Unverified Voracity Is Sweaty

Dude? Dude:

Spartanburg quarterback Jones gets offer from Michigan

What about Beaver/Newsome? This Jones guy is a rising junior. And this is how he got his offer:

Cornelius Jones hasn’t played a down for the Spartanburg Vikings varsity football team yet, but Michigan has seen enough to offer him a scholarship.

The junior quarterback received his first offer Tuesday, after Vikings coach Freddie Brown sent the Big Ten school a five-minute video of Jones from a scrimmage.

That is a hell of a five-minute video. The article mentions that Jones hasn't played forSpartanburg in "a couple of years" because he "got in some trouble"... what kind of trouble can an eighth-grader get in? Don't answer that.

Burl Ives. The NHL draft approaches, and Red Line Report ranks incoming blueliner Brandon Burlon one of the top ten available. Okay, it's #10, but still:

Brandon Burlon rounds out Red Line's top 10 list. There's not much buzz about him, but we feel he'd be a solid choice anywhere after No. 20. He's got great feet and a mean edge. He's as fundamentally sound in his own end as any defender in the draft, and we think he's got some untapped offensive potential as well.

Yost Built has a little more on Burlon and notes Greg Pateryn is projected by one Sabres site as a potential fifth-round target. Not bad for a guy who was promised very little scholarship money.

Stones. Michigan's baseball team may have received some unexpected good news in the MLB draft, when two draft-eligible juniors fell to the fifth round. Jason Christian, rated at about the end of the third round, was picked by the As. He's widely expected to sign and the relatively small drop probably won't affect that.

Zach Putnam, however, has to be disappointed after he fell to the second-to-last pick of the fifth round after widely being projected as a sandwich pick or even a late first-rounder. Juniors usually sign because they lose their leverage if they return, but Putnam's drop might motivate him to return. Baseball America:

The Indians finally put Zach Putnam out of his misery, taking him with the penultimate pick of the fifth round. If the Indians put him in the bullpen, expect him to move quickly with his fastball-splitter mix. However, Putnam might prove to be a tough sign this low. Suffice it to say he’s had an enigmatic career when it comes to scouts, who seem to like him less than his performance would indicate.

A recent change in the draft rules allows teams that draft college juniors to retain their rights until a couple weeks before the next year's draft. (High schoolers have to be signed by August 15th.) If Putnam thinks he's been shorted, he could return to Michigan in the hopes he has a wicked pissah of a senior year and either forces the Indians to shell out considerably above slot or watch him re-enter the draft (and hopefully go much higher). His situation bears watching, which is more than you could say before the draft.

Meanwhile, the Indians went Michigan mad, drafting Adam Abraham with the 411th pick and Nate Recknagel with the 591st. Cislo and Fetter were not drafted; Mike Powers went in the 31st round to the Mets. We'll know about everyone's fate by August 15th.

Raise a glass to the NCAA hockey rules committee. In marked contrast to the constantly blundering football committee, they've made every effort to improve the game. To wit, the rules changes for this year:

No change after an icing. As per the NHL rule that everyone loves.

Limited-application shootout. When I heard college hockey might be considering the addition of a shootout, I was pretty leery. The Pairwise is so jittery and shootouts are so random that instituting them would add even more weirdness to the NCAA's selection criteria. But this seems okay:

In a release from the NCAA today, it says the rules committee has voted to maintain the current game structure of 60 minutes, followed by a five-minute overtime, but individual conferences are allowed to use a shootout at their discretion.

The shootout could be used to award points towards the league race, though any game decided by a shootout would go into the record book for NCAA Tournament qualifying purposes as a tie.

I'm still not a big fan of the idea -- seems gimmicky -- but if those are the rules any grumbling I have is minor.

All games have two referees now. This one I'm not so sure of. The CCHA had zero competent referees at last count and will now have twice as many incompetent ones. OTOH, cutting down an incompetent ref's responsibilities should edge him towards competence, or at least consistency. We'll see how it goes.

All faceoffs are held on faceoff dots. This is a minor change but a good one. Those faceoffs right inside the blue line have always bothered me. Your reward for winning one is the puck outside of the zone and a dump-in. Now those will be from the proper dots inside the zone, and winning one will lead to a scoring chance. More chances == always good.

Only in Ohio. Ha-ha:

A Cleveland-area principal says he's embarrassed his students got proof of their "educaiton" on their high school diplomas.

Westlake High School officials misspelled "education" on the diplomas distributed last weekend. It's been the subject of mockery on local radio.

(Via MATW.)

Etc.: You remember these?

Mike Barwis had one, and some wolves.

Baseball Recruiting: Pitchers

Continued from yesterday.

Pitchers

RHP Tyler Mills

Mills was Michigan's Gatorade player of the year and was the highest-rated recruit M picked up according to PerfectGame. Despite that, he may be the player with the least information available. High school stats:

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound senior right-handed pitcher started 6-1 with a 1.50 ERA, recording 75 strikeouts in 51 innings at the time of his selection and leading the Oilers (24-3) to a third consecutive Saginaw Valley League championship and a berth in the Division II postseason regional tournament. A returning First Team All-State selection, Mills, also an outfielder, had produced a .426 batting average, 33 runs scored, 30 RBI and five home runs through 27 games.

Authoritative prospects resource OU98 of the MotownSports.com message board mentioned Mills as a potential late flier, and here's a fluff piece on his team's winning ways.

LHP Bobby Brosnahan

Brosnahan will almost assuredly redshirt after undergoing Tommy John surgery just seven innings into his senior season. That sounds like a sure way to use up a scholarship on a guy who's never going to contribute, but these days TJ surgery has a super-high success rate. It just takes forever to recover:

Tommy John surgery is considered one of the major advancements in sports medicine in the last quarter century. The New York Times reported in 2007 that the surgery has an 85 percent success rate and that one in seven pitchers in the major leagues had the surgery.

"I'm not worried about it. The surgery has been around for about 30 years ... they've got it down to a science," Brosnahan said. "Most of the guys they repair now come back stronger.

"Nobody likes to have it, but if you work hard through rehab you can come back better than ever."

Before the unfortunate pop in his elbow, Brosnahan had the requisite silly numbers, going 8-0 with an ERA of under one as a junior. Kentucky, Michigan State, and "some southern schools" were interested.

RHP Kevin VanGheluwe

VanGheluwe is also injured, and real scary-like:

"His (right) arm was discolored," Collins said. "It was like if you held it out of a car window and lost circulation. His dad (Mark VanGheluwe) took him to get examined and they gave him some medication to disperse the clot. He contacted (U-M coach Rich) Maloney and he told them to come immediately to U-Hospital. On Thursday, he had surgery to break up the blood clot and they said his muscles were pushing against the rib cage on that (right) side. I was told it was a normal case to remove that top rib on that side. And that was done Friday. Both were successful."

Jesus. As a junior, he had some wicked impressive stats:

VanGheluwe was 11-2 with a 0.79 ERA last season. He also hit .454 with 10 home runs and 55 RBI. He was named to The Detroit News first team All-Metro and to the All-State Dream Team by the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association.

High school stats are, as always, totally meaningless. But this guy from some little Michigan newspaper says...

He is one of the best prep baseball players I've ever seen (maybe the best) and here's hoping for a full recovery.

...and he's seen literally dozens!

Elsewhere, an Indians blogger who appears to know his drafting like whoah singled him out as a guy who might be an excellent late pickup:

6’2” and 205’ and a University of Michigan signee he was all-state as a junior and had a 21-2 mark coming into his senior year but he had blood clots in his right arm and had a rib removed this off-season and so is out for the entire season.

Dude... rib removed... you don't think? Nah.

His coach, and a bit on his skillz:

“He’s still growing,” Kuppe said of the three-year starter. “I think what’s most impressive is that he’s gotten better all three years, and he’s going to keep getting better.”

The 6-foot-3, 190-pound ace has four pitches in his arsenal, including a fastball that he can dial up to 89 mph and a curveball that hits 79 mph.

Unlike Brosnahan, VanGheluve should be ready in the fall.

RHP Brandon Sinnery.

Michigan has now hit for the cylce at New England prep schools, picking up players in basketball (Courtney Sims and Kendrick Price), hockey (many; Max Pacioretty is the current hotness), football (Mike Cox), and baseball (Sinnery). Hopefully Sinnery is closer to Patch than Sims.

Though the other offers Sinnery received don't exactly seem impressive -- Vermont and Manhattan, with Elon and Florida Atlantic mentioned among the suitors in contact -- the articles on him state specifically that his scholarship is a full one. Baseball teams have only 11.7 scholarships to offer and often carry many more players than that*. A full ride is something usually reserved for the Putnams and Abrahams of the world.

PerfectGame.com rates him an 8.5 on their ten-point scale. 8 is "mid-round pick and definite D-I prospect"; 9 is "top ten rounds, top D-I prospect." Their scouting report:

Brandon Sinnery is a 2008 RHP from Worcester Academy, residing in Franklin, Massachusetts, with a 6'4"/170 pound frame. Lean and lanky frame, projectable body, short circle arm action, good arm speed, solid mechanics, FB [fastball] has life at 86 mph, solid CB [curveball] with bite at 71 mph, CH [changeup] has sink and fade at 74 mph, pounds the zone, good student

They rate him the #3 pitcher in Massachusetts. He is purported to have four pitches, and his mom likes him:

His pitching repertoire is impressive - a fastball in the upper 80s, along with a curveball, changeup and splitter. But his mother has been more impressed with the lessons he has learned off the mound.

"We've seen him lose with dignity, and seen him win in very difficult pressure situations," Donna said. "It's been interesting to see the life lessons that have come out of baseball."

Stats and another fulsome quote from his coach:

A right handed pitcher for Worcester Academy (42K's, 7BB's, 0.88ERA, 5-1 record with 2 saves, 30 2/3 IP, 12hits), he was selected to the 1st Team All League-Central New England Prep School League.

"What sets Brandon apart from others who have talent is his determination, focus, and the ability to perform under pressure," said Peter Kostacopoulos, his 2007 Varsity Baseball coach. "These are the qualities that define success and give some athletes a competitive edge. I am sure that Brandon will continue to combine his baseball abilities with his personal qualities to ensure himself continued success in the future."

Maloney called him "wiry" and specifically said that he could be good "with development"; a redshirt may be in order.

So...?

I dunno, man, and it doesn't sound like anyone does, either. There does not appear to be a Putnam or an Abraham amongst the recruits, but they again locked down the best guy in the state and picked up three guys from elsewhere who should contribute.

Baseball Recruiting: Overview

Baseball recruiting turns out to far more byzantine and arcane than football or basketball recruiting. There are thousands of players coming into college and no authoritative, free scouting service to cover it. Players can come in with as little as a quarter of a scholarship, and a huge number of top kids sign big-bucks contracts after the draft. Who has the top recruiting class? Ask on August 16th, the day after the deadline for major league teams to sign their draft picks. It won't be Michigan, or anyone in the Big Ten.


PerfectGame.com does have a primitive ranking where their top recruit is worth 1585 points, their number 1584 is worth one point, and you can extrapolate from there. The Big Ten according to them:

Rank	College	Recruits	Total Points	Top Ranked Recruit	Ranked Top 200	Conference
49	Iowa	10	6857	Phil Schreiber	0	Big 10
72	Michigan	7	4017	Tyler Mills	0	Big 10
76	Michigan State	4	3783	Clayton Vanderlaan	0	Big 10
84	Illinois	5	3205	Corey Kimes	0	Big 10
108	Penn State	3	2300	Joey DeBernardis	0	Big 10
109	Indiana	4	2226	Blake Monar	0	Big 10
127	Minnesota	5	1483	Kurt Schlangen	0	Big 10
129	Purdue	6	1415	Joe Haase	0	Big 10
133	Ohio State	1	1350	Ross Oltorik	0	Big 10
192	Northwestern	3	205	Zachary Morton	0	Big 10

Providing points per recruit here is pointless since no one knows exactly how many scholarship are being spent: Ohio State's one guy might be taking up a full slot and Indiana's four might all be on the minimum.

Only six members of Rivals' top 100 (via) are from Big Ten states, and none are from Michigan. It's a different world out there.

Some guidance from a couple guys who are more familiar with the scene then I am. First, Dan Kittell:

Brian,

I assume you have seen the list of guys Maloney signed in the fall. [uh... now I have! -ed] lots of pitchers (one from Pioneer & one from Mass. they are high on, among others), a catcher from Cali and a couple SSs (one from TC, one from Ill who is ranked the #8 guy in the state, apparently). i wouldn't worry about finding out how good these guys are until the MLB draft in June. unless there is a Putnam-type kid (i don't think there is), there won't be much to read about. even if there is a putnam type kid, he would be a late rounder b/c they have signed w/ M and are probably firm commits (putnam was drafted out of HS IIRC, but was a late flyer pick by the local Tigers b/c he knew he wanted to go to M).

I think the usual mode of operations at this level is to sign pitchers w/ potential, RS them to develop their fundamentals and hope they come around by year 2-3. rules of thumb at this level: RHers w/ low 90s fastballs are a dime a dozen. they need other pitches (ZPs splitter, actually he throws 4-5 pitches for strikes according to maloney). ANY lefty that throws in the 90s is a good pitcher & most likely a high end guy.

As far as position players, they signed 2 SSs, so expect Christian to bolt. not sure how to gauge position players at this level, unless they are obvious high end guys. Abraham was a hockey player, Reck started out at Oakland. guys who hit .450-.500 in HS are a dime a dozen, so it's hard to tell who the high end guys are until the draft.

A slight correction from Colin:

I think Dan was a little much with 90+ from RHP being standard. ~92 is average MLB from a RHP, iirc, so for the Big Ten it isn't quite that. But if the program is thinking of itself as a national power, then it needs a little more than Big Ten average. But Dan is right about secondary offerings. Everyone I saw out there yesterday had a hell of a time throwing anything but a fastball belt high for a strike. That has to change.

So bear all that in mind.

Position Players

C Coley Crank

Kittell offered this up on Crank:

This catcher from Cali might be a good one... 6-2 220 or so and can hit for power. played on plenty of Cali HS all star travel teams i think. Size is the only thing (w/o the benefit of draft evals) that i can use as a gauge. Berset is a good player, but a 5-10 185lb catcher is not a good prospect at any level. Look for him to get pushed.

PerfectGame.com on Crank:

Coley Crank is a 2008 C from Pinole Valley HS, residing in Pinole, CA, listed at 5'11" 215 lbs. Body - strong, physical, stocky. Offense - 2 for 4 with a 2BL, 3 Rs in two games, strong, flat swing, physical, good present power, balanced, easy power, short swing, ball exits bat well, power to all fields, middle of order bat. Defense - ok arm, consistent pop times, simple technique, takes time, flashes competitive pop times.

That scouting report was from '06 and may be a little outdated. They gave him an 8 -- "solid D-I prospect, mid-round draft pick" on their ten point rating scale. Maloney echoes the assessment:

A catcher out of Berkeley, Calif., Crank is an all-league selection in both baseball and football, and will add power to U-M's lineup. He was named to the 2007 Junior Sun Belt Oklahoma All-Tournament team, and played in the 2007 Area Code Games in Long Beach. "Coley Crank is a really strong, young man," Maloney said. "He's six-foot, 220, just built like a house. He'll give us added depth at the catcher position, and provide a powerful bat in the middle of the lineup."

A possible replacement for Recknagel's power, it appears, and probably a guy who will see significant time as both a catcher and a DH.

SS John Lorenz

According to someone -- who, exactly, is never revealed -- Lorenz was the #8 prospect in Illinois this year:

An honor roll student, Lorenz is listed as the No. 8 player in Illinois' class of 2008 as a shortstop and is captain of both the baseball and basketball teams. As a junior, he set school records with 9 home runs and 45 RBIs while hitting .422 and was named MVP of the Griffins' conference and regional champion team.

"John Lorenz is an outstanding infield prospect. He has a strong arm, a good bat and is very athletic," Michigan coach Rich Maloney said.

Lorenz only looked at Big Ten schools, visiting a "plethora" of them before deciding on Michigan. Do you need more evidence Jason Christian is outta herrrre? Everything you need to know is encapsulated here:

Lorenz, who will automatically be entered in to the amateur baseball draft, has talked with several professional scouts and expects to be drafted. However, Lorenz will only forgo his freshman year at Michigan if the contract offered is substantial.

Meanwhile, the Griffin shortstop expects to get immediate playing time at Michigan as the Wolverines' current shortstop is expected to leave after this season to play professionally.

Lorenz was a three-sport star early in his high school career and only recently gave up serious travel basketball, so his skills are a little more raw than guys who've played every day. He may have more upside than most.

SS Kevin Krantz

Krantz is an instate kid with the usual insane stats (.475, 8HR, .848 slugging and .617 OBP) garnered against questionable competition: Krantz is from Traverse City. Though he was a D-I caliber pitcher (Michigan State recruited him there), he'll be a position player at Michigan:

"The recruited me solely as an infielder and a shortstop," Krantz said. "I feel my best position is shortstop."

There's another article that says basically the same things, with one more confirmation that Christian is gonzo:

Michigan has a returning junior at shortstop in Jason Christian. But Maloney told Krantz that he expects Christian to be a high draft pick next June and leave school early.

Is Jason Christian returning for his senior year? It's hard to tell.

Krantz doesn't have any accolades or rankings, and the articles on him specifically state his scholarship is a partial one. (That may be an artifact of his home state: if you're from California or Illinois tuition is like 30 grand.)

The Crane Life

5/30/08 (and 5/31/08) - Michigan 7, Kentucky 5
5/31/08 - Michigan 3, Arizona 4
6/1/08 - Michigan 6, Kentucky 12 - eliminated

photo by Samara Pearlstein

Surely a college first baseman has to be amongst the least likely athletes in all of sports to be struck down with injury. You're somewhere between 18 and 22, which means you can take a gunshot and be relatively chipper the next day. Your top speed is "saunter." Every once in a very long while you have to bend over or dive or something, but only just frequently enough to prevent wholesale muscle atrophy.

If you are bound and determined to get injured your options are limited to 1) having a runner plow into your arm after a poor throw, 2) getting drilled with a line drive, or 3) spontaneously combusting. If you consider poker a sport, sitting around a table riffling chips is probably less dangerous. It's hard to come up with anything else. Golfing, I guess, but there's always the chance your caddy goes insane and beats you with your five-iron.

So, yeah, Michigan's first home regional in over twenty years didn't go quite as planned. As per usual, I blame Angry Michigan Baseball All American Hating God, who rudely interrupted Zach Putnam's start against Kentucky with a thunderous barrage of rain, then had the audacity to actually break some part of Nate Recknagel's anatomy as he was standing on first base. Despite another cosmic middle finger, the difference between Michigan and these other teams was wafer thin until Maloney's weird decisions at the beginning of the Kentucky elimination game, about which more can be found in the bullets at post's end.

Tweak Recknagel's freak injury or any number of other fateful moments -- Adam Abraham's run-scoring error, Jason Christian swinging at ball four during the first at-bat, Chris Fetter leaving the Jeremy Bonderman impression on the shelf -- and Michigan could have gone into the ninth inning against Arizona with a slight lead, held it, and been the team to batter a wearied pitching staff in the late game Saturday.

Do they say "that's baseball"? If so, that's baseball. If they don't, good for them for avoiding easy cliches.

All that was mildly depressing and something of a letdown after the storybook finish of last year's regional. But it didn't feel like it walking out of the stadium after the Arizona game Saturday.

This is what happened in the ninth inning: the somewhat rowdy young folks in front of me stood up. Since this is Michigan, within nanoseconds a crabby voice grumbled "down in front," and when it was joined by several others the somewhat rowdy young folks begrudgingly sat down. Then Ryan LaMarre fended off a pitch and squeezed it through a gap in the infield for a one-out single. Fisher Stadium stood, and this time the somewhat rowdy young folks turned around and urged everyone to get to their feet, arms waving like storks with their wings on backwards.

I turned around just in time to see a ponderous elderly couple glance at each other in resignation. They arose, joints grinding ponderously, and it seemed like the birth of a new thing as they craned their necks to glimpse what they could.

Bullets:

• About those weird decisions: I know he has single-handedly turned the Michigan program into something worth paying attention to, but starting a guy with 15 IP all season is weird. Following him with another guy who had the third-highest ERA on the team is also weird, and following him with Canadian Mike Wilson, who was valiant last year but sported a 8.73 ERA going into the UK game is super weird. Travis Smith and Tyler Burgoon were fresh and had better stats both traditional and peripheral. OTOH, it's not like you can extrapolate anything useful statistically from 30 or 40 IP.
• Said group of mildly rowdy young folk included in their number two guys who periodically burst into little baseball chatter songs like "hey whaddya say one-nine, gotta be smart, be smart one-nine, hey whaddya say hey" and it kind of felt like a time warp every time they did that.
• Michigan returned every major contributor aside from one starting pitcher and the catcher for 2008; next year looks like a bloodbath by comparison. Seniors: VanBuskirk, Recknagel, Mahler. Draft-eligible juniors: Putnam (sandwich pick or second-rounder, likely gone), Christian (4th to 8th round, possibly gone), Abraham (?), Fetter (?). I know less than zero about how Michigan's recruiting. Does anyone out there want to fill me in? Send me an email.
• I wonder if Michigan's sustained success will spur Ohio State to beef up their program? They've scraped into the NCAA tournament of late by winning the Big Ten tournament from somewhere between third and sixth place but are basically Just Another Northern Team. Much like Notre Dame hockey hiring Jeff Jackson, anything that makes the Big Ten a more legit place to play is good by me.
• Holy crap is there a lot of ridiculous sacrifice bunting in college baseball. During the first Kentucky game Michigan had men on first and second with no outs and the guy with the highest BA on the team, Kevin Cislo, at the plate. He bunted. Later it became apparent that this was probably not a sacrifice attempt, as Cislo's fast as hell and in the Arizona game the corner infielders were about halfway to the plate during a Cislo at bat with no one on base. But still, man... the guy hits .350. Kentucky did it all the time, including consecutive bunts when down six runs!
  
  I just don't get it, man. Baseball statheads are fervently against bunting in the majors, where a .300 batting average is pretty dang good. In aluminumbatland a .300 BA means you hit eighth. How can bunting be anything other than violent stupidity?
  
• Section Six has my back on this with its "Sac Bunt Irk Level":
  
  

Belated Regionals Open Thread

Should have done this yesterday, but: have at it. Arizona pulled away from EMU in the eight inning yesterday and Michigan has just finished a 7-5 win over Kentucky after a rain suspension. EMU and Kentucky have an elimination game starting at 2; Michigan and Arizona play at seven.

Relevant pitching bits: Putnam had to leave after five innings due to the rain delay, leaving Eric Katzman (2.1 IP) and Michael Powers (1.2 IP) to finish the job. Neither is likely to be available for Arizona.

The Wildcats, meanwhile, saw their starter chased after just 4.1 innings and had to use all three of their big bullpen guys for more than an inning. It'll be interesting to see how effective they are.

One big downer for Michigan: Nate Recknagel left the Kentucky game with a hand injury; unconfirmed reports say it's a broken wrist and he's done for the year.

Update: M loses 4-3 to Arizona and will face Kentucky in an elimination game in a couple hours. The good news: Wildcat ace Chris Rusin, who got chased in the second inning of the Friday game and could hypothetically go again today since he had such a limited outing, is injured and won't be available. Also, with Chris Fetter going 8 full innings last night Michigan will have everyone except the two starters available. Game starts at 2.

In cool but not immediately relevant insider news: the Mets are planning on replacing their enormo-scoreboard sometime soon and Wilpon plans on donating it to Michigan if they can just figure how to move it cross-country.

Baseball Regional Preview

#2 Seed Michigan (Host)

45-12, 26-5 Big 10
Schedule / Results
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Statistics
Head Coach Rich Maloney
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Michigan

Your warrior-poets were completely dominant against any team north of the Mason-Dixon line, setting a Big Ten record for most conference wins and sweeping through the conference tourney in three games. But college baseball being what it is, most of those teams suck hard. According to some guy named Boyd, Michigan's schedule ranked 114th -- actually not that bad since nearly 300 teams play D-I baseball. According to some guy named Warren, Michigan's schedule was #125 despite a challenging-ish nonconference schedule that featured four games against #1 seeds.

At this point, Michigan's program is the college baseball equivalent of Gonzaga in 2000. In 1999, Gonzaga's basketball team ignited by making a run to the Elite Eight; last year Michigan took out national #1 seed Vanderbilt and reached the super-regionals. Like Gonzaga, Michigan looks poised to totally dominate a mid-major conference, hover around the high teens in the polls with consistency, and totally rely on the NCAA tournament to validate its program as legitimate.

Michigan will trot out two excellent pitchers in second-team All-Americans Zach Putnam and Chris Fetter. Fetter had the slightly better year, going 10-1 with a 2.39 ERA and striking out 7.8 per nine innings. Putnam was slowed by injury early but recovered well, going 8-0 with a 2.64 ERA and striking out 9.4 per nine innings. Michael Powers also has a 2.64 ERA and is the primary reliever; expect to see a lot of him.

Past that, things get a little dicey. No Wolverine other than Putnam and Fetter started more than 9 games, and the nine game starter is Canadian Chris Wilson, who imploded this year after a promising 06-07. His 8.73 ERA is worst on the team. Eric Katzman (36 IP, 3.25 ERA) or Travis Smith (43 IP, 4.40 ERA) will probably get the starting not in a hypothetical third (or fourth) game as Michigan uses its bullpen liberally.

At the plate, first basemate Nate Recknagel is also a second-team All American; Kevin Cislo, Adam Abraham, and Putnam are the other big bats.

#3 Seed Kentucky

42-17, 16-14 SEC
Schedule / Results
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Statistics
Head Coach John Cohen
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Kentucky

The baseball field is not strictly seeded like the basketball field, but if you extrapolate from Michigan's potential super-regional matchup with the winner of the Miami regional you can infer these things:

• Arizona is the last #1 seed (which is why they're the only one getting shipped).
• Michigan is the top #2 seed.
• Kentucky is the worst #3 seed.

I present the "worst #3": a 42-17 team that went 26-3 outside of the loaded SEC (which is so strong nine teams got bids this year). Yerk.

Common opponents:

	Michigan	Kentucky
Oakland	W 7-4	W 15-5, W 12-2
Eastern Michigan	W 5-3, W 20-5	W 18-5, W 8-6
Purdue	W 6-1, W 3-2	W 3-2, W 6-1, W 4-3

Not much to choose from.

Michigan will be facing Friday night starter Chris Rusin, who's actually from Michigan. Baseball America on Rusin:

Rusin has a legit four-pitch mix highlighted by a plus curveball and a lively 88-89 mph fastball, and he gives Kentucky an experienced Saturday starter.

Rusin's 6-2 on the year with a 2.84 ERA, striking out 6.8 per nine innings; he sat out Kentucky's WLL performance in the SEC tournament and will be well rested for Friday's game. Read this if you want to be slightly depressed at both the vagaries of fate and the state of newspapers:

He'd grown up attending Michigan football games at The Big House, hailing the victors valiant. And when it came time to choose a college baseball program, the two-time All-State Dream Team member had hoped to sign with the Wolverines.

But, remember, things never actually work out the way you want them to.

There are two periods during which high school baseball players can sign national letters of intent.

Rusin was determined to sign with a university in the fall. The Wolverines, though, were in pursuit of a two-sport star who hadn't yet chosen between football and baseball scholarships.

Michigan asked Rusin to wait.

Even for the Wolverines, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"(UK) was the next-best school I was ready to go to, so I got it done," Rusin said.

I'm pretty sure the article is in error and two-sport star Michigan was courting was Adam Abraham, who could have been a mid-round NHL draft pick if he chose to play hockey. Abraham did sign with Michigan and is currently hitting .342.

Two big bats in the outfield power Kentucky's lineup. Sawyer Carroll leads the SEC in batting average (.416) and RBIs (77). This is his OPS: 1.172. Zounds. Colin Cowgill, meanwhile, returned from an injury that cost him the entire 2006-2007 season and bashed 18 home runs whilst batting .362. Baseball America mentions that UK's numbers are inflated by their 17-0 start against terrible competition, FWIW.

Michigan's main advantage over UK is their heavy reliance on lefthanded pitching. Rusin, their second starter, and their main reliever are all lefties. Michigan's big bats are all righthanded.

#1 Seed Arizona

38-17, 12-12 Pac 10
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Statistics
Head Coach Andy Lopez
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Arizona

Earlier in the week I was concerned that Arizona would throw out their #3 starter against Eastern and give themselves a huge advantage against the rest of the field for the remainder of the regional. Baseball America, however, indicates that Arizona might not have much of a distinction between their top three arms:

the starters have had their ups and downs this season. Of particular concern is ace righty Preston Guilmet (6-4, 3.89), who went 0-2, 10.29 in his final three conference starts. Lefthanders David Coulon (7-3, 3.54) and Eric Berger (7-3, 4.53) both pitched well in wins against ASU in the final weekend.

(If none of those ERAs looks intimidating in relation to Fetter and Putnam, please keep in mind that Arizona's SOS is an outstanding 21st.) Arizona can either keep the ace on the shelf if they're eying a potential matchup with Michigan's aforementioned right-handed sluggers or they can get his wobbly pitching out of the way against Eastern. Either way, it looks like Michigan will be facing a lot of quality:

Arizona's calling card is its pitching depth, and it has an unrivaled trio of power bullpen arms in lefthander Daniel Schlereth (2-0, 1.73 with 73 strikeouts in 52 innings) and righties Jason Stoffel (3-2, 3.51 with 67 strikeouts in 41 innings) and Ryan Perry (5-3, 3.21 with 63 strikeouts in 67 innings). All three have mid-90s fastballs and devastating breaking balls.

That kind of depth doesn't get called into play much during the season; in the regionals, however, it can be critical.

Offensively, Arizona goes deep. Four players have more than ten home runs, led by first baseman CJ Zeigler's 19. Bryce Ortega and Colt Sedbrook are both averaging better than .340, but many of the BAs are low for college baseball. If Michigan can keep the ball in the park they might have a shot.

Common opponents:

	Michigan	Arizona
Notre Dame	W 15-12	W 16-0
Arizona State	L 4-15, L 4-8	L 5-6, L 13-6, W 4-3, W 7-4

Herein is the reason Arizona got the #1 seed in this regional over Michigan: a season-ending series against power Arizona State during which they took two of three games (the 5-6 loss was much earlier in the year). Michigan, playing on the road early in the season, got housed twice.

#4 Seed Eastern Michigan
25-32, 15-8 Mid-American
Schedule / Results
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Head Coach Jake Boss
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Eastern Michigan

...should be happy to be here. In four games against Kentucky and Michigan, the Eagles were outscored 51-19. They're under .500 for the season and are only in the tourney because someone had to win the MAC tournament. Baseball is a weird game, but if they do anything other than two-and-out it'll be a minor shock.


Elsewhere: Maize 'n' Brew and A Sea Of Blue bat questions back and forth. Also, this man exists:

Woo!

Outlook

I think Michigan has a slight advantage against Kentucky because of their predominantly lefthanded pitching. They were basically a .500 SEC team, and much of their record outside the league was built on teams like... uh... Oakland and Eastern Michigan. When they played Purdue the results were basically the same as when Michigan played Purdue. Anyone who expects Michigan to advance is being foolish, but it might be 55% or 60% instead of a coin flip.

If they win their first game they might have a decent shot at Arizona, either getting AU's struggling "ace" or another lefty. I would pitch Fetter in game one with the hope of getting Putnam up against Arizona's HR-heavy lineup. Putnam's a ground-ball pitcher with a killer sinker; he's only given up four HRs all year. Win that game and you're forcing Arizona to play another game against UK and killing their pitching depth. Lose either of the first two, and you're looking at a long, tough road with dodgy pitching.

So: I think Michigan has a pretty decent chance as long as they stay out of the loser's bracket, but Wilson's implosion has really stressed the pitching depth and if they have to eat an extra game's worth of innings as Arizona eats cheeseburgers they'll be scratching and praying in the finale, assuming they get that far.

Broadcast

The Big Ten Network couldn't scramble trucks or whatever to get the regional on the BTN, even though it was expected well ahead of time that Michigan would get to host, and there is thus no TV. Big Ten Network: minus 450 points.

But! If you don't mind staring at your computer, MGoBlue.com will stream Michigan games live. if that doesn't work, you can listen to a radio call. It's better than nothing. Unless it doesn't work, in which case it's just taunting evil.

Unverified Voracity Seeks Help

Banner contest reminder: Entries are due on Monday. Due to the large number of entries we'll have a two-stage polling process. Stage one will whittle down the entries to four or five, and stage two will pick a winner.

It begins. With Hail to the Victors 2008 mostly put to bed, attention now turns to the other major project of the offseason: getting MGoBlog off Blogger and onto a platform that supports a bunch of other features I've wanted forever-ever. After evaluating a bunch of blogging platforms and CMSes, I've settled on Drupal.

After a few days pounding away at MGoBlog 3.0, my initial reaction is: this is going to be so cool if I don't go insane and do something rash like challenge Charlie Weis to deep-fried-butter-eating contest or try to dunk on Jason Maxiell. If you've got mad Drupal chops and can answer questions like "Images: wtf?" and "WYSIWIG editors: wtf?" and "am I going to kill performance by enabling like 600 modules, wtf?" please drop me a line.

It's on. Michigan did get its regional, but the vagaries of the seeding were pretty harsh to their chances. After losing their first seventeen games of the year, Eastern Michigan ran through the MAC tournament to earn an autobid. They're still below .500; they're one of the worst teams in the tournament. They get Arizona in the first round. This is bad in two ways:

• Eastern's unlikely to do Michigan the favor of knocking off Arizona, and
• Arizona's likely to throw their #3 starter out against the Eagles in the hopes they can get their #1 and #2 in favorable matchups against Michigan or Kentucky.

The winner of this regional draws national #1 seed Miami's regional in the super-regional next weekend, which means Arizona is the last #1 and Michigan the top #2; unfortunately their relative paths are nowhere near equal. At least the Fish will have a vested interest in seeing EMU win in the early game.

Maloney talks smack:

"Everybody else is saying we don't have any chance," Maloney told the players in their locker room. "So we've got to go out and show them. ... They're crying because they have to come here."

Ticket information is here; if you're in town you should try to make it out.

Bring the barf bags. I probably shouldn't even link this since it will cause an eruption in the comments, but Jesus, man:



Yeeech.

A palate cleanser:

Unverified Voracity Attends To Other Sports

Note: in an effort to spread out content, the promised WVU-Rutgers UFR will go up tomorrow.

Success out the ears. It's been a particularly good spring for Michigan sports, and the news of late has been particularly particularly good. To wit:

Men's track and field won the Big Ten championships for the first time in twenty-five years. Of particular note to football fans is redshirt freshman cornerback Troy Woolfolk's performance:

[Junior Dan] Harris began the day by electrifying the crowd with his burst of speed on the home stretch of the 4x100-meter relay. Harris received the final exchange from fifth-year senior Stann Waithe (Towson, Md./Loch Raven HS) and was in the middle of the pack. But Harris blazed past everyone to give Michigan its first 4x100-meter relay title since 1982, posting a regional qualifying time of 40.26. Harris and Waithe were joined with freshman Troy Woolfolk (Sugarland, Texas/Dulles HS) and junior Andre Barnes (West Bloomfield, Mich./West Bloomfield HS). ...

Harris and Woolfolk also ran in the 100-meter dash, finishing third (10.36) and sixth (10.58), respectively, and accounting for nine points. Woolfolk's time was a new personal record.

Eeee? Maybe? In two weeks, 14 qualifying Wolverines will participate in the NCAA's mideast regional in Fayetteville. Youtube has the winning relay up; Harris is the guy with the jet engine:



Update: A correction: that's actually last year's 4x100, not this year's. Sorry.

The women's team finished second at their conference meet.

Men's tennis made the NCAA Sweet 16 before getting knocked out by #1 Virginia.

Softball, meanwhile, beat the everliving brains out of its regional opponents on the weekend, beating Wright State 13-5, Notre Dame 8-0, and Kent State 5-0 in the regional finale. Michigan hosts Virginia Tech in a best of three super regional this weekend for the right to go to softball's College World Series. ESPN has a long piece up on Samatha Findlay and the UCLA player she homered off of to win Michigan's first national title in the sport.

Baseball went 2-1 against Northwestern, setting a new record for most conference wins for a Big Ten club. The conference tourney is this weekend at the Fish; details can be had at Maize 'n' Brew. Also, Baseball America interviewed Nate Recknagle, the new single-season home run record holder.

The Daily lays out the case for a home regional:

Michigan (26-5 Big Ten, 42-12 overall) has one of the best records in the country, blowing out the rest of the Big Ten to set the record for most conference wins in a season.

Although impressive, the Wolverines' record alone may not be enough to merit hosting duties. But for once, they actually benefit from being a Northern team. The NCAA wants to geographically spread out the regionals. Michigan and St. John's are the only ranked teams above the Mason-Dixon line.

Minnesota coach John Anderson and Central Michigan Athletic Director Dave Heeke are two key members on the 10-member NCAA Baseball Regional Committee who will lobby for Michigan. Anderson is a friend of Michigan coach Rich Maloney and more importantly a fellow Big Ten coach who knows what's good for one Big Ten team is good for the whole conference. As a nearby athletic director, Heeke will certainly feel pressure to support a local team.

On top of everything, there's a chance the Wolverines could host without being named one of the top-16 seeds. No. 11 San Diego, No. 13 California and No. 23 Coastal Carolina don't have the proper facilities to host a postseason tournament. Don't be surprised if one of these teams is sent to Ann Arbor, even if it's a higher seed than Michigan.

Add all these elements together, and the odds are the Wolverines will host a regional for the first time since 1986.

Most projections do have Michigan hosting, usually against San Diego.

And the team with the coolest helmets won the ultimate prize: Men's lacrosse (a "club varsity" sport) won the MCLA national title over the weekend, finishing the season 20-0.

Inadvertent news? I don't know if this is news or not since it's buried deep within an article leading with Weis' "to hell with Michigan" remark -- why the media continues to focus on that bit instead of the hilarious mumbling about excuses that immediately precedes the "hell" remark I don't know -- but it looks like there will be no academic casualties in Michigan's most recent recruiting class:

Rodriguez also said he expects all the recruits signed in February will qualify academically and most will arrive in June for summer term.

It would have been helpful to have the exact quote; that could either be "I think" or "I know". If it's the latter, that's a small relief. Pint-sized cornerback Boubacar Cissoko is highly rated and needed to do some work to get in.

Teapot tempest tamped. Braylon Edwards and Rodriguez mud-wrestled for the right to allocate the #1 jersey as the winner see fit, and Braylon won:

"Everything has been taken care of," Edwards said of the tradition of a wide receiver wearing the No. 1 jersey at Michigan since 1979.

So much for WVU newspaper columnists' dreams of armed alumni insurrection.

Etc.: Carr quizzed about Weis' "hell" remark; Brian Ellerbe located; we are pursuing this German kid for the basketball team (they don't get any TV from the States until 15 years later: advantage us).

Unverified Voracity Remembers Wolverine Great Chris Carter

In the latest edition of "this ain't your father's Michigan football program," ESPN did their all-access thingy with a spring practice:



The segment goes downhill once Captain Platitude Kirk Herbstreit declares that Michigan is adopting an "us versus them" mentality, instead of, like, the "some of us versus them and the rest of us" adopted by Notre Dame last year.

(Via the Diag.)

Speaking of, nobody cares about Charlie Weis using H E double hockey sticks to describe where Michigan can go; we have heard the word deployed and, yes, do know that Bo basically said the same thing about ND. We're just laughing at Weis E Coyote preemptively mocking Michigan's "excuses" mere days after muttering about thugs and hooligans. Unlike Notre Dame fans, we do not think a not-for-public-consumption statement that expresses disdain for an institution via bad words is particularly noteworthy or horrible.

There is funny news about the basketball program. It is not bad news, nor indifferent news. It is an entirely new basketball-related sort of news. I think it is called "good"?

The NCAA has granted Arizona transfer Laval Lucas-Perry's appeal to be granted an extra year of eligibility, meaning the guard will be eligible to play three and a half seasons at Michigan

Lucas-Perry still has to sit out until the winter semester, but will be considered a freshman by the NCAA instead of a sophomore.

Hostybits. The baseball season is winding to its end, and the newly renovated Fish is likely going to see a heavy dose of postseason action. Michigan has won the Big Ten for the third straight year and will host the conference tournament, and with a few smaller schools who will not bid for regionals poised for #1 seeds, the general opinion is the committee will attempt to provide Michigan a regional. Baseball America:

San Diego and Coastal Carolina look like strong contenders to earn No. 1 seeds for the second straight year, but neither team is likely to submit a bid to host a regional as they did a year ago. USD coach Rich Hill said San Diego State's Tony Gwynn Stadium played like a neutral site a year ago, rather than a home environment, so the Toreros don't plan to bid again. And the Myrtle Beach Pelicans have said their stadium is unlikely to be available again for Coastal, meaning the Chanticleers would have to bring in temporary seating to Charles L. Watson Stadium—a scenario that also seems unlikely. So USD gets shipped to Michigan as the top seed, and Coastal is the No. 1 seed at East Carolina, which is 10th in the RPI and would give Conference USA a second host.

Michigan is a #2 seed in San Diego's regional; #3 LSU and #4 Wright State are the other teams. Michigan, by the way, is the only Big Ten team in the field.

This could be a significant advantage for Michigan going forward. With the fancy new stadium and college baseball's desire to have hosts in the midwest more often than not, Michigan is in line to host more than their fair share of regionals.

History! I haven't actually embedded a WolverineHistorian video in a while:



West Virginia newspaper columnists are awesome. This contretemps about the #1 jersey and Braylon being ticked is highly likely to be resolved satisfactorily in the near future, but don't tell that to West Virginians:

For a sports writer in this neck of the woods, Rich Rodriguez has become the gift that keeps on giving.

This is the slow time of the year around here, finals week, graduation, a time when a sports columnist has to wrack his brain — or what’s left of it after dealing with the likes of Pacman Jones and Chris Henry — to come up with a story idea.

This is Bob Hertzel, and he is correct to warn the reader that he is brain dead.

The No. 1 uniform meant a lot to Edwards. It has belonged exclusively to a wide receiver since 1979, dating back to Chris Carter.

There's something wrong with this sentence: his name is "Cris Carter." Oh, and uh... here's a photo of Wolverine legend Cris Carter in his precious #1 jersey:


Little known fact: in 1979, Michigan and Ohio State were sent the wrong jerseys. With the nation at war with Cuba, all horses were diverted to Teddy Roosevelt's unit so they could be heroically and futilely shot. The two rivals had no choice but to don the other's silks.

Also, one equaled two for a brief period in the fall.

Please. You'd think Penn State fans' righteous indignation about Rich Rodriguez's recruiting would be severely blunted by the fact that PSU just yoinked Maryland cornerback Darrell Givens out from underneath Ohio State's nose. Not so much. Black Shoe Diaries:

I'm sure that certain people who swear there is no gentleman's agreement between Big Ten coaches will claim that we just violated it. Whatever. It's pretty obvious since Rodriguez joined the conference that anything goes, so when in Rome...

Weak, man. A little rhetorical flourish to preemptively dismiss the obvious: there never was any "gentleman's agreement" and Penn State fans are full of crap. Yeah, "anything goes" since Rodriguez showed up, which is why the very post BSD linked has no fewer than four examples of intraconference poaching the year before Rodriguez showed up.

Give it up, guys. This, like JayPa's efforts to recruit skill position players, is getting pathetic.

Etc.: Alumni organization podcast w/ Rodriguez; Yost Built looks at the hockey recruiting class of 2008.

While I Was Gone

The cloaking mechanism broke. I blame Romulan saboteurs. It should now be repaired, which means mgoblog.com will work again. If this happens in the future, mgoblog.blogspot.com will still work.

Hockey split against Michigan State and Ferris State. Results: one CCHA title, one lost #1 ranking in the Pairwise, and burgeoning concerns about how good the team really is. Other than a lackluster pair of 4-2 wins over Lake State, each of which was a close game that looked more comfortable than it was because of an empty-netter, Michigan hasn't swept an opponent since the mid-January Notre Dame series. There are plenty of mitigating factors -- the Kolarik injury, some questionable play by Bryan Hogan, atrocious refereeing in the Miami series, and plain bad luck in spots -- but a 5-3-4 stretch run is quite a comedown for a team that was 22-2 before that.

Michigan's hold on a top-two spot is now extremely tenuous. Before Saturday's games they had ceded the #1 spot in the PWR to Colorado College; a CC loss to Minnesota State repaired the damage but the comparison remains terribly close. Meanwhile, an OT goal salvaged a 2-1 victory over Minnesota-Duluth for North Dakota, pushing their RPI ahead of Michigan's and giving them the #1 overall spot.

Michigan is now second with CC breathing down their neck. If CC passes Michigan, they'll miss the opportunity to take on a CHA or Atlantic Hockey autobid team. Worse, Wisconsin continues to linger around the edge of the tourney. They're currently the last #4 seed, and if that holds up Michigan's almost definitely going to draw them in the first round at home, for the following reasons:

• CC has to play at home since they're hosting,
• in this scenario NoDak is one of the top two seeds and has earned the right to get an autobid team, which they will do out East because Wisconsin is also hosting,
  
• UNH would be the other #1 seed and will almost definitely end up in Worcester for attendance purposes,
• the tournament selection committee always finds a way to screw Michigan since the back-to-back Yost regionals.

This last reason may be mad ravings, but the others are solid. Of course, given the way Michigan's game against Wisconsin went at the Showcase a first-round matchup with UW might not be the worst thing in the world.

Both CC and NoDak have two more regular season games before the WCHA playoffs; you want them to lose against Denver and Saint Cloud, respectively. Splits would be enough to temporarily send Michigan to #1.

As for the rest of the comparisons, Michigan's meh final two weeks hasn't lost them any ground but it hasn't guaranteed them anything, either. They have secured comparisons against State and Denver, but CC and NoDak are now neck and neck with M. UNH and Miami could conceivably pass Michigan if M flops in the playoffs. My ballpark estimate of what will happen:

• Fail to get to the Joe: Unless another of the top five implodes in similar fashion, M falls into the #5 slot and becomes the top two seed. Since Michigan will be playing at best the #8 team in the league, this is unlikely.
• Get to the Joe and go 0-2. See above. Winning those two games against a weak, non-TUC CCHA team isn't going to help them much.
• 1-1 at the Joe. Could be the #5 if the rest of the top five wins out (at least, as much as possible in the UND/CC cases), but probably the #3 or #4 seed; very probably going to be in Madison.
• Win CCHA Playoff top two seed, autobid foe in the first round.

There's plenty left to play for. One relief: there's no goddamn way we end up in a regional with North Dakota and Minnesota.

Elsewhere: Yost Built on the weekend. The Saturday game at Ferris wasn't televised, so I can't say anything. On Friday I don't think Ferris had more than one or two even strength scoring chances the whole game, but the penalty kill gave up three goals. Hill, the referee, was fine through a period, then started calling all manner of weird stuff including an interference call on Michigan after someone hit a guy who either still had the puck or had released it a split second before. Woo refs.

The Pairwise went crazy. There are ten teams in the WCHA. If the season ended today, eight of them would be in the tournament. Since these teams will continue to beat each other up in the final two weeks of the season and three of them must lose first-round playoff series, one or two will probably drop out. But at this point it would be a huge upset if only half the conference made the tournament. Which is, of course, insane.

Yost Built covered this in-depth. The WCHA's impressive nonconference winning percentage is largely built many games against the weaker conferences. Head-to-head against HE and the CCHA it's different:

Still, the top eight are 14-11-4 against the CCHA and Hockey East (and the top 4 are 8-7-2). That doesn't paint the picture of WCHA dominance that people would have you otherwise believe.

College hockey's system has always been strictly numerical and that's been both blessing and curse. The "curse" bit: rampant over-rating of a scanty few nonconference games. Most of the difference in a team's SOS comes from the wins and losses its opponents rack up in the six or eight nonconference games they play, and many of these are against the Bemjidi States and Wayne States and RITs and Alabama Huntsvilles of the world.

The WCHA is a fine conference, undoubtedly the best in college hockey. What the SEC believes it is to college football, the WCHA actually is to college hockey. But a couple of nonconference games here and there shouldn't be enough to override a season's worth of play in conference. Is the difference between the CCHA and WCHA so severe that we should prefer a WCHA team 5 or 6 games under .500 in conference over a CCHA team that's 6 games over .500? That's the situaton we have at the moment.

If a 12-14-6 Minnesota-Duluth or a 13-13-9 Minnesota gets in over 22-12-4 Notre Dame it'll be a terrible injustice. Though ND has struggled from time to time this year, they still sit 12th in RPI. What's holding them back is the Pairwise's stupid decision to count games against the top 25 double and ND's poor record against these foes. ND's nonconference schedule is tourney-worthy -- 7-3 with a split against Denver and a sweep of tourney bubble team Princeton -- and they aren't, like, eighth in their frickin' conference. The NCAA should declare by fiat that any team in the bottom half of its own league doesn't deserve a bid, and they should do it tomorrow.

So did the basketball coach. After Michigan's loss to Northwestern, John Beilein lost all his hair and about twenty pounds, then went bats in video you've already seen sixteen times:



Mmm, that's good crazy.

Tommy Amaker what? Some things are constant with Tommy Amaker, like his team sucking and causing Michigan to lose. Other things... what?

...[Harvard's] group of six recruits expected to join the team next season is rated among the nation’s 25 best. This is partly because Harvard Coach Tommy Amaker, who starred at Duke and coached in the Big East and Big Ten conferences, has set his sights on top-flight recruits. It is also because Harvard is willing to consider players with a lower academic standing than previous staff members said they were allowed to. Harvard has also adopted aggressive recruiting tactics that skirt or, in some cases, may even violate National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.

(I have no idea who or what rated the Harvard class amongst the top 25 in anything; it's definitely not Scout or Rivals.) Oh, sure now he starts skirting NCAA rules to haul in good recruiting classes.

Northwestern Penn State what? Bleargh! After limping through an ugly win over Illinois, Michigan was on a four-of-five roll and faced two games against perennial doormats Northwestern and Penn State. Of course, they lost these games. UMHoops highlights the downfall in both games:

Another player posts his career high against Michigan. It’s been a problem all year, whether it is Rice, Leuer, Grant,Coble, Moore, McKenzie or Battle they all do it the same way: rain three pointers on the Michigan defense. You don’t win games in the BigTen when you allow your opponents to shoot 55% from deep in a game (box score).

No, you don't. Dylan continues, asserting that a 15-0 run on five straight threes is reminiscent of the team when it was run by a certain turtlenecked, fade-sporting Duke alum. Indeed, it is, and that might indicate the problems Amaker left the Michigan program still plague it and will until Beilein gets a different sort of player in. When I looked at Beilein's 1-3-1 zone I noted that said zone was not terrible against the three:

The traditional way to beat a zone -- rain threes on it -- appears less effective against the 1-3-1 than most. West Virginia was seventh(!) in 3FG defense this year at 30.3%, and opponents didn't get off an inordinate number of them: 33.7% of opponent shots, good for a middle-of-the-pack 151st. This isn't nearly as consistent as the turnovers, thoug(h. Last year's Sweet 16 outfit was still above average at 34%, but the two years before that were ugly. However, in no year did teams get off an inordinate number of threes. WVU has hovered around the national average.

This year, Michigan opponents are making it rain: Michigan is 312th (of 341) in opponent 3PT% and 217th -- well below average -- in the percentage of three-pointers opponents launch. Opponents are also making 49.4 percent of their two pointers and getting a ton of offensive rebounds; the resulting defensive efficiency (106.7 points per 100 possesssions) is an unstirring 280th. They aren't forcing the rampant turnovers Beilein's teams usually do, and thus the defense is dead.

The offense: 49th in three point shots, 301st in making them. End of story.

Baseball tied the Mets, then sucked. Michigan tied a professional team 4-4 and led in the ninth before a two-run homer. For some reason, an attempted Kevin Cislo bunt (in the fourth inning!) enraged Mets closer Billy Wagner:

If he got that bunt down, I would have drilled the next guy. Play to win against Villanova.

Uh... what kind of weird bunting bushido lesson did I and the rest of the free world miss? If anyone needs further evidence this Wagner guy is mental: Jim Rome enthusiastically agreed with him. QED.

Michigan, coming off a season-opening three game sweep of Villanova, proceeded to go 1-3 in the next four, getting smoked by #1 Arizona State twice and losing in extra innings to Portland. There was a win against Hawaii in there somewhere.

Elsewhere: Colin of Yet Another Michigan Sports Blog asked penetrating questions of a Baseball Prospectus fellow and got interesting answers

Dominique Douglas ate like five grand.

Yeah, that seems like a good idea.