAA says you have to be eligible to transfer; mondo Big Ten preview article from ESPN; video previews from the Channel of Skepticism.
