This is a big, huge, bighuge big week for Michigan basketball. If you've been following UMHoops.com you are probably aware of all of this, but in short:
Beilein is hosting a wide array '09, '10, and '11 prospects this week at various camps.
California point guard Darius Morris is making a visit.
Morris, a point guard who's #64 in the Rivals 100 and upwardly mobile, has been saying all the right things for going on six months now; this is the big week. The LA Times:
Michigan has had to be considered one of the favorites to land a verbal commitment from Darius Morris of Windward for quite sometime now, especially since his father had so many good things to say about the Wolverines and what they had to offer his son in this blog, back toward the end of April.
That said, it shouldn't come as a big surprise to learn there's a plan for Morris to visit Ann Arbor on June 29-30, according to quotes. The 6-foot-3 junior point guard has offers from Oregon St., Washington St. and USC. Other programs expressing interest include Arizona, Kentucky and Texas.
Morris is a huge recruit for Michigan basketball. He's a top-50-ish PG from across the country and would be the biggest recruit John Beilein has ever landed. He's Daniel Horton, except this time he'd be committing to the guy widely believed to be the best strategic coach in the country. Landing him would go a long way towards dispelling the perception that Beilein will only recruit six-foot white guys with peanut allergies.
If Morris commits, Michigan will be looking for a high profile wing to round out the class. UMHoops provides the lowdown.
According to a Crisler Arena infrastructure report recently completed for the university by architectural firm Jicking Lyman Powell Associates, renovating Crisler Arena could cost more than $46.7 million.
The report estimates the cost of a new practice facility at $20.5 million, bringing the cost of overhauling and building to approximately $67.2 million.
Shouldn't this check be bigger? I thought it was an iron-clad rule that any check made out for more than $9,999 had to be at least three feet long. Apparently not:
And you thought paying your taxes was painful.
The OHL Draft is coming up this weekend, which is of relevance to Michigan fans because it will clarify where various college-interested recruits stand. First rounders are not likely to end up in college; talented players who slip significantly are. There are a bunch of targets out there but the main guys to keep an eye on are the two draft-eligible commitments, center Jared Knight and defenseman Jon Merrill.
JARED KNIGHT RC Ht: 5.09 Wt: 170 lbs 1/16/1992 Home: Battle Creek, MI Detroit Compuware U16
Scouting Report: Knight is a highly skilled forward who has shown a consistent willingness to play in both ends of the ice. He plays the game a lot bigger than his actual size, competing at a high level game in and game out. He always shows up to play, no matter the situation or the score. He is an excellent skater that possesses speed and quickness. He has that elusive extra gear that he can utilize too.
"Always shows up" is not particularly useful information, but FWIW.
Merrill:
Ht: 6.02 Wt: 175 lbs 2/3/1992 Home: Brighton, MI Detroit Little Caesars GP G A PTS PIM - - - - - Scouting Report: Merrill is an extremely talented offensive minded defensemen who plays a very high risk, high reward style of game. He is an excellent skater, possessing great mobility and a very smooth and effortless stride. He displays speed and quickness while showing the ability to move in all four directions equally well. His speed and quickness allows him to take away time and space in a heartbeat and his lateral mobility is outstanding.
Sounds like a non-Godzilla version of Jack Johnson.
Bob Miller's latest article on Michigan's recruiting says the current plan for both Merrill and Knight, along with uber-commit Luke Moffatt, a 2007 first-round pick of Kelowna, is to play for the NTDP the next two years, then hit Yost. Both eligible players would be obvious first round selections if not for their plans to go to Michigan. Merrill is ranked the #2 player available by ISS, while Miller says four separate OHL teams guaranteed Knight a first round slot if he would commit to playing for them.
Four Michigan targets are also draft-eligible; I'll relate what goes down with them next week.
A little of the old in and out. Ekpe Udoh remains at large, maybe transferring, maybe not transferring. Meanwhile, Beilein -- get this -- might be tracking down a top-100, four star point guard from California:
Darius Morris is a basketball player recruiting services such as Rivals.com and Scout.com are enamored with, ranking the junior from Windward among the top 100 prospects in the country and one of the top 15 point guards in the nation. The recognition is warranted too.
Michigan knows this all too well, having kept in constant contact with Morris for quite sometime now, even offering him a scholarship along the way. Not surprisingly, the Wolverines are considered the early front-runner to win his services, according to these quotes.
The "quotes" link goes to a premium Rivals story; suffice it to say that this LA Times blog post ends "it appears as if everyone is trailing Michigan at this point." If Beilein can reel the kid in Morris would be his highest-rated recruit ever.
Eeee! Barwis:
(For some reason the embedding on these MGoBlue videos doesn't seem to work on the site sometimes; if you can't see anything above, here's a direct link.)
Speaking of Michigan S&C, a couple readers forwarded along this remarkable passage from the Sports Illustrated vault:
O.K., Mel. Let's give it a try. How about...Greg Skrepenak, enormous offensive tackle, University of Michigan? "The bottom line on Greg Skrepenak, in my opinion, is that he wasn't the true dominant lineman he should have been," says Kiper. "He's not a strong lineman; he's 315 pounds. 320. but he's not doing the 25 reps |he's not bench-pressing 225 pounds the requisite 25 times], he's not attacking and burying people at the line of scrimmage. He only did 16 reps at the scouting-combine workouts, but the problem is at the strength program at Michigan, where they do a lot of machine lifting instead of free weights.... I think Skrepenak will be better once he gets in the NFL than he appears now, which means that someone like the Bears, picking in the latter part of Round One, could be interested in bringing in a guy like that."
Here, Mel was right on: Skrepenak went at the top of the second and took a while before breaking into the Raiders' starting lineup. (He's now the chairman of the Luzerne County board of commissioners, BTW... another life sadly wrecked by the Michigan football program's callous disregard for its players.)
It is always so. Most criticisms of drafting and recruiting rankings boil down to -- as SMQB eloquently puts it -- "Experts suck because Tom Brady," using anecdotes in place of research because research is hard and yammering away is easy. But, like... research:
I've seen versions of these graphs for anything that has a draft -- there was an especially good one for the NHL that I, regretfully, cannot locate -- and they all look remarkably similar: a logarithmic dropoff from a super-high starting point.
Hey... Buzz Bissinger! That was pretty crazy, huh? I've read a lot of stuff about it, but I'm really waiting for Rock M Nation's opinion.
Bleah. Sick day taken. Enjoy this 1/3rd of a UV; I'll be back monday.
I shoot them in the head.*UMHoops points to two pieces on St. John's transfer Larry Wright, a 40% three-point shooter from Saginaw who's returning home after two years in NYC. He'll be going to school somewhere in state, according to Eric Lacey:
"He told me he doesn't want to leave the state of Michigan," said Dawkins, who has already spoken to Oakland coach Greg Kampe about Wright. "So that's a good sign."
Wright is returning to Michigan because his mother has had serious back surgery and will attempt to get a waiver to play next year. Is he Big Ten caliber? Failing that, is he Michigan caliber? (ZING!) St John's hoops blog East Coast Biasthinks so:
St. John’s fans are pissed. PISSED, because we’re losing Larry Wright. He was on his way to becoming a cult hero; but unlike other fan favorites, this isn’t a case of that scrappy walk-on kid who plays tough defense and just makes plays. Larry Wright was possibly the team’s best scorer and certainly the most accurate shooter, and the justifiable focus of the fans/ message boards’ “Free Larry Wright” posts.
There's much, much more in a gargantu-post on Wright; his game sounds like a good fit for Beilein's system:
As for Larry’s game, he shoots deep shots in the flow of the offense and doesn’t overdribble. If he doesn’t have his shot, he looks for the next man. He tends to shoot from around the top of the key, but last year his some of his memorable shots from the corner (I think the Notre Dame game, his last shot was from the right corner? Correct me if wrong). When he gets the ball, he seems ready to shoot or drive, and if he’s blanketed, he doesn’t force it. he doesn’t take his man off the dribble often, but he’s probably quick enough to do so. ...
Larry Wright isn’t the second coming. He is a role player, for sure, and limited in some ways; but that role is an essential one for every single basketball team; the guy who can score in bunches and won’t hurt you in other ways on the court. He could be a potential star and with more regular time, I expect his outside shooting percentages to go up.
Michigan needs a shooter. Correction: Michigan needs 3-5 shooters. Wright appears to be a shooter and got 9 PPG in under 20 minutes in the Big East. He's going to a school in the state of Michigan. Git er done.**
*(reference explanation: I used to watch David Letterman in high school. Once, Laurence Fishburne was on the show promoting his latest gangster movie and somehow the conversation turned to if he preferred "Laurence" or "Larry," he obviously said "Laurence." Letterman asked "what do you do to people who call you Larry?" and Fishburne replied "I shoot them in the head.") **(you have permission to shoot me in the head.)
Anyway, hockey is way less depressing. Tonight the playoffs open. Items:
Injuries. Kolarik is in, Vaughn and Rust are out. Both Vaughn and Rust may make it back next weekend; Rust broke a "non-weight bearing" bone in his leg.
Teevees. Saturday night's game is on Comcast for the super-duper package recipients of the world; Friday and Sunday are sorta available. Yost Built:
Friday's game and Sunday's if necessary game can be viewed (for free) at MGoBlue.com courtesy of WOLV-TV. Saturday's game will be aired on Comcast Sportscenter or whatever the hell the not-Comcast-Local station is called. It's in the 900s on your digital box. Thank God for Slingbox.
Elsewhere. Root against CC, North Dakota, and Wisconsin in their opening-round CCHA series.
ggggargharagharagh. See, my main concern with the basketball team is this: maybe Manny Harris just isn't good and won't get good. He's a second-team all Big Ten player as a freshman, but there's a severe Bracey Wright effect going on. Wright was the Indiana shooting guard who set Big Ten Wonk all a-frenzy because people kept insisting he was an All-Big Ten player:
Bracey Wright being named first-team All-Big-Ten ranks alongside Milli Vanilli's Best New Artist Grammy as the epitome of travesty-by-award.
Main point cited was Wright's tendency to score a lot of points by shooting without remorse. A table compiled from Kenpom:
Player
Usage
eFG%
Ast Rt
TO rate
FT rate
Overall O RT
Wright 2005
29.6
48.2
20.4
16.0
44.4
105.7
Harris 2008
30.7
44.0
20.9
21.3
46.9
97.5
Freshman Manny Harris is a much, much crappier version of senior Bracey Wright, which is not to say that he's bad, but to say that he's the basketball equivalent of Jimmy Clausen: the perfect kid to overrate. In Clausen's case the factors were multifarious (famous name, ND commitment, overcoaching, being older than everyone, playing solely against overmatched tiny schools). It's simpler for basketball players; all they have to do is take a buttload of shots.
This Harris did, with the 32nd highest usage rate in the country. Harris also had the lowest eFG% of anyone on the team except Anthony Wright and walkons. More damningly, the "best" player on the team also had a higher TO rate than anyone except David Merritt.
There are two large mitigating factors: he's a freshman, and he's dealing with a mini version of the Dion Harris effect wherein a high-usage player on a crappy team ends up taking a lot of horrific shots and turns the ball over a lot because he's playing one on five. This happened to Harris (Dion version) his sophomore year, when Abram missed the season, Horton got suspended for half of it, and the rest of the team was limping in slings and casts and the like. Everyone expected a breakout season when he wasn't playing with Dani Wohl, and they got... eh, pretty much the same.
My winding point: Harris is not one of the ten best players in the Big Ten, not by a longshot, and he will have to improve significantly or draw the wrath of the Ghost of Wonk. And the pained apathy of this space.
Angry Michigan Safety Hating God is wroth at the hockey team for some reason. First, Kolarik went down, then Scooter Vaughn (in one of the all-time stupid Michigan hockey injuries, up there with Josh Blackburn slipping on a nut when carrying a fridge), and now Eric Elmblad may have broken Matt Rust. Yost Built:
Rivals reported yesterday that he went knee-to-knee with Eric Elmblad and apparently Red will update his status after practice today. Keep your fingers crossed on this one, because rumors are swirling that he has a broken leg.
Senior Chad Kolarik, who has been sidelined since suffering a hamstring injury against Lake Superior State Feb. 16, is "99-percent sure" he'll play in Friday's game. He resumed skating with the team last Tuesday.
"I'm just getting my hands back, getting my endurance back," he said yesterday. "I'm feeling a lot better today. I was pretty excited out there, having a good time and joking around."
That article has some noises by Vaughn about trying to go this weekend, too, but those are shot down by Red. He might be back for the Joe, though. Also mentioned: the possibility of moving Hagelin to center in Rust's absence. I've been idly thinking about the composition of next year's top line: Pacioretty is obviously on it, and since Palushaj seemed much more effective with Porter and Patch than Turnbull he's probably next. But who centers? Bork? Bork. Either him or Caporusso, who seems wasted playing with Turnbull and Miller and Fardig and such on the third line, no offense to those fine penalty-killing wingers.
Anyway, the Nebraska-Omaha series opens tomorrow at Yost.
More hockey stuff: The Wolverine's Bob Miller interviews future D recruits Lee Moffie and Mac Bennett.
Victory! Michigan's road to San Antonio began today with a thrilling 6-4 victory over Iowa that featuerd a 12-minute field goal drought for both teams combined. Prediction for tomorrow's game against Wisconsin (noon, ESPN): Michigan 7,000, Wisconsin 5. Suck on that, BAD-gers. Zing! (UMHoops on the win-like substance.)
Also, confirmed white guy Kyle Cassity has been offered. You'll love this bit:
In addition to Michigan, Cassity has indicated that he also plans to visit both St. Louis and Evansville, with the possibility of a couple other visits being worked out after that. Nevertheless, a school that we believe is also very much in the picture for Cassity and cannot be counted out is Southern Illinois (Carbondale), as both head coach Chris Lowery and assistant coach Rodney Watson have been in frequent contact with Cassity and have expressed a high level of interest. While the Salukis are currently out of scholarships for the class of 2008, Cassity is without question Southern Illinois' #1 recruiting priority should something open up in that class. Even if it does not, there is still a strong possibility that Cassity could receive preferred walk-on status at SIU next season with the understanding that a scholarship would be available for him for the three years following that.
Why go to Michigan when you can be a preferred walk-on at Southern Illinois? In Soviet Russia, walk-on recruits you! What a country!
There's some speculation that Cassity hasn't actually actually been offered offered and that Michigan still prefers Georgia's Ebuka Anyaorah (given Beilein's tendencies and that guy's name, I should clarify that we're talking about Georgia the state, not Georgia the country), even though Anyaorah couldn't come on a scheduled visit.
And hey, that guy who was the crown jewel of Harvard's recruiting class decided he didn't want to spend four years thinking "for God's sake, put on a tie" and decommitted. Apparently West Virginia was on this guy previously, and we could use another post, no? For those doubting his ability to play at a Big Ten level, 1) alternative: Zack Gibson, 2)
Jackson said that in the past day, he had received calls from Connecticut, Boston College, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, DePaul and Rutgers about Ben-Eze’s availability.
Eh? Maybe?
A final note in picture form:
That's from Spartans Weblog and is a game-by-game plot of Michigan's offensive and defensive efficency with a corresponding trendline. Is there improvement here? Defensively, it appears so. Offensively... no. And you should keep in mind that Michigan's schedule was heavily frontloaded; this does not appear to be the trajectory of a team on the upswing.
Really really? Like really? The Free Press cites an anonymous source and cribs from the subscription-only Sports Business Journal about the Big Ten Network potentially coming to an irritating corporate monolith near you:
The Big Ten Network appears on its way to most homes in Michigan.
According to a source close to the negotiations, Comcast and the BTN have made significant progress toward a deal and only an unforeseen setback would prevent it from being on the cable system by football season.
This would appear to be Comcast caving on their sport-tier-only proposal... mostly:
Sports Business Journal, which reported a deal was close in its Monday edition, said Comcast has agreed to place the network on expanded basic in most of the Big Ten footprint, but not all.
That's odd. What areas of the Big Ten footprint wouldn't be covered? Parts of Pennsylvania, maybe, and Ames, Iowa, I guess.
A wholly uneducated hunch on the Comcast reversal: with AT&T bringing U-Verse online and Verizon's FIOS service rapidly expanding its footprint, Comcast doesn't want to give the apartment-bound and tree-blocked a further reason to switch.
As always, take this with a hefty dose of skepticism.
Update! Might want to ratchet down the skepticism. The Sporting News has the full text of the SBJ article, and it's convincing.
Tell me about the rabbits. EDSBS linked up this ESPN feature on Muck City, Florida, where they 1) play football, 2) play football, and 3) chase rabbits around. This is the home of incoming WR recruit Martavious Odoms:
Super secret alias. So if you go puttering along for information on new basketball recruit Zack Novak, you get this near-blank AAU profile page that reveals the secret true identity of "Zack Novak"...
...Eminem.
More serious like, there's a surprising profusion of information on a guy who claimed offers from Ball State, Colorado State, Valpo, Oakland, and the Fort Wayne version of the confusing "Indiana-Purdue" chain of alphabet soup public schools at the time of his commitment.
One: dude scores lots, averaging over 28 points a game and shooting better than 40% from three. Two: he is either a 6'5" shooting guard or a "smallish 6'3" swingman"; given the offers it's probably the latter. Three: he is "a smart kid and an American," according to the same article. Good to know Indiana (motto: "Easy to leave!") remains a part of the union. Four: uh...
“Coach (Bob) Buscher told me I had a nice butt,” Novak said. “Guys might be bigger than me but I can get lower to the ground.”
So there you go.
In the realm of effusive quotes we have Bob Gibson:
"Novak is an outstanding catch-and-shoot wing player," ESPN.com's national recruiting director Bob Gibbons said. "He appears to be an ideal player for coach John Beilein's style of play."
"You know the rule, give it to Zack and get out of the way," Peller said. "In my opinion, he's the best all-around player in Northwest Indiana. His outside shooting is so much more consistent. He's very, very good inside and he has a tremendous driving game. He's truly the complete package now."
The same coach who was checkin' out Novak's assets earlier:
"He's the best player in the conference and by far the best warrior," he said. "We tried to stop him but he plays all over the court. We should take a lesson from him."
Some guy named "Bigfoot" on a Ball State message board who knows the family:
I would add to what PL BSU said that Michigan recently had Zach go through some sort of a work out highlighting his ball handling and shooting skills. I heard they are looking to improve their outside shooting and feel Zach may fit that bill. I also was told that Zach really lit the gym up in this workout with his outside shot to the point that he got in a groove that even Zach was surprised about. I was told he hit 16 of 21 shots from what would be the equivalent of an NBA 3 from various spots on the floor. I guess in the shooting side of the work out he hit nearly 80% of his shots from various ranges.
I understand he an the Michigan Coach even chuckled about it but none the less it was a very impressive shooting performance.
Someone mentioned a comparison of Novak to Tom Coverdale which strikes a cord with me. Zach would be a much bigger version but there are similarities. Zach would be more versatile player IMO as he can go down low and score in a crowd with his strength (has strong thighs and calves) as well as upper body for a HS kid. I would see Zach as a real threat with a three guard offense in particular. It would take a very athletic defender with size to handle him at a small three position.
I also heard Zach is still growing not that his current 6'4" height wouldn't work already for us.
If we can sign him I think people will some day wonder why he was not better known. Being a four year starter at a large school like Chesterton that plays in a tough league speaks volumes about his ability. He was not only a starter in his early years but was a prolific scorer even then.
Another one for the potential whitewash down the road. I'll reserve judgement on Beilein's recruiting until these guys actually get in and play for a year or two; though their rankings are universally meh Beilein has made his living finding and coaching up kids like this.
Outposts. Spartans have finally started slouching into the blogosphere, and though they're the last Big Ten school to find representation their initial attempt is a good one: Spartan Weblog is a tempo-free-focused basketball blog in the vein of Big Ten Wonk that hates Drew Sharp and has affectionate, obscure acronyms for dear, departed Wonk. Recommended.
Also, frequent MGoBlog commentator gsimmons85 has started up his own blog. The prose is rough but the technical detail is... uh... detailed. As an honest-to-god football coach, his knowledge outstrips mine; also recommended. Sample posts here and here.
Finally, there is a blog called MGoSwim that covers Michigan swimming. Check the freaky banner: it moves.
John Beilein's picked up a commit recently and stands to get another one soon. The commit is UD-Jesuit forward Jordan Morgan, a 6'8" power forward who's a three star recruit not currently listed in anyone's top 150.
The pending recruit is Arizona freshman Laval Lucas-Perry, who's set on transferring and will get his release from the Wildcats. Lucas-Perry was scheduled to decide between Wake Forest and Michigan, but...
The Arizona transfer, a 6-foot-3 guard, on Tuesday cancelled a visit to Wake Forest. ...
"I would say this is a good sign for Michigan, that's for sure," Laval Perry told The Detroit News about his son's cancelled visit.
Lucas-Perry would be eligible next January as a mid-year departure. (Via the Diag.)
Though he was listed as a point guard by recruiting services (which had him at the tail end of their top 150s), Lucas-Perry is more of an undersized shooting guard, reputed to be an accurate three point shooter. He was averaging about ten minutes a game at Arizona.
O'Neill said he didn't try to persuade Lucas-Perry to stay, but "I didn't want him to leave. I would have loved to see him stay. He's a great kid and a good student. He's a good player.'' Lucas-Perry, from Grand Blanc, Mich., has appeared in five of the team's eight games, averaging 4.0 points and 9.8 minutes
Lucas-Perry fills the departed Kendrick Price's scholarship slot; Michigan still has two scholarships to give in the '09 class.
Best Ever. If you happen to know any Buckeyes well enough to be in the awkward position of exchanging gifts at holidays, I cannot recommend anything more strongly than this shirt:
There is also a Michigan State version. Tellingly, Michigan is omitted. Take that, Harbaugh!
Open house. The Big Ten Network's embarked on a barnstorming tour of the midwest; yesterday they stopped in at Michigan. There is an unrevealing story from the Free Press; more interesting is a Daily article from a few days ago with some increased detail on the negotiations:
In the next few weeks, Silverman thinks the network will sign with several cable and satellite distributors - Time Warner, Dish Network and Charter - but he won't count on Comcast.
"I need to consider Comcast as hoping, not expecting," Silverman said. "I will know more in the next couple of weeks about Comcast. That will be one that will go very close to the launching."
That's the first indication negotiations with any one provider are more strained than others and probably a good sign. If Time Warner, Dish, and Charter agree to carry it on basic, a price will be established and Comcast's holdout will seem untenable.
The Hoover Street Rag went on a field trip and reported back. The network remains uncompromising on expanded basic:
There are LOTS of negotiations currently going on, and again, deals on this kind of thing get done very late. Or as Mr. Silverman put it "very, very, very, very late." Mr. Silverman also noted that if he has his way, he would prefer not to be negotiating, but that is not the case. It is the position of the network that it should be broadly distributed on extended basic. Not on a sports tier, not on digital. It should be part of your 70 basic channels you get with your monthly cable bill. He went on to note that the Network is willing to negotiate on every single other point but they will not move on the extended basic part.
Also, HSR didn't get a parking ticket. Nice.
Oh, yeah, that guy. After a brief, intense burst of Beilein mania things here have settled back down into the status quo of mostly ignoring the thing that causes us pain. Beilein's recruiting hasn't been particularly newsworthy after the commitment of Syracuse center Ben Cronin -- he's focusing mostly on under-the-radar types, which distresses some -- but Nathan Fenno sheds some light on how things are going in an interview with our new savior:
Q: Would you like to add another player to the 2008 class?
Beilein: We would like to take an 08. And if we find two kids we like in 08, we'll take them. We're going to plan on seeing who we recruit first. If we don't get what we think is the right fit, then we'll move onto 09.
But we have some guys we think maybe the right fit. We might get three weeks into practice and say, 'Anthony Wright is this guy. Let's wait until 09.' We're gathering information.
Q: What sort of reponse have you recieved from recruits and their coaches?
Beilein: Two things I'm very happy with. No. 1, I think a lot of the young men have an appreciation for Michigan and the Big Ten, the University of Michigan, they know that name. The other thing is how many people have enjoyed watching West Virginia play the last three or four years.
We have an awful lot of high school coaches who have followed us. It's easier to get a recommendation from them to their player. Even though they may not know a lot about Michigan, they have seen West Virginia on television a great deal in the last couple years. There's a connection there I didn't didn't expect and I'm happy.
I expect another recruit no one is salivating over with to round out '08, then hope for some higher profile types once Beilein starts turning Michigan into a non-laughingstock.
Yorgen borgen flurgen forward. The Ann Arbor News profiles incoming Swede Carl Hagelin, a 6th round pick of the Rangers:
Hagelin captained Sodertalje SK in the J20 SuperElit Sodra, leading the league with 24 goals and 31 assists in 40 games. He sees himself as an offensive energy player who shouldn't take long to adjust from the 100-foot-wide Olympic-size ice sheets in Sweden to the 85-foot-wide rinks used mostly in North America.
"The rink is so much smaller, so it will be a different kind of game for me," Hagelin said. "Much faster, more physical game. I'm pretty fast and I think I can use my speed a lot."
There is also a profile on Shawn Hunwick, the new Mike O'Malley.
Saginaw's Draymond Green, a 6-foot-7, 230-pound power forward with one year of high school remaining, is expected today to announce a verbal commitment to Michigan State.
So, yeah, there isn't much from the recruiting sites on Cronin but I did turn up some local newspaper items of note. First... guess which player in this photo is the Michigan recruit:
Start with the Mayor's Cup - or at least that was the official title of the tournament. More accurately, it was the Ben Cronin Show, also starring some other Henninger players quite happy to gain city supremacy.
Cronin has been bent on domination ever since Proctor made him disappear on Dec. 19. A solid game against CNS three days later was followed by this Mayor's Cup display at LeMoyne College, where he pulled off back-to-back triple doubles against Fowler and Corcoran.
The final, in particular, had its own share of pathos. As you all know, Henninger and Corcoran were supposed to meet in the Section III football playoffs on Oct. 15 - before the forfeits, before Auburn showed up, and you know the rest.
From the early moments, when Cronin swatted an Elton Frazier shot, the 7-foor junior ruled the night. He had 18 points, 16 rebounds and 12 blocks, and four of his teammates reached double figures in scoring, too, most notably Mike Johnson, whose six free throws late sealed the 61-55 win.
Henninger is 8-1, and you can argue that Cronin is the central figure in the Class AA playoff race. With his size and growing strength, if he does this kind of paint job every night, the Black Knights can take the banner.
Evidently, the banner is a state championship thing. Henninger did not acquire said banner this year, falling to Proctor in the final. A month later, Cronin's team lost and drew some criticism from the same source:
Apparently, one headline-grabbing upset over a state top 10 team was not enough. F-M wanted more, and got it by imposing its collective will on Henninger - especially on the defensive side, where Ben Cronin vanished. ... Granted, Cronin's two early fouls hurt, but a great player should overcome those things. Henninger could not establish itself in the paint, and the Hornets took full advantage.
There was also a monster game against Fairport -- which sounds like it has a killer sailing team -- with 21 points and 19 rebounds.
All this means little given the context provided by the above photo. Cronin tall, others short, do good. Yay. But there were a couple encouraging comments yesterday from the proprietor of the aforementioned OrangeFan Syracuse blog:
Cronin is a good get for you guys. He's actually a very good athlete, but only picked up basketball relatively late - he was a hockey player until he grew so tall. That hockey athleticism and experience should suit him well once he grows into his body. Syracuse already has 4 centers on the roster, and Boeheim still wanted this kid. Congrats.
(Waggish commenters immediately asked if he had been a goalie.) I think I've already expressed my opinion on this kid, but to re-iterate: these are the guys Beilein has won with elsewhere and given his late entry into the world of recruiting Michigan (at least for the '08 class), he's probably not going to upgrade his recruiting in terms of stars until '09. So I'm much happier with this particular commit than Amaker snagging Coleman or Jerrett Smith, because Beilein's already proven he can work with this type of player and he isn't in his third year on the job.
The instate crop for '08 is very bad anyway, especially with Anthony Crater already committed to OSU. The only other guy who appears to be on the radar of Michigan or MSU is SF/PF Draymond Green, the one-time Kentucky commit who opened it back up when Tubby went away. There have been some breathless headlines re: Green of late on GBW, so maybe he's making headway there.
"I feel it's the perfect fit for me," Cronin said. "It's a great academic school and I love coach Beilein. I'm sure he'll develop me as a player to get to the best of my potential. He develops his players and gets them to shoot it. I think he's going to make me a much better offensive player than I am right now." ...
[Henninger coach Erik] Saroney said he could see Cronin excelling in Beilein's system.
"I think he fits perfectly in that system," Saroney said, "and I say that despite the fact that we didn't use him like that last year, but college basketball and high school basketball are two different beasts."
2008 Syracuse-area center Ben Cronin is deciding tomorrow between Michigan, Syracuse, and... Buffalo(!):
I just spoke with Henninger High School coach Erik Saroney, who told me that 7-foot junior Ben Cronin will announce his college choice on Wednesday. ... Last year, he averaged 12 points, 12 rebounds and eight blocks per game for the Black Knights.
Eight blocks? These are the things that are possible when you are seven feet tall and playing in upstate New York. OrangeFaniterates...
Seven-foot Henniger center Ben Cronin, off a visit to Michigan, reports holding an offer from Syracuse. Cronin is Class of 2008, and there is not a space available unless and until Southerland reclassifies to the class of 2009. I don't think it will matter in the end, though, as I suspect Cronin is going to Michigan. John Bielein has been on him hard at both West Virginia and now Michigan, and I think he is in the lead.
A source with knowledge of the decision told the Post-Standard today that Cronin will pick Michigan, choosing the Wolverines over Syracuse and Buffalo. Cronin visited the Michigan campus last week.
What can we expect from Cronin? The circumstantial evidence -- Beilein's been recruiting him for over a year -- conjures up the image of Jamie Smalligan for anyone who took in a WVU game this year. This is not the hypothetical new generation of recruits that Beilein has access to at Michigan that he didn't at West Virginia; he's not in the Rivals 150. The bad bit of Beilein having recruited this kid for a long time.
The good bit: Cronin should be a fit for the system. He's tll, a skilled passer, an improving shooter working on his three point range, a hard worker, unselfish, and... uh... plodding. Given that Beilein's working from behind the eight ball with much of the class of 2008, many of whom are already committed, it's a good pickup for a team that needs some post depth. Some may be concerned about Cronin's low profile, but I don't think Beilein's recruiting is going to pick up until the conference and the state get to see Michigan in action. Cronin should find himself somewhere in the range between contributor and starter after a couple years.
I have no indication that there's mutual interest here, but LSU recruit DJ Wright has just been released from his LOI:
Wright, a 6-foot-7 perimeter player from Sault St. Marie in Ontario, Canada, reconsidered his choice when LSU assistant coach Nikita Johnson left LSU for the associate head coaching job at Louisiana Tech. Johnson developed a close relationship with Wright while recruiting him. ...
Wright, who was part of a six-player LSU class rated No. 4 in the nation by Hoopscoop Online, averaged 29 points and 12 rebounds last season at Toronto Academy Prep School. He would have brought outside scoring potential to LSU, which lacked in that area last season.
He seems an excellent fit for Beilein's system, since he is long at 6'7" (a good fit for his hands-up zones) and a killer 3-point shooter. Improbable excerpt from a Rivals article($) when he committed:
Wright who is of Jamaican and native American descent averaged close to 23 points per game last season along with 12.5 rebounds, four blocked shots and four steals per game. His shooting percentage from three-point range was an outstanding 65-percent. [!!!!!! -ed]
"He is a small forward and combo forward. He can play the three, play some spot minutes at the four, because he is only 6-7, 225," Russell said. "He is one the best mid-range jump-shooters in the country but he can also really shoot the three."
65 percent from 3? What? Must be the exchange rate or a really small sample size. Rivals rated him the #137 player in the '07 class, so he's no star, and the whole Canada thing conjures forth images of the unproductive Jevohn Shepherd, but he's local and the sort of player Beilein fills his teams with. Might be worth keeping an eye on.
Apex. Another youtube highlight package, this one of the '98 Rose Bowl. You may remember that game, yes?
I echo the sentiments of the video's first commenter: dynoguy88, who is the source of many of the clipreels featured in this space, is the man. Often these things are frenetic things set to hideous rap rock; dynoguy lets the key plays breathe and brings us Keith Jackson. And when the option to provide Keith Jackson is there, any other choice is the wrong one.
Vermont is known for many things. Ice cream, presidential primaries, hazing... and killer Michigan basketball recruits! Vermont freshman Joe Trapani, a 6-8 wing/forward, is transferring after one year at UVM. Eric Lacy says he thinks Michigan is a likely destination (no permalink, might have to scroll down):
Based on the conversation I had with Charles [Trapani's father -ed], I think Michigan has a great shot and landing his son.
"They have a tremendous tradition in both football and basketball," Charles Trapani said.
...
I wouldn't be surprised if Joe Trapani commits while on his visit - or while on the way back home.
(Apparently that one-sentence newspaper style is hard to let go of even when your text is internet only.) Lacy then throws this discouraging nugget in:
That's what Reed Baker apparently did after playing pickup with the team.
All right! Reed Baker 2.0! Well, not really. Trapani averaged 15 points per game before injuring his foot and struggling through the rest of the season, putting up 21 points on Michigan State and 13 and 8 boards on Boston College, Michigan's main competition for Trapani. (Side note: interesting contrast between the blog entry and the brief blurb that made the paper, which omits any of Lacy's speculation based on the tenor of his conversation.)
Er-nest Sha-zor. Notre Dame running back Darius Walker entered the draft early and was passed over entirely. Whoops. His dad, who is actually named Jimmie Walker, says the situation is not dyn-o-mite:
"How does a guy that's fourth on the all-time rushing list for Notre Dame not get drafted?"
Unfortunately, the twelfth game, the increasing prevelance of freshman starters, and the decision to include bowl statistics has made career records virtually meaningless. Mike Hart and Chad Henne will leave Michigan the all time leaders in rushing and passing yardage, respectively, but are they the best to have ever played at Michigan? Probably not. Official Father of Walker then trod closely to making a pointed comment about Weis:
"If you look at the backs who were drafted on the first day, he had the same stats or better as guys drafted on the first day. The only difference is the guys had the height and the pushing, the backing and the pushing and promoting from their respective areas, whether that be the media or whoever else."
Asked if he didn't think Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis backed Darius enough in the draft process, Jimmy answered simply: "I have no comment on it."
Sounds like he already made his comment.
I would also note that Darius got off a bonafide zinger in the weeks leading up to the draft:
"You can't control what team you go to," Walker said that day, "unless you're one of the Mannings."
That's genuinely funny! Try broadcasting, kid.
Etc.: Infamous recruit-turned-LSU-Tiger Joseph Barksdale got jacked by a former Tiger DB and has a broken jaw; the Stanford Daily reports on the Forcier departure (link not just because the article references MGoBlog, I swear); chicks send (hopefully) unsolicited bikini shots to Rich Eisen, wife not amused; brief recap of yet another Beilein radio appearance at Varsity Blue; ABC Saturday Night schedule.
Whatever. There were reports over the weekend that Michigan had been eliminated from the decision process of the plinko machine that is Alex Legion, but reports of our demise were at least slightly exaggerated:
Legion, a 6-foot-5 senior guard out of Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., who visited the University of Kentucky from Thursday through Saturday, told Rivals.com he’s down to Kentucky, UCLA and Michigan.
(KU is out of the running since they want Legion to wait on Brandon Rush's NBA decision. Rush entered the draft but has not retained an agent and may withdraw.) Wait... UCLA? One of the two teams that an enraged Official Mom of Legion said her son would most certainly not attend, Tim Green be damned? Yes. UCLA. Alex Legion is less decisive than Charlie Weis at Baskin Robbins. So it's with the strongest hesitation that I offer any prediction whatsoever, but it sounds like UK is his probable destination:
“With UCLA, I’ve always been a fan,” Legion said. “I always thought it would be nice to play there. They have great tradition like Kentucky. With Michigan, it’s still home. I’m still going to give them a shot. I just don’t know how I’d fit in with what coach (John) Beilein wants to do. I was excited about playing for coach Amaker (Tommy, new coach at Harvard), so that kind of changed my feelings about Michigan.
“I’m real comfortable with Kentucky right now. It’s only five hours from home, not too far at all.”
+1 to the Lawrence Journal-World reporter for laconically mentioning that "It should be noted that schools have reappeared on Legion’s list after getting sliced." Indeed.
A no-doubt insane Todd McShay puts together a mock draft of not 12345 or 6 but 7(!) rounds for ESPN. Michigan players in his latest:
#10 Leon Hall
#11 Alan Branch (behind the Louisville guy, which is completely insane)
#35 Lamarr Woodley (one pick after he has the Lions taking Trent Edwards with Stanton still on the board)
#52 David Harris (crazy low)
#191 Steve Breason (mid-sixth round)
#204 Prescott Burgess (towards the end of the sixth)
NFL.com's Gil Brandt -- who I almost call "Gil Thorpe" whenever I type his name; who's called "Gil" in this day and age anyway? -- has Harris his #2 inside linebacker:
He had a very good workout at the Combine, running better than people thought he would, and looked good in drills. He has good strength for the position. He's smart and will compete on every down. He's good, but not a great athlete. His best position most likely is at inside linebacker in a 3-4 defense. He uses his hands well and has been well coached.
Well, that's totally unexpected. Scott Dreisbach's life has been a weird one, but I don't know if this can be topped. He's currently in the Arena Football league. In Columbus...
3) I think Columbus backup QB Scott Dreisbach is probably the only backup signal caller in the League truly ‘playing’ for his paycheck (that was until Andy Kelly and Tony Graziani went down forcing backups Steve Bellisari and Juston Wood into the lineup).
... playing linebacker:
Instead of holding a clipboard on the sideline and charting plays, Dreisbach plays a handful of series at ‘jack’ linebacker on defense (6.5 tackles on the season) and covers kicks on special teams for the Destroyers.
Again, the whole team gave a full effort. This included two late stops “Jack” positioned-reserve QB Scott Dreisbach, who played defense and special teams.
“Scott made very crucial stops in the 4th,” Columbus Head Coach Doug Kay explained, “We have been working on that all week; we need to stick to the (opponent’s) quarterback with every play. David Saunders is excellent, too; at that position.”
Dreisbach made five tackles.
I got nothing here. It's just weird, that's all.
I hope to have more on this later, but the Big Ten Network is rapidly morphing from a cool idea into a disaster waiting to happen. They're reportedly asking for $1.10 per subscriber in the local area and trying to get placed in the same price band ESPN does. They should ask the NFL network (70 cents a subscriber and placement in areas of cable it takes a sherpa to reach) how well that's going to work.
No big deal as long as the football games are of the Northwestern-Illinois variety, right? Unfortunately, the network is going to have some weeks that they have the second or third pick... before ESPN, so there's a possibility that several Michigan games could be yanked off national TV and shoved onto a tiny cable network no one gets in a power struggle.
The answer to all of this is a la carte pricing for cable, which will come as soon as Congress passes a law demanding it. IE: not by this fall.
Could Alex Legion become the world's first commit/decommit/recommit/ decommit/re-recommit? If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said no way. Today, though? Maybe. I imagine that Mark Synder was increasingly giddy as his interview with Alex Legion's mom progressed. In place of bland, noncommittal quotes Synder was delivered a heaping helping of Adam West Batman-worthy exlamations. POW!
"I want to make it clear, Tim Green is not part of this process," Williams said Tuesday. "I'm tired of him trying to persuade my son against the University of Michigan and his family."
BIFF!
"I've been quiet for four years, but Tim Green does not speak for my son, and I'm tired of him trying to make decisions for my son," Williams said.
CRUNCH!
"Mr. Green wants my son to go to Connecticut or UCLA, but my son will go to neither institution."
Mrs. Williams forthrightness is amazing confirmation of all the dark rumblings going on about Legion's "handlers" that have been kicking around message boards for weeks, nay, months. I had written Legion off as soon as he asked out of his LOI, but since Williams has to sign any LOI her son wants to submit Michigan has a fighting chance.
"I really like what I'm hearing about Beilein," she said. "I really want to thank coach Keener, who has talked very positively about my son to coach Beilein. We just needed to get rid of Tim Green."
(ZAP!) Legion will visit Michigan and a few other places, including (yuck) Kentucky. The lists floating around yesterday -- UConn, Kansas, UCLA, UK -- appear to be sourced by Green and should not be given credence. This is beginning to rival the whole Houston Nuttthing.
"We have had several discussions with Alex and his family and they have expressed an interest in opening his recruitment," said Beilein. "We understand his situation and encouraged him to do so, giving Alex his unconditional release. We will continue to have dialogue with Alex and his family throughout this process.
... and that Reed Baker, Rainmaker, has left the team. Interesting note from the Rivals article:
"With the fact that Reed's financial aid package had expired, he has decided to look into other options for his playing career," said Beilein. "We have encouraged Reed to do so and will do whatever we can to help him with that process. We wish him nothing but the best in the future."
Apparently his ride was a one-year only deal? All scholarships are technically year-to-year, but the way Beilein phrased it made it sound like this was a prearranged one-year deal. Anyone who wants a Reed Baker, Rainmaker shirt for old-time's sake can get one in the MGoStore for another week or so. Just my luck that I fix those just in time for him to leave the team.
No word yet on whether or not Michigan will seek immediate help. There's not much out there if they choose to. WVU signee John Flowers reaffirmed his commitment a few days ago and almost everyone else is already locked up.
Stephen Bell, a connected guy in the realm of Michigan high school basketball, says that an Alpena forward, Eric Puls, is coming in as a preferred walkon. Normally this would be shrug-worthy news, but since Puls is a 6'9" guy with three-point range he might end up being a contributor. Fawning Alpena News article:
Over the past few years there hasn’t been a basketball player in the northeastern Michigan area as versatile as Alpena forward Eric Puls.
The 6-foot-9 Puls gave Alpena an unmatched presence in the paint who also was skilled enough to step out and drain a three-pointer or handle the ball like a guard.
This is almost certainly wild exaggeration resulting from watching a potential D-II college player go up against the various bewildered lumberjacks I assume populate the high school basketball teams of northern lower Michigan, but if he can shoot and handle and pass Beilein might turn him into another Pitsnoggle. Tatoo parlors of Ann Arbor should go to red alert if this is a picture of him (the caption on the story implies it is but isn't explicit):
“They shot the ball as well as any team we’ve played in the past seven years,” Cadillac coach Jeff McDonald said. “It was most just one player but to the rest of their team’s credit, they matched up with us athletically and gave us a lot of problems.”
The one player is senior 6-foot-8 Eric Puls. He hit five threes in the game and had 26 points in the first half en route to a 36-point night.
“He was really on fire and you have to give him a lot of credit for the way he played but we have to find a better way to stop him next time,” McDonald said.
Good news: Kelvin Grady has officially announced that he's staying with Michigan($). Desultory cheer from the beleaguered plebeians.
Also good news: there's a site that just popped up named MustSeeGames.com that has a selection of Michigan high school games from the recent state playoffs, including the Kelvin Grady-Anthony Crater matchup in the class B semifinal. I've pulled everything Grady did that was interesting (and a couple things that, in retrospect, aren't very interesting) for your edification:
If Manny Harris sticks with his commitment I have two games of his to execute something similar with, including one in which he goes for 41.
Grady appears to be an actual point guard who can get penetration whenever he wants to. His handling is superb, though he faintly reminds me of Jack Johnson at times when he trusts it too much and nearly gets himself pinned to the sideline or the timeline. Grady didn't get caught against Flint but dribbled himself into trouble a few times. This is forgivable because he then dribbled himself right back out of trouble. He also broke Flint's frequent trapping easily and looked to push the ball up the floor when he had broken a press or had an advantage after a missed shot. This only met middling success but Grady's speed and decision-making on the break was excellent; only an inability to finish by both his teammates and himself held down their totals. Unfortunately, his jumper was meh and, as noted, his ability to finish when he gets to the hoop was lacking. He did knock down a couple threes, but if Michigan's relying on Grady to score they're going to be disappointed. In all other ways he appears superior to Jerret Smith. (This may be less of an endorsement than you think. Somewhat shockingly, Smith led the team with a 43% three-point shooting percentage.)
Since EGR spent most of the game in a 2-3 zone, Grady didn't do much of interest on defense aside from the pair of steals on the tape. Mostly he'd come out to man up on Crater (who's clearly talented but has a tendency to take really bad shots and force things that aren't there) briefly, then retreat when the ball moved to the wing or inside. He has a rep for tough ball defense, but it wasn't apparent in this game.
Grady should be a useful player when surrounded by guys who can knock down kickout jumpers or finish inside. His ability on the break should be helpful if Legion and Harris show up; Michigan will be fielding a team of athletic guys between 6'4" and 6'9" that can all get up and down the floor, and his intelligence and handle should help Beilein cut down on the turnovers that have plagued Michigan's program since time immemorial. A role player but the kind of guy you can win with if he's got a couple of guys to set up with good looks. Cough. Cough. Legion, Harris, cough, subtlety.
