They Wear Yellow And Blue, But Do Not Suck

Not Maize, but crose enough!

West Virginia is currently in the Sweet Sixteen. Michigan would not have made the Sweet Sixteen in a seventeen team tournament that featured M versus

1. Northwestern
2. the 0-29 New Jersey Institute of Technology
3. the Glendale School for Headless Boys
4. Courtney Sims International Toughness Academy
5. Five Separate Mounds of Animal Crackers Ranging from Six-Two to Seven-Foot-Even
6. Mary Kate Olsen
7. Feral Chicken State University
8. the Armenian National Team
9. Strippers Killed By Kwame Kilpatrick
10. Superintelligent Mutated Algae
11. Team Oompa-Loompa
12. Nihilists
    
13. Bill Simmons, his dad, his infant child, "J-Bug," and "House"
14. the Knicks
15. Avery Queen, Maurice Searight, Josh Moore, Gavin Groninger, and Jerrett Smith, aaaaand
16. Duke.

One team is coached by John Beilein. Correction: John Beilein looks at one team with a visage of perfect exasperation and incredulity. It was recruited and assembled by Tommy Amaker. The other team was recruited and assembled by John Beilein. It is coached by Bob Huggins.

The question for beleaguered Michigan basketball fans: how much of West Virginia's current success can John Beilein take credit for? The answer is somewhere between "all" and "none."

Some context for your consideration:

• Beilein took the Gansey-Pittsnogle crew to a Sweet Sixteen and an Elite Eight with a thin, veteran roster. In 2006 ninety-six percent of the playing time was split between seven players, five of whom graduated after 2006.
  
• In Beilein's last year the only returning contributors were Frank Young and Darris Nichols, who accounted for 20% of WVU's minutes the year before. That team went 21-9 in the regular season, narrowly missing the NCAA tournament. They then won the NIT.
• There were just two seniors on that team: Young, the leading scorer, and center Rob Summers. Summers played about half of WVU's minutes; he was offensively efficient but very low-usage, a Brent Petway sort who takes a small number of really good shots someone else creates for him. His notable contributions were as an offensive rebounder (13.1 percent of shots, 64th in the country) and shot blocker (199th). His minutes were replaced by sophomore Wellington Smith, who's a hell of a offensive rebounder and shot blocker and a decent, low usage scorer.
  
• This year's WVU team returned about 75% of its minutes; the only freshman who saw any playing time was Beilein signee John Flowers. The players on the team were assembled entirely by Beilein.
  

Why is West Virginia better this year?

A table:

Team	O. Efficiency	Adj. O. Eff	O SOS	D. Efficiency	Adj D. Eff	D SOS
2006	112.5 (20th)	118.3 (13th)	66th	97.8 (72nd)	94.0 (57th)	75
2007	111.3 (26th)	116.3 (20th)	47th	95.1 (32nd)	89.9 (21st)	39

(A reminder: these are all Kenpom numbers and are as such adjusted for tempo; the "adj" efficiencies above are also adjusted for quality of competition and cannot be questioned in any way ever.)

The numbers indicate that under Huggins an outstanding offense got slightly less outstanding and a pretty good defense got significantly better.

What's completely fascinating is the wholesale makeover the offense made while still maintaining approximately the same level of production. Under Beilein, the offense was a manic exercise in extremes. Under Huggins it's much more conventional. Effective, but conventional:

Beilein              Huggins
Raw Efficiency :  112.5 ( 20)          111.3 ( 26)
Adj Efficiency :  118.3 ( 13)          116.3 ( 24)

Effective FG%  :   54.7 ( 17)           51.6 (102)
Turnover Pct.  :   17.0 ( 10)           16.2 (  7)
Off. Rebound%  :   30.2 (270)           34.4 (107)
Free Throw Rate:   20.1 (306)           25.0 (182)

3-Point FG%    :   37.4 ( 62)           36.4 (108)
2-Point FG%    :   53.4 ( 22)           50.1 (102)
Free Throw Pct.:   71.3 (108)           68.7 (175)
Block Pct.     :    8.6 (133)            6.7 ( 15)
Steal Pct.     :    9.2 (111)            8.2 ( 29)

3PA/FGA        :   49.0 (  5)           34.4 (165)
A/FGM          :   68.7 (  3)           58.2 (100)

About the only things that remain constant are an extremely low turnover percentage and , to a lesser extent, three-point and free throw percentages. The rest of it tacks to the center like a presidential candidate after he locks up the nominaiton.

Herein you can see the way a Beilein offense is supposed to work: pass it to the wide open guy, wide open guy shoots. That explains the incredible EFG%, the incredible assist percentage, the incredibly bad free throw rates and offensive rebounding. Huggin's team is pretty good at a lot of things but only great at avoiding turnovers.

Let's look at the six returning players:

Nichols	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	FTRate	ARate	TORate	FtPct	2Pct	3Pct	%3FGAT
2008	85.5	118.4	15.6	54.8	2.2	30.5	16.7	12.9	70.9%	51.9%	38.3%	52.8%
2007	86.0	130.2	16.1	59.8	1.8	43.0	24.7	14.8	84.3%	56.8%	42.0%	47.4%
Change	-0.5	-11.8	-0.5	-5.0	0.4	-12.5	-8.0	-1.9	-13.4%	-4.9%	-3.7%	5.4%

Nichols suffered. His usage, eFG%, FTRate, and assist rates all dropped precipitously, as did his shooting. Interestingly, Nichols actually took more threes this year.

The slide could be an effect related to the graduation of Frank Young, WVU's best player in 2007 and the recipient of most of the defensive attention.

Ruoff	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	FTRate	ARate	TORate	FtPct	2Pct	3Pct	%3FGAT
2008	77.6	122.3	19.4	61.0	2.8	26.6	18.3	16.4	83.5%	61.7%	40.4%	70.5%
2007	82.1	109.6	20.3	50.8	1.5	22.6	30.2	20.1	80.0%	51.4%	33.7%	66.1%
Change	-4.5	12.7	-0.9	1.9	1.3	4.0	-11.9	-3.7	3.5%	10.3%	6.7%	4.4%

Ruoff's usage dipped a bit and his assist rate collapsed, but holy hell: 62% on twos and 40% on threes. Ruoff was the nation's 50th best eFG% shooter and I'm betting half of the guys ahead of him are Brent Petway sorts with usages around 10%. I think we'll see why Ruoff got this bump in a bit.

Butler	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	FTRate	ARate	TORate	FtPct	2Pct	3Pct	%3FGAT
2008	75.6	111.4	21.5	53.5	8.4	32.5	11.6	13.5	63.1%	52.9%	36.8%	25.4%
2007	57.6	107.1	22.5	55.0	6.9	28.5	9.4	15.2	66.3%	57.1%	34.5%	40.2%
Change	18.0	4.3	-1.0	-1.5	1.5	4.0	2.2	-1.7	-3.2%	-4.2%	2.3%	-14.8%

Butler is the starting small forward and saw himself become more of a slasher and interior player: three point attempts dropped as most everything else remained stable. Note the significant bump in offensive rebounding: Butler was closer to the basket.

Alexander	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	FTRate	ARate	TORate	FtPct	2Pct	3Pct	%3FGAT
2008	74.8	108.7	28.3	48.6	6.9	41.7	17.1	15.3	81.3%	49.5%	26.3%	9.0%
2007	61.8	98.3	25.7	48.4	7.1	19.5	16.5	17.3	63.6%	50.0%	30.5%	38.6%
Change	13.0	10.4	2.6	0.2	-0.2	22.2	0.6	-2.0	17.7%	-0.5%	-4.2%	-29.6%

Alexander upped his already high usage, held his eFG steady, increased his FTrate enormously, and actually increased his assist rate; three pointers plummeted to 9% of his shots. What this says to me: the WVU offense moved to a heavily Alexander-based isolation-kick game. This killed everyone's assists except Alexander, upped Alexander's usage, and turned Ruoff into Kyle Korver.

Mazzula	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	FTRate	ARate	TORate	FtPct	2Pct	3Pct	%3FGAT
2008	44.1	101.1	19.7	50.0	2.5	75.8	21.3	22.9	62.9%	47.3%	44.4%	14.1%
2007	18.5	98.4	23.9	44.0	2.7	71.6	22.2	22.3	70.8%	47.5%	25.9%	40.3%
Change	25.6	2.7	-4.2	6.0	-0.2	4.2	-0.9	0.6	-7.9%	-0.2%	18.5%	-26.2%

Mazzula took so few threes this year that the huge jump in percentage should be dismissed as small sample size.

Smalligan	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	FTRate	ARate	TORate	FtPct	2Pct	3Pct	%3FGAT
2008	29.3	94.5	15.3	36.6	8.8	24.4	11.3	18.3	71.4%	55.6%	18.6%	68.6%
2007	35.6	113.9	18.9	61.7	8.1	39.4	8.0	17.2	63.5%	54.7%	45.6%	51.5%
Change	-6.3	-19.4	-3.6	-25.1	0.7	-15.0	3.3	1.1	7.9%	0.9%	-27.0%	17.1%

Smalligan, a Zach Gibson type whose main asset is his outside shooting, got killed and is now a bench guy who hardly sees any time because the offense can't figure out how to use a big man outside the arc.

So what in this is relevant? I think there are two things.

1. Beilein really does have an offensive system that outperforms the rest of the planet. Huggins returned four starters and 80% of the minutes from Beilein's NIT champions and implemented a conventional, NBA-style offense with an excellent isolation threat down low in the form of Joe Alexander and a couple of guys with three point percentages around 40 to kick to. The result? A slightly worse offense.
2. These kids can play, man. There is a concern out there that Beilein got lucky with the Gansey/Pittsnogle group and will never find that sort of success again. And what did that success consist of? A couple of good runs in the NCAA tournament coupled with fifth-place finishes in the Big East and middling seeds. Lose a game here or there and no one thinks Beilein is anything but an above average coach with a low ceiling.
   
   While the "low ceiling" point hasn't exactly been dispelled by the exploits of a seven seed that finished fifth in the Big East, Beilein recruited every player who's seen the floor for WVU this year and is there any one of them that you wouldn't trade for the Michigan player at his position? These guys are talented enough to run Beilein's system one year and then something entirely different the next and finish with a top 25 offense both years. Beilein finds talent that the recruiting services do not. I don't know why, but think it has something to do with an increased focus on guys who just love basketball and would rather shoot 4000 jumpers than play My Little Pony.

The one evident downside: maybe Beilein just can't coach defense? Huggins took the supposedly unathletic group Beilein left him and radically improved their rankings. I'll take a look at the other side of the ball sometime next week.

Unverified Voracity Says Stop Breaking Bones

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.

Aww, Jesus.

There is a chunk of good news:

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.

Etc.: Junior day is today; Varsity Blue has it covered.

Unverified Voracity Is #2

We're #2. And yesterday's big news:

The University has reached a settlement that ends the lawsuit over Michigan Stadium's accessibility to disabled fans - and, for the time being, will end the Big House's reign as the largest football stadium in the country.

Capacity will drop to 106,201 in 2008 and 2009 before the boxes and such restore some number of lost seats. The Detroit News cheerily says "no problem, we're still #1", but the Daily wonders:

The pre-settlement project estimate said the stadium's capacity by the conclusion of the project in 2010 would top 108,000, an addition of 500 seats from the start of the project. But because today's settlement will remove an estimated 1,500 seats from the bowl, it's unclear whether that will be enough to make Michigan Stadium the biggest again.

"Over time, we again expect to have the largest capacity of any stadium in the country," Hage said. "We have to wait until 2010 to see how the new seating shakes out."

(FYI: The Daily article is the most informative and in-depth of any provided by news-gathering organizations, which continues a trend started earlier in the year: the Daily out-covered everyone on the Michigan Stadium renovations. Not bad.)

Sounds like there is going to be some hurried rejiggering in the works. I don't know where Hage & Co are going to shake 1,000 extra seats out of the renovation plans unless they cut down on the individual seat expansion. Slimfast for everyone!

I already have requests for snark in both text and t-shirt form in my inbox, but in a foray into Actual Journalism undertaken last summer I conversed with the Bernstein in charge of the case
and came away under the impression that the university was going to have to give ground to a real concern. Notre Dame Stadium is far closer to the 1% mendoza line mandated by the ADA; so is Ohio Stadium. There was no way Michigan was going to weasel out of similar compliance. (Given the parameters of the renovation, the "but it's just repair!" line provided by the U was definitely weaselly.) So no snark here.

Hurdled. Michigan's been working on the renovations for three months now, but the lawsuit still hovered as a possible roadblock to the luxury boxes. With yesterday's resolution, the final hurdle has been cleared and the disingenuous teeth-gnashing of John Pollack -- hero of Tienanmen Square -- and the rest of the "Save" The Big House crew is now wholly impotent and, as such, can be enjoyed in a spirit of schadenfreude. It's a go. Hurrah.

(Why yes to luxury boxes? See here.)

Mailbag addendum. A theory forwarded along from the OZone:

He's never been a guy who recruits blue chips. He runs a system that depends on selfless guys who play team ball and shoot 3s. He's always been a guy who beats you with inferior talent.

But the big advantage of coaching at UM is proximity to Detroit, which produces a ton of blue-chip talent. So how does he make sense there?

Now you have Bielien going out of state to recruit mid-major talent that fits his system. Usually you see the opposite -- coaches in areas that don't produce a lot of 5-star types going out of state to recruit them. Weird.

Sort of reminds me of Eldon Miller -- great at coaching plucky overachievers, lousy at coaching NBA prospects. Wonder if Bielien is another guy who can mold bad talent into a decent team, decent talent into a decent team, and great talent into a decent team.

This, of course, re: the recruitment of Zack Novak and other decidedly melanin-light players. Disagreements:

• Michigan already needed plenty of help going into the year, then lost Kendrick Price, Jerrett Smith, and K'len Morris during the year. Since almost everyone with decent offers signs in the fall period, Beilein has few options other than the "mid-major" talent that's still hanging around. All the high major talent is signed.
• Though the state of Michigan has a rep for producing basketball talent, the 2008 class suuuuuuuuuuucks. There are two top 150 guys, a Utah commit (who, naturally, Tommy Amaker was wary of) in the 80s and MSU commit Draymond Green at #122. Everyone else in-state is Zack Novak at best.
• Michigan is still scared to death of the Ed Martin thing from ten years ago and is running a program so squeaky-clean they've basically written themselves out of every high profile basketball recruit ever. All you need to know about Michigan's paranoia is this: Tommy Amaker was hired by Harvard and immediately ratcheted up the skeeziness.

The point about the "all talent -> decent team" thing may be true but we don't know it yet. IMO, Beilein gets a pass for this recruiting class as long as the kids he brings in are system fits and contributors. If the 2009 class looks similarly uninspiring -- and with Michigan not being mentioned by any high profile players, that seems likely -- I'll be concerned. If the 2010 class is a third, I'll be worried.

Wiggle? Western College Hockey notes an interesting decision in the women's ice hockey bracket: Clarkson was excluded in favor of Dartmouth despite Clarkson being ahead in the PWR and winning the Clarkson-Dartmouth comparison. The PWR is usually followed to the letter when choosing and seeding NCAA hockey tournaments, but the committee does have some leeway.

Some years ago the first-place Atlantic Hockey team could have guaranteed its crappy conference two bids by losing in the AH playoff final, which would have made the playoff champ a TUC and thus boosted the first-place team's TUC record high enough to make it a 3-seed. The committee made it clear that even if the upset transpired only one AH team was getting into the tourney.

Might this open the door for, like, a non WCHA team a bit? There are still seven WCHA teams in the tourney and there remains a strong possibility someone with a record below .500 will squeeze in. Declaring team X out by fiat would open a can of worms, but... maybe said worms should be opened?

Injury. Scooter Vaughn broke his jaw wrestling playfully with a teammate. Which... like. Jesus. He's out this weekend but may return next week or the week after, depending on the type of surgery and the amount of pain he's in.*

On the other side of the coin, Chad Kolarik continues to make noise like he is available this weekend:

"We'll see as the week goes on," Kolarik said. "... It's not 100 percent, but it's getting there."

Kolarik continues to get treatment on his hamstring twice a day.

He's hoping to make a final appearance at Yost Ice Arena this weekend, something that didn't look possible when he crumpled to the ice there in mid-February.

"I didn't want to go out getting carried off the ice like that," Kolarik said. "It's definitely a goal of mine to be out there and hopefully win a playoff series."

With Vaughn out, Eric Elmblad draws into the lineup for the first time in his Michigan career. He might steal five or six minutes against UNO's fourth line; expect to see a lot of the other five guys. Danny Fardig, normally a fourth-line forward, is also a possibility.

A final item: Max Pacioretty was named to the CCHA All-Rookie team, so good for him, but wasn't Aaron Palushaj jobbed out of a spot? Palushaj tied NMU's Mark Olver for most points by a freshman in all games and was second to Pacioretty if only conference games are considered. Meh.

*(Side note: I scalped a ticket for the Friday Ferris game, and after the transaction the black scalper-guy I got the ticket from gave us a hearty "Go Scooter!")

Etc.: M stuff starts to populate the adidas store, though it's way less cool than the stuff at MGoStore); more Comcast-BTN optimism.

Weekend Items

Hockey. Michigan had a bye week as the bottom eight teams in the CCHA opened the playoffs. The top seeds all held so Michigan gets #8 Nebraska-Omaha, which is a significantly tougher draw than any of the potential matchups against teams 9-12. Despite finishing eighth, UNO was just a couple games below .500 in-conference and played Michigan tough in their series earlier in the year. Yost Built has details.

In PWR news, North Dakota finally cooled off with a pair of draws against St. Cloud and dropped behind Michigan, but Colorado College swept Denver and moved into first. Michigan remains second; third-place New Hampshire split with Vermont.

In practical terms Michigan is about a half-game behind CC and a half-game ahead of UND. I think UNH's loss means Michigan will hold the comparison against the Wildcats as long as they reach the Joe.

Operation "Let's Not Play Wisconsin" took the week off, as the Badgers had a bye. St. Cloud's split against UND did push them past UW, so the Badgers will have to travel to St. Cloud in the first round of the WCHA playoffs.

Kolarik is skating around but still in pain; I highly doubt we see him this weekend.

Bracket. FWIW, the rejiggered brackets straight 1-16:

1 CC
16 AH Autobid
8 St. Cloud
9 BC

2 Michigan
15 CHA Autobid
7 Clarkson
10 Michigan State

3 UNH
14 BU
6 Denver
11 Minnesota State

4 North Dakota
13 Wisconsin
5 Miami
12 Minnesota

BU is now the last team in the tournament; we still have 7 WCHA participants. Any time there are more than four teams per conference the NCAA will accept a first-round intraconference matchups, so we don't have to break the DU-Minnesota State or UND-UW games, but UNH and BU have to be split. If we flop UW and BU we break two intra-conference matchups and get an attractive bracket for Madison, but attendance nightmares in the East: Clarkson and BU are the only Eastern teams.

Does screwing Michigan help? (Remember, the committee loves screwing Michigan.) Maybe.

Option #2: If BU gets flopped with the CHA autobid, UNH can go to Worchester and Albany will have Clarkson and BU to go with the two Michigans. This scenario has an extra intra-WCHA first round game, though.

Option #3: flip Wisconsin into the M bracket, then flip BU into the UND bracket. This puts M in Madison against UW and allows UNH to stay home but creates an Albany bracket with 2 WCHA teams, Miami, and someone like Army.

Given last year's slavish adherence to their rickety system over attendance and logic, I think they'll go with the first option but swap the AH team into it for what marginal attendance and travel benefits it provides, leaving Michigan in this bracket:

Worchester
1. Michigan
4. Army (-ish)

2. Clarkson
3. Michigan State

I dislike the idea of Michigan State our bracket since they clearly know how to frustrate Michigan into a bad game; other than that, fairly appealing.

As always, this exercise was wholly useless.

Basketball. I did end up using those tickets that loomed in my drawer and was rewarded with a couple of wins and generally competitive basketball (fortunately, I was hundreds of miles away from Crisler during the Northwestern debacle), but the last ten minutes yesterday left a sour note. I can't summon the energy to construct a coherent column-thingy, but that's what bullets are for:

• Manny Harris had seven turnovers and no assists; nominal point guard Kelvin Grady had five and five. Twelve turnovers and five assist from the starting backcourt with nine points between them, all from Harris. Bleah, bleah, bleah. Did either of these guys improve as the season progressed?
  
  To me, the key sequence in the game -- one that was emblematic of the entire season -- came midway through the second half. The score was tied and Purdue was inbounding from behind the Michigan basket. Harris and Grady got confused, leaving a soon-to-be red hot Purdue guard with a wide open three, which he nailed. Grady then took the ball out of bounds, panicked when he saw Harris being overplayed, and threw it directly to a Purdue defender instead of taking one of the 46 timeouts allotted. Result: layup, five point deficit that would quickly balloon to ten, lost game. It was strikingly reminiscent of the Boston College game earlier in the year, wherein Michigan hung around for approximately 30 minutes, then imploded in an Amakerian spurt of turnovers and stupidity.
• In that vein, how many times does Harris have to hold the ball directly in front of him, have it slapped away by the defender, and turn it over before he learns to take care of the thing? Turning the ball over when you're not even dribbling is a hell of a trick.
• Udoh, on the other hand, was all-around excellent, hitting shots inside and out, blocking and altering things defensively, and generally looking like a guy to build around. Also: six assists and one turnover.
  
• Ron Coleman... uh... existed.
• Without the mountain of largely unforced turnovers and the pounding Michigan received on the offensive boards, the defensive performance would have been excellent. Purdue shot 25% in the first half and deserved to; by the time they warmed up from three the game should have been out of hand already.
• At what point does Michigan's inability to do really simple basketball things become Beilein's fault? Probably game one next year. Actually... probably sometime midway through this season, but definitely by game one next year. It's reasonable to have your faith shaken a bit.
• Michigan picked up a commit from another Indiana white guy, Zack Novak. UMHoops dug up something of a scouting report:

  He moves very well without the ball and also can create his own shot. But the thing that stood out the most was his passing ability, he is a very unselfish player for the high school level. I saw all those kids last year play that went to Purdue in this area and I would put him right up there with them.

  Beilein still has two scholarships left for either '08 or '09; the general thought was he would take one more '08 kid and try to balance the classes somewhat but the Novak offer and commit when a couple higher-profile guys like Kyle Cassity are still out there implies that Beilein thinks he needs help now and will be taking a fourth '08 kid.

A dispiriting year for the basketball program. No one expected miracles but beating Harvard and Central and Northwestern shouldn't fall in the category of "miracle". From time to time the team showed a semblance of offensive organization not present under Amaker. Turnovers did fall dramatically. But a number of things did not change: Michigan was awful defending the three-pointer and on the boards, and for all the complaints about the Amaker offense consisting of 30 seconds of aimless dribbling and an off-balance three pointer, at no time did Michigan decide to launch so many ill-advised bombs as they did this year. After a 7 of 26 brickfest against Purdue, Michigan is now the 45th most three-happy team in the nation... and 310th in making 'em.

But, hey... free white guys!

Pryor... hasn't decided on a school, but has gotten in another fight after a basketball game. These red flags are reproducing like chlorine-fixing bacteria in an anaerobic environment.

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.

The Way I Figure It

2/17/2008 - Michigan 80, Ohio State 70 - NCAA bound, baby!


...is that we go like 4-1 the rest of the season, then sweep through Illinois, Michigan State, Indiana, and Purdue to grab a shock NCAA tournament bid. Being a sub-.500 team that actually kind of sucks, we're sent to the play-in game in Dayton. Seventeen thousand Michigan fans pack the arena to 150% of capacity as the Wolverines blow out Monmouth.

From there, it's pretty rote: one ho-hum victory after another and a second national championship banner. Michigan basketball fans go from abused to jaded and irritating faster than Bill Simmons. The end.

Or maybe not, but it's amazing what three consecutive wins will do for one's psyche, even if they're against utterly dire, mostly dire, and kind-of-dire competition. The last time we checked in on the basketball team around these parts the results ("I want to die," or words to that effect) fully warranted this blog's "emo" tag; nowadays you can visit your Michigan message board of choice and find multiple threads on how this team is so going to the tourney next year, which it almost definitely isn't.

While the bipolarity of fandom is a well-established phenomenon, bipolarity of basketball teams isn't. The last time Michigan played OSU they hung tough for most of the game until a crippling stretch late wherein they couldn't find a shot even close to "good"; the resulting drought lasted for a good chunk of the game's closing ten minutes and turned a narrow Michigan lead into yet another dispiriting loss. This time they continued scoring via turnover and steal and even the occasional drive to the hoop. A month ago against Minnesota they were so depressing it seemed Michigan would never, ever have a good team again; they have now won three straight.

Hell, midway through the first half against Iowa I got an IM from Black Heart Gold Pants impresario Oops Pow Surprise to the effect of "you have the worst basketball team in the known universe," which was true at that moment in time when the score was 22-7 and Michigan had 7 FGAs. I did not receive the corresponding "AAAAARGH AAAAAARGH AAAAAARGH" note during the 18-2 second half run that erased Michigan's deficit and staked them to a lead they would maintain for the rest of the game, but I sensed it in the cosmos so that was all right.

What happened to the clueless team from earlier in the year? Well, with Harvard spiraling its way towards last place in the Ivy League we can safely assert that it takes more than a couple months to organize a system at maximum entropy, and it takes more than a couple months to turn the smartest basketball team in the land into a confused gooey mess. The progress Michigan was decidedly not making from the Amaker era -- at points during the first Ohio State game the offense was indistinguishable from the random, purposeless ball movement of yore -- has all come in a rush.

So for now the future is bright. Check back in two weeks.

Bullets.

• Rushing the court? Seriously? Whoever started that should be given a swift kick in the appropriate place. I realize this is a beaten-down program, but Ohio State isn't ranked and is (now) likely headed for the NIT. It would have been much better to stay in place and deliver a "drive home safely" chant at the OSU retards occupying the upper reaches of Crisler.
• Speaking of, there was again an organized opponent student section, which, like... WTF. The athletic department has got to put a limit on the number of seats anyone can buy and spread these people out. They did provide a moment of terrific irony by chanting "asshole" at Rich Rodriguez during halftime. Buckeye fans will never change. I have a feeling we're on the downswing of the Well Behaved Buckeye Fan pendulum after the relentless focus OSU had on not being cavemen last year. As soon at that relaxes the slide begins; their pathological antipathy for Michigan is so deep-rooted it can go no other way.
• I say this every time I mention Thad Matta, but I don't think much of his ability to do anything except recruit. What was that 2-2-1 press? Kelvin Grady can't do that much yet but his handle has always been the best part of his game; OSU didn't execute a single effective trap off the 2-2-1 and gave up a lot of open looks because of it. And it was immediately apparent that the only Wolverine with even the vaguest hope of checking Koufous was Udoh, so why did OSU settle for a bevy of perimeter shots during the three-or-four minute window in the second half in which Udoh was on the bench? Zach Gibson comes in the game and Koufous sets up for a three-pointer. Uh... okay.
• Since 75% of college basketball is recruiting, it doesn't really matter.
• The Gibson conundrum -- he can't defend anyone and is the only backup post -- means that incoming C Ben Cronin is going to be key next year. He's 7'1" and ponderous, according to the gurus, but it's hard to ignore a stat line with 17 blocks on it even if this team photo indicates this isn't exactly downtown Philadelphia:
  There's one guy on the team Cronin isn't a foot taller than. (Picture during Cronin's sophomore year, so he's probably less spindly now.)
  

• Michigan had four turnovers at halftime and nine for the game. I... uh. Is that legal? I don't remember.
• Eleven Warriors recap.
• Anthony Wright's emergence into a guy who can shoot and maybe be useful for 20 minutes a game is a huge boost to the program going forward. I don't think anyone was counting on him to do anything except be mini-Ba; now he's obviously the best SF on the roster. Faint praise, perhaps, but since the State game he's shooting 39.3% from three. Though can't really do much else at this point -- in that stretch of six games he has 28 three-point attempts and eight two-pointers, though he's made six of them -- no other SF on the team can do anything. Wright turning into a useful piece is like adding another Stuart Douglass to the recruiting class.
• Anyone looking for more extensive basketball coverage should check out UMHoops.com, a promising new blog with a self-explanatory name.
  

It's Only Dark In Your Hearts

1/31/2008 - Michigan 32, Minnesota 52 - 10-ish minutes left, second half


I am one of those irritating people who makes it a point of pride to never leave a sporting event early. Since I matriculated at Michigan, I'm pretty sure the only time I've left a game early was during this dismal year, when I bolted with a couple minutes left in the Oregon game. And after those two weeks who could blame me? Or anyone? When not facing the imminent danger of perpetrating mass homicide, I endure.

I have seen Walter Cross run for 100 yards long after Donovan McNabb turned Michigan's defense into confused goo. (What remained of the student section gamely chanted "Cross is boss" as the minutes ticked off Michigan's futile grasp at respectability.) I have waited out 6-1 losses to Northern Michigan at Yost. I have sat in the world's worst-designed poncho and watched Michigan tackle a directional Michigan school -- which I don't remember and doesn't matter -- in the brief windows when the wind was not whipping said ill-designed poncho into my face and my newly-cleansed glasses had not been re-coated by the insistent, driving rain.

I have sat through it all, melting-hot September games against MAC foes and frigid, dull things against Northwestern and Purdue. Misery has little power over me.

This year, I've gotten through one of the five Michigan basketball games I've attended.

This latest was perhaps the most depressing sporting event I can remember. Michigan quickly fell behind by double-digits in a half-empty arena. The loudest group of people in the place were a hundred or so Minnesota students who had bizarrely decided to crash Crisler en masse on a Thursday night. At some point during the second half they chanted "our house" over and over; all I could think is "how goddamn far away is Minneapolis? Is it Thursday? What day is this?"

It was indeed Thursday; according to Google Maps, Minneapolis is 648 miles from Ann Arbor, 10 and a half hours by car. Seriously... what the hell? I can understand invasions from East Lansing or Columbus or, I dunno, Toronto or something, but Minneapolis? Don't you have better things to do than spend either 20 hours or hundreds of dollars to see your kinda-crappy basketball team beat up on Michigan's very crappy basketball team? Evidently not.

At halftime they had a 40th anniversary celebration for Crisler. Most of the 1968 team was there to receive the hearty applause that is their due. There was a great spiel about Rudy Tomjanovich, the star of that team and one of the names in the rafters at Crisler. He was not there, and that seemed appropriate. Cazzie Russell was, though, and that was sad.

Russell is one of those elderly gentlemen who radiates dignity and authority in their very mien. The nearest equivalent in my experience has been Red Berenson, who seems to terrify first-round draft picks into committing to Michigan merely by cocking his eyebrow. Russell has that sort of bearing.

So he stood with his bearing, and listened to his accomplishments -- which are many -- and was then told he stood in the House Cazzie Built and that seemed like kind of a cruel thing to tell a nice old man who never did you any harm. The House Cazzie Built is half-empty, overrun by bums from half a continent away, and home to a team likely to set records for futility.

Michigan has not so much as reached the NCAA tournament since 1998, an impressive feat matched by an ever-dwindling list of maybe ten major-conference teams. Being there is an act of masochism. But hey... new lights!

I have four more tickets sitting at a drawer at home; I don't know how many more of them I'll use.

Bullets:

• Speaking of the announcer guy... oh, God. At least 5% of the Crisler misery is because of him. I understand the arena is dead, but importing the PA guy from the Sioux Falls Skyforce isn't going to help things. The pizza giveaways SPONSORED BY DOMINOS!!!, the stupid free-throw shooting competitions, the fake cheer in the announcement whenever anyone makes a basket... none of this crap would fly at either Michigan Stadium or Yost. Michigan's always avoided the WOOOO THIS IS SPORRRRRRTZZZ presentation, except at basketball games.
  
  Attention: this is not the D-league.
• It's obviously way too early to make any judgments about Beilein, but it bothers me that the team seems to be getting worse. Michigan was competitive-ish until late against Butler and BC; now they're behind immediately and making meaningless late runs to cover up horrific blowouts. The Wisconsin game stands in exception to this, sure; the overall trend is not good.
• Beilein did not become a bad coach after twenty years of dragging the mucky-mucks of college basketball upwards. There is no need to panic. But he's also not a quick-fix sort of guy. Even if he can recruit at a national level, it will be after he's gone through this roster and rebuilt it into a tourney-ish team and hopefully made a Sweet Sixteen run or something.
  
• Punch me if I sound like a Notre Dame fan, but good god someone should go find Tommy Amaker and hit him in the arm really hard -- you know, those ones that hit the bone and make you think the other guy is kind of a dick who doesn't know where the limits are -- about his recruiting. Upperclassmen on the roster: Ron Coleman and Jevohn Shepard, and both flameouts were because Beilein came in and asked his kids not to be sucky loafers. Amaker had a remarkable knack for finding the least motivated kids in the country.
• Even the two four-star guys on the roster are kinda crappy: Sims is a horrendous defender and rebounder and Harris is a turnover machine. Ten Minnesota points were a direct result of Harris getting the ball slapped out of his hands.
• They're going to be bad again next year. Lucas-Perry won't be eligible until midseason and the current recruits, while undoubtedly better than Jerrett Smith at all things, are not exactly instant impact types.

Say Hi To Reggie Benton

Reggie Cleveland all-star K'len Morris is transferring:

"This was an unexpected situation, but given the fact that K'Len's family has moved to Mississippi during the summer we fully understand the choice K'Len had to make for himself," coach John Beilein said Wednesday in a statement. "We will continue to offer any support that he will need now and in the future."

This is probably not so good, since Morris seemed to buy into Beilein's system when he arrived and might have developed into a contributor down the road; with '08 recruiting virtually over no suitable replacement is likely to arrive until '09.

Jay Bilas Is Totally Unbiased

ESPN just named Michigan the most underachieving basketball program of the past ten years. Say it with me: duh. ESPN's take:

it's unfathomable that a program with the overall brand of Michigan -- one that won the national title in 1989 and made return trips to the championship game in 1992 and '93 -- could have flatlined like this. Injuries definitely hurt the program in recent years, as did player indiscretions off the court, but given that BCS schools get around 25-26 at-large bids each season (in addition to six auto bids), all Michigan (or any BCA team) needs to do is finish in the top 40-45 percent of all BCS teams to get in.

The list was compiled by averaging out the ballots of five ESPN basketball experts. Four voted Michigan #1. Jay Bilas' ballot:

Jay Bilas
1. Arizona State
2. Oregon State
3. St. John's
4. Florida State
5. Colorado
6. Rutgers
7. Georgia
8. Virginia
9. Kansas State
10. UCLA

UCLA! UCLA! A team coming off back-to-back final fours and a title game apperance a year ago! A team that went to the Sweet 16 four other times and was in the tournament eight of the last ten years! Jay Bilas thinks that this team is more underachieving than Tommy Amaker's Michigan teams! Help! Think head brokelike!

!!!!!!

(via Braves & Birds)

Unverified Voracity No So Happy

Big Ten fretwork. A helpful commenter pointed out an interesting thread on the Big Ten Network taking place at USCHO. There are conflicting accounts about how well channel availability is going. One guy claims to be an insider...

Had a meeting with Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman last night.

...and says things are going swimmingly...

You'll be surprised as to how widespread the network is going to be. Their affiliate sales are going really well, and MANY cable systems are picking up the channel. With over 4 million Big Ten alumni in the country, there is an actual demand for this channel.

though they're on the down low at the moment:

And to answer your questions...

1. None have announced, MANY have agreed. (Thank Fox for pre-existing distribution channels and relationships)
2. Most likely digital for the time being, with a possibility of Big Ten markets having it on basic. (for example, digital in New York City and basic in Lafayette, Indiana)

Unfortunately, someone called up the Big Ten Network and got cold water thrown on them:

I had a long talk with a person at the BTN yesterday. She even went as far as to get some more information and call me back.

None of what I heard was very good. I can't have a dish where I live -- her answer was go to a sports bar when you want to watch something! I have over $5000 invested in my TV system and I am supposed to go to a smoky sports bar

I have been told by TW of SC that they have no interest in putting the BTN on its service.

She told me that a non league football game might be on ESPN Game Plan, but it would have to be an away game for the BT team. She said that ABC will still do splint regional broadcasts and the BT game SHOULD be on ESPN or the Duce. However the Big 12 just got an agreement with ESPN to show football on Saturday nights. Same deal for basketball as it pertains to Full court.
... She inferred to me that TW really has no interest in the BTN unless it is in the BT "footprint"

TW = Time Warner. SC = ??? Southern California? South Carolina?

The initial thought in my head is that the guy who's meeting with the network president gets told a lot of cheerful things to keep morale up that may or may not be true. Given the struggles ESPNU, CSTV, and the NFL Network have had I can't imagine a regional sports network with little in the way of compelling programming (wooo Indiana-Minnesota!) demanding 50% more than the freakin' NFL is going to get anywhere. The only question is how viciously the network plays hardball and how badly out of market fans get jacked up. Michigan is unlikely to be affected since even their games against conference dregs usually end up somewhere on the ABC sports hydra; State, on the other hand...

Public opinion, if the internet is any indication, is quickly turning against the BTN. When it was announced I had a chat with Orson about it; in said chat Orson put on his Oliver Stone hat and envisioned the Big Ten cutting off national access to Big Ten sports in favor of a regional ghetto high in the 200s no one gets or watches. I haughtily dismissed his concerns as far fetched. No one would be that stupid, right? Well, we are talking about a conference whose commissioner thought it a good idea to call SEC teams unscrupulous puppy killers in public after his two premiere teams had just been waxed unmercifully. So, yeah. The Big Ten might be that stupid. All I know is that if I am wandering into a sports bar this year to watch anything other than hockey, the conference has gotten too big for its britches and Jim Delaney should be shot into the sun.

Three three three. Beilein must have had a press conference or something, because a week after the proposed change in the three point line became public knowledge the Ann Arbor News, Free Press, Detroit News, and Daily all have articles on it. The News breaks out a useful graphic:


Why was the international line not judged sufficient? Odd.

I've been in favor of moving the line back for a long time. See this post from last February:

A quick glance at Big Ten Wonk's statistics reveals that over a third (34.3%) of all shots launched in the Big Ten are (high-variance, probably ill-chosen) threes. By comparison, fewer than 20% of shots in the NBA are three-pointers. No doubt there are a multitude of reasons for this--lack of dudes like Lebron or Kobe who can drive with impunity, the tendency of college teams to pack the lane--but foremost among them is the three point line, which is almost close enough to make any two-point shot a bad one. Let's leave the kiddie line in high schools and obsolete the term "NBA three." Please.

So I'm happy about the change, though I'm less happy than I would be if we hadn't just hired a coach who loves to shoot the three. Beilein was tacitly against the change when asked:

"I'm an if it's not broken, don't fix it type of guy," Beilein said. "But most of my contemporaries felt this was a good move, and it wasn't a battle that I needed to win. ... We can adapt -- there is no question about it."

Many of Beilein's drills already involve shooting from a variety of distances, so the likely change may not be a major disruption. He also insisted Wednesday that the perception that his team relies primarily on the three-pointer is overblown.

"Absolutely," he said. "We've had games where we didn't shoot that many threes and we drove the ball and back-doored and scored most of our baskets inside -- far more baskets inside the arc.

"We mix it up pretty much. We try and do what the best way to win would be."

Though I am so totally in love with him, this is spin. It's clear the college three-point line was broken. When over a third of your shots are threes, something's wrong. Also, though Beilein attempts to downplay the importance of the three in his offense, Kenpom calls him a liar. (Perhaps this is not fair to Kenpom. Fine: reality calls him a liar.)

	3PA/FGA	Rank
2007	49%	5th
2006	51.4%	3rd
2005	45.9%	7th
2004	40.1%	25th

The last two years approximately half of West Virginia's field goal attempts have been threes. Michigan will be hurt more than most other teams by the change; Beilein will either have to adapt his style to take fewer or live with lower percentages. I think there's evidence he's willing to do the former. In discussions of the 1-3-1 zone he's implied strongly that he's not married to any one particular style of play. As a guy who's dragged himself up through the coaching ranks he's had to be flexible and innovative; one way to do this was to attack a failing in the rules by jacking up all sorts of threes. If that's less broken he'll exploit it less.

To be fair, Beilein does have a point about the sorts of threes his team takes: many aren't exactly toes on the line. He has his kids practice from the NBA line and in the game many of the shots from the outside are from the outside, a foot or three behind the existing line. The Daily:

Beilein said he didn't think the new line would make much of a difference anyway, even when first implemented. He said many players already shoot from the new distance, and some even shoot better from farther out because they have a better follow through on those shots.

Beilein already uses the NBA 3-point line in practices to help ensure his players don't get locked into shooting from only a few spots. And he said he would gradually adjust to using the new distance, but won't worry about it until after next season.

Bottom line: expect a negative effect but I don't think it will be pronounced.

Etc.: Jerome Jackson got signed by the Browns(!). Good for him; wonder why it took the coaches so long to break him out during the Year of Infinite Pain. Baseball still swatting.

Unverified Voracity Is Like That's My Dad's Name

Mas youtube. A couple old school Michigan bowl game highlight reels showed up in recent days. There's the 1986 Fiesta Bowl against Nebraska:



This one's before my time. It's remarkable to see Jamie Morris in all his not-pudgy glory. I'm mostly used to him wandering around hockey games, being subject to the perpetual "Ja-mie Morr-is" cheer I imagine follows him everywhere.

There is also the not-particularly-old-school '99 Citrus versus Arkansas:



(Suck it, Mallett rumormongerers!)

Say what? This blog has absolutely nothing against former Michigan quarterback Matt Gutierrez, who stuck it out behind Henne until his desire to play overwhelmed his fondness for the university and he transferred to I-AA Idaho State. But assertions like those proffered by the creepily-named Bob Cook...

Detroit would be better off drafting someone like Adams, the sort of speed-rushing end that would fit perfectly in coach Rod Marinelli’s version of his old boss Tony Dungy’s Tampa-2 defense. Then it could look lower in the draft for another intriguing prospect, Michigan State’s Drew Stanton or Gutierrez, an Idaho State quarterback who is being compared to Tom Brady for more than just being of similar size and race.

Like Brady, Gutierrez struggled early to get playing time in college at Michigan. Unlike Brady, Gutierrez, who lost his starting job to Chad Henne after getting hurt, decided to transfer. Gutierrez is 6-foot-4, 232 pounds and raw, but a good choice for a team that isn’t looking for someone to be anointed a savior.

...are mystifying at best. Gutierrez was not even the second-best quarterback in his I-AA conference last year -- he was honorable mention All Big Sky -- and threw 14 interceptions to just 16 touchdowns. While I hope he does well in the NFL, bringing him up as a Tom Brady comparable is preposterous and only serves to reinforce the myth that Brady was somehow gypped out of Michigan's starting job by a tin-eared coaching staff.

In other Gutierrez news, the Ann Arbor News has an article on him that only reinforces this blog's lingering fondess for the guy.

Final CSB. The NHL's Central Scouting Bureau has released its final rankings. Players of note:

• #16 Max Pacioretty.
• #90 Ben Winnett
• #101 Aaron Palushaj
• #121 Louie Caporusso
• #134 Tristin Llewellyn
• #167 Matt Rust
• #18 Goalie Bryan Hogan.

The CSB segregates North American and Euro skaters, so Pacioretty is probably a late first-round or early-second round pick and you can slide the rest of the rankees down a couple rounds. The CSB's also notorious for underrating college-bound and small players, so Winnett, Caporusso, and Rust may be drafted higher than their rankings might imply.

Overall, the incoming class seems to be mostly in an NCAA sweet spot much like that occupied by TJ Hensick. The aforementioned three smallish centers are all offensively skilled players who should be successful on the collegiate level without drawing a ton of attention from the NHL. If Michigan can pick up a few one- or two-year stars in the next couple classes Michigan should be able to take a serious run at a national championship (if the goaltending and defense works itself out).

One downer: Llewellyn has been on a steady downswing since his early commitment. When he was offered and committed to Michigan a few years ago he was thought to be an obvious first round pick. Obviously, that hasn't come to pass. His development has stalled and he's fallen into the middle rounds of the draft. He still has the size and skating ability to be a good NHLer, but there's something missing that we might get intimately and frustratingly familiar with during his years at Michigan. Also, Hogan's rating as the #18 NA goalie doesn't seem to represent a Sauer-killer who will come in and wrest the job from Mr. Soft Goal In Critical Situation.

Thanks, I guess? SI's Luke Winn places John Beilein #1 amongst coaches who should be cut some slack in their early years on the job, then provides a "realistic tournament timetable" of 2009, which means Winn thinks he should be cut slack for exactly one year. Thanks for nothing, says Beilein.

I don't wish to rip unduly on Winn, as the article is a good one. Dude did his homework:

This isn't the equivalent of switching a football team from the Single Wing to the West Coast Offense, but consider Beilein's victory formula at WVU featured three things: A precision, perimeter-based offense that includes scores of strangely named plays like Double Quickie Potato; a heavier reliance on the three-point shot than 332 of the 336 Division I teams (42.4 percent of West Virginia's points came on treys in '06-07); and a 1-3-1 zone that forced steals on 12.5 percent of possessions last season, good for 23rd in the nation.

(I thought to myself "these have to be Kenpom stats" when he dropped them and indeed they were, as he mentioned kenpom later in the article, but there was no link to them. I would suggest in the future providing direct links to the source of the killer and interesting information you're providing. Note that Simmons has started linking out frequently on his "basketball blog," something that is so much like a blog in tone, content, and linking that I should really drop the scare quotes.)

Etc.: Hart #6 Heisman contender. Harris threatening to break into first round (where he deserves to be). HBO is lookin' for you.

Sitting In A Tree

I actually like Jay Bilas quite a bit. He's one of the rare color guys/studio analysts who will explain the finer details of basketball to the layman. He usually strikes a nice balance between the Vitale and Packer ends of the basketball announcer spectrum. But he's totally nuts about longtime friend Tommy Amaker's firing at Michigan. The latest salvo, and there have been a few previous, is an interview in the Free Press in which Bilas says many ridiculous things. Here's one:

Michigan athletic director Bill Martin said he tells his coaches that their job is to be always knocking on the door of a Big Ten championship every year and knocking on the door of a national championship every few years. Is Beilein capable of those standards? They haven't been doing a lot of knocking the last 40 years. Before Amaker got there, all they were known for was cheating.

A completely false and unprofessional assertion. Michigan has been to the Final Four during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, winning a national championship in '89. Even if you would like to pretend that the Fab Five never happened, that's a record of achievement most schools look up to, asshat. In a four-question interview, Bilas brings up Michigan "cheating" twice. (This is where I point out that none of the violations were recruiting inducements, that if Ed Martin didn't exist the Fab Five still would have attended Michigan, and the same frickin' one-year self-imposed postseason ban and meaningless scholarship reduction penalties were assessed to an Ohio State program that obviously turned itself around quite quickly.)

Bilas has been beating this drum ever since people started question Amaker's job at Michigan, constantly questioning the dedication of the program while simultaneously decrying the one extremely obvious thing they did -- firing Amaker and hiring a guy at twice his salary -- that shows they're paying attention. Why does anyone bother to ask Bilas about this situation? Not only is he a fellow Dukie bound by their arcane preppy rituals, he was a frickin' teammate of Amaker and is evidently his bestest friend in the entire world. As a result, he says things like "Tommy put (the program) in really solid footing, and I think Michigan owes him a debt of gratitude for doing that," when any minimally competent coach could have ceased recruiting Dom Ingerson and Maurice Searight and Avery Queen, who were not only thugs but sucky thugs.

We can stipulate that Amaker was a better coach than Brian Ellerbe -- I mean, God, if we're going to get meatheads into the program let's at least make sure they can play -- but that's all. Michigan owes Tommy Amaker nothing more than the 900k stipulated in his contract. He was a terrible floor coach, a recruiter who couldn't put together a coherent roster, and he looked ridiculous. He is not a martyr. He was not done wrong. Michigan showed him more patience than virtually any other school in the country would: six years is an eternity in college basketball. No school above the Northwestern-Penn State level would tolerate Amaker's result and no one except Bilas would confuse the Michigan basketball program with either of those schools.

I want to be very clear on this: Tommy Amaker was not good for the Michigan program. He "cleaned up the program" only because the worst athletic director in the history of Michigan athletics decided to hire the worst coach in the history of Michigan athletics. Since Amaker is not three standard deviations below the mean it looks like he did a good job, but any basketball coach remotely qualified to coach in the Big Ten would have done a better one. Every reasonable candidate kicked around six years ago would have had more success. Everyone in the world except Dick Vitale, who refuses to criticize any coach ("Dave Bliss is awesome, baby!"), realizes this. Except Bilas.

Jay Bilas is quite literally the least objective person on the planet to talk to about this. So why bother asking?

Elsewhere: Joey demolishes Bilas as well:

What actual insight did a purported expert, Jay Bilas, offer during this interview? None. I feel stupider having read it. It was a bunch of tired talking points and worthless generalities. Not a single person who knows even a little bit about college basketball could have learned anything from this piece

RTWT.

Picture Good; Picture Bad

Yeah, USC has Snoop Dogg but do they have this?


Hell no.

(Full picture set on MGoBlue, credit to Varsity Blue for being first on the Mini-Me beat.)

More on the game can be found at Colin's new digs. I can answer this question of his:

I saw Quentin Patilla in a blue jersey (blue = offense) and couldn't come up with a reason why.

Okay... that's not a question. Anyway: Patilla was switched to fullback this spring once the backfield situation got dire, which bodes unwell for his future. Fullback is a black hole of a position that sucks in the underwhelming from other positions and holds them in its gravitational clutches forevermore. Maybe he just got moved there to fill in a temporary hole in the roster, but Quintin, get away from the event horizon.

In other, more alarming, picture news...


Yes, that's a tie. Now he gets fashion sense? If he wears a tie on the sidelines and takes Harvard to the tournament while Beilein roams around in a Hawaiian shirt and jam shorts winning NITs I officially give up on basketball.

Manny Harris Staying

Detroit News:

Ending weeks of speculation, Corperryale Harris of Detroit Redford said he is honoring his signed letter-of-intent to attend Michigan.

Kelvin Grady announced yesterday that he'd honor his LOI and it sounds like Alex Legion may be persuaded to stay as well:

Legion, who returned to Oak Hill on Monday, said he expects new U-M coach John Beilein to visit him sometime this weekend in Virginia.

"I'm starting to like Michigan more and more," Legion said.

Is nice. Beilein's first foray into recruiting Detroit is a success.

Kelvin Grady's Got Handle

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:



(Right-click and 'save as': Downloadable original.)

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.