Diaries

Today we look at special teams play from the weekend Miami series.

PP #1

We start with a 5-3 powerplay. From right to left, Moffie, Merrill, Treais, Moffatt and Di Giuseppe. Michigan is not set yet, Moffatt is skating through and Di Giuseppe is screening. Moffie takes a one timer that get blocked and come right back to him.

Moffie passes across to Merrill who sends it down to Treais, Miami has picked up Moffatt in front of the net.

Michigan has set up in perfect position, Di Giuseppe is playing backdoor for anything that gets through and Moffatt is covered by a lefty. Since the stick is in his left hand he has no real chance to make a play on the puck, unless he uses his skate.

Unfortunately for Miami, Reichard tries to make a play on the puck and catches it at a bad angle, sending it into his own goal.

PP #2

Miami special teams were awful this series and this PP was no exception. A Miami skater comes on late and has no idea where he is supposed to be, the two players to the right are mixed up and try to cover the same assignments.

The puck is cycled from the corner boards to the pointman Jon Merrill. The Miami players have confused their alignments and left Luke Moffatt free to screen, even if the save is made no one in red is there for the rebound.

Merrill gets the shot down on the ice and Knapp sees it at the last second, he goes down but Moffatt gets a beautiful tip and sends it over his shoulder.

Short handed

Michigan gets a very lucky bounce here. The defenseman is thinking the puck is going to be rolled down the boards, but it's chipped up into the air. With the Miami forwards still in the zone Michigan has nothing to lose by trying a rush in the neutral zone, except Miami was playing to agressive and got caught so no one is there.

Glendening gathers.

Notice the direction of his head, he's looking down the goalie. That freezes the defensemen, since he is seeing shot his priority is shot blocking. Except Luke sends a beautiful no-look pass to moffie.

New Lenox (IL) Lincoln-Way West OL Colin McGovern is one of the standouts among a loaded class of offensive linemen in the state of Illinois. The 6'6", 280-pound junior recently picked up a Michigan offer to go along with early offers from Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. McGovern, rated as a four-star tackle to 24/7, has the potential to play either guard or tackle at the collegiate level and displays some very impressive run-blocking ability in his junior film (above). I got the chance to talk to Colin over the weekend and here's the full transcript of the interview:

ACE: First of all, how is everything going with your recruitment, and who do you have offers from?

COLIN: It started off back in December, Northwestern was the first one to offer me. It was kind of slow [for a while]. After that, I was talking with Michigan a lot and it was just a lot of talking with schools, no offers. Then about two weeks ago Tennessee came in, Coach [Sam] Pittman, and he offered me, and from there it just picked up. That was two weeks ago, so within the last two weeks I picked up six more offers, and I got one today from Indiana—you probably haven't seen that yet because I haven't told anyone about it.

ACE: Of the schools that have been in contact with you so far, do you have any early favorites?

COLIN: I'm pretty much neutral on all the schools because I never really grew up a fan of a certain team. I just grew up watching all games. Going into the recruiting process I don't really have a favorite.

ACE: With Michigan, I know they just offered you. Who have you been in contact with the coaching staff and how did you learn about getting the offer?

COLIN: Coach Funk is the only coach that I've been talking with and I actually called him yesterday—he was the one that offered me.

ACE: What are your impressions of Michigan as a school and a program?

COLIN: Well I only caught one game this year and that was the Ohio State game. From what I saw it was a pretty great game—two great football teams going at it and Michigan came out on top. Just from after the game you saw, once they did beat Ohio State, you saw the celebration and all that kind of stuff; all the fans getting into it and all the tradition. Obviously they're the most winningest team in college football history, they have a great educational school—everything's great about Michigan.

ACE: How would you describe your game on the field? What are your main strengths and what are you trying to work on for your senior year and getting to the next level?

COLIN: For being so tall one of my strengths is being able to get and stay low through the whole block—I don't get too high. I need to work on maybe getting a little lower, finishing through the block, and maybe my explosiveness off the ball too.

ACE: The early returns on the offensive line class from the state of Illinois for 2013, there are some really good prospects coming out of there. Have you been in contact with any of the guys like Logan Tuley-Tillman, Ethan Pocic, Kyle Bosch, and Colin Goebel? Do you talk to those guys at all and is there any feeling among you guys of trying to go to the same school?

COLIN: I haven't really talked to them all that much. I have been doing Core 6—I did the Core 6 practice and showcase with Tillman, but I haven't really talked that much with him. Pocic I haven't really had a chance to talk to even though he was at the showcase. I'm really not even that acquainted with the guys, so I wouldn't really be able to say, with either of the two, whether we're out really for ourselves or trying to get together or whatever.

ACE: I was going to ask you about Core 6. What's it like being able to have all these high-caliber high school athletes all together in one place working out? How much does that help your development?

COLIN: Well, I've only been to one, like I said, and then the showcase. As of right now I don't think I'm going to be working with them just because I had prior commitments. I think I'm just going to keep on going with what I'm doing. When I did go to those two things, it was pretty cool having all those other, not only great football players, but recruits there too, because they're going through the same thing and you could relate to them. At the same time they helped me get better when you're practicing with them, too. It seems like a great thing.

ACE: So what are your plans in terms of training over the offseason? Do you have any plans for going to any camps or visiting any schools over the summer?

COLIN: I was planning on visiting a lot of places, I'm not exactly sure what the schedule for that is yet. In terms of workouts, I'm going to be working with [former Northwestern and NFL lineman] Matt Ulrich and Ron Potonic* and just doing my football team lifts during the week.

ACE: In terms of a timeline for your recruitment, do you know when you want to narrow things down and wrap it up?

COLIN: I've been thinking about that and I was planning on hopefully getting committed somewhere before next season starts, but if I don't have my school picked out I'm not going to rush such a big decision.

ACE: What are you looking for in a school when it comes down to decision time?

COLIN: The number one factor for me is the education. If a school doesn't have a good education that's going to be a major turnoff towards a school. It would be great to play in the NFL but honestly you always have to have that backup plan and I'm going to need a good degree. So, I'd say the educational standing of a school and then of course the football program, because if I'm going to go play football at a school I might as well be on a good football team. Those are pretty much it. If I had to pick a third, I'd say maybe playing time or conference, maybe, but they wouldn't be huge deciding factors.

ACE: Going away from football, what's one thing that you want people to know about you that goes outside of the football field?

COLIN: Actually, Allen Trieu from Scout.com just talked with my coach and he wrote an article about what my coach had to say about me. What he was saying is not only am I a hard worker on the field and off the field in the classroom and in the weight room, but he said the number one thing is that I've kept my head on straight and I've stayed humble throughout this whole process. I haven't let it go to my head.

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*I believe this means he's training at Winning Edge Athletics in Chicago.
 

Barring a late-breaking commitment—say, Alex Kozan—these are your final Big Ten recruiting rankings for the class of 2012. After Ohio State's late charge under Urban Meyer, the Buckeyes finish atop the rankings; Michigan is a relatively close second and from there it's a precipitous drop to Notre Dame and the rest of the Big Ten. You can find the previous edition of the rankings here—changes are not listed because there were far too many.

Chart? Chart:

*ESPN doesn't rate JuCos, so they are counted as unranked recruits for the sake of consistency (trust me, it makes sense when you look at the spreadsheet).
^The average of the average rankings of the four recruiting services (aka the previous four columns). The figure is calculated based on the raw numbers and then rounded, so the numbers above may not average out exactly.

On to the full data, after the jump.

Last time we faced off against Miami they were going through a major identity crisis. They could not score, the defense was awful and the goalies were lost. Despite all the problems they tore through the rest of the schedule and have become relevant once again.

Forward Overview:

    Forwards are led by Smith and Czarnik, after starting slow Reilly Smith has regained his scoring touch, his 19 goals are good for 3rd nationally. The big change here is the addition of two freshman, Blake Coleman and Jimmy Mullin. The productivity give Miami depth after the first line that they did not have before.
    After spending the first half of the season near the bottom of the nation in scoring, Miami has climbed up to 28th. It doesn't seem like much but the Redhawks lost three players from last seasons team who accounted for 165 points. If Miami makes the tourney Blasi should at least be nominated for a post-season COY award. 
    Last time we faced off against Miami they were going through a major identity crisis. They could not score, the defense was awful and the goalies were lost. Despite all the problems they tore through the rest of the schedule and have become relevant once again.

Defensive Overview:
 

    Another huge turnaround for the Redhawks. Last series they were also near the bottom of the league and scoring from the blueline was non-existent. Blasi has gotten Miami up all the way to 8th in team defense, and Wideman has become an assist machine to give them a scoring threat.
    Key matchup will be how our 3rd and 4th lines play against a defensive unit that is very undermanned. They have started doing the MSU thing where they switch forwards to defense because they are so depleted. 

Goalie:
 

    The last time we looked at Miami the goalies were a trash tornado. Reichard had gone from CCHA Player Of The Year to the bench, the defense was terrible and the goalies couldn't stop anything. Naturally that meant they would return to form once Michigan traveled to Oxford and they did. While the numbers for Reichard haven't improved to where he once was, Knapp has gotten considerably better and make have a lock on the starting job.
    Key matchup: Just shoot the puck. The goalies aren't world beaters and good things happen when you get the puck on net.
    

Michigan Overview:

    It seems that the offense has finally settled in and the coaching staff has figured out where everyone needs to be. There really isn't much to say, but after the Notre Dame series hopefully they have gotten a winning combination on the powerplay lines. Michigan and Miami battle for worst PP in the nation.

Defensive Overview:

    
    It's good to see this group is slowly improving after every game. I honestly thought that Notre Dames style of play would send our blueliners back to square one but they handled themselves pretty well, giving up two goals on Friday and one on Saturday. Moffie still rawks and Pateryn hits really hard.
    
Goalie:

    The only player on the team who did not see his numbers go down, Hunwick saw improvements in his GAA and SV%. 

Prediction
    Miami caught us at the beginning of a long stretch of terrible hockey, but this time Michigan is hot and Miami is still just an ok team. Since we are at home and we have killed the Friday demon, I'm going to say sweep. From a CCHA and pairwise standpoint this game is very important, so hopefully Red has the team ready to play.

Fellow Mgoblogians-

We are currently in the second week of the Annual Face Off Blood Competition. Face Off is the winter version of the more commonly known Blood Battle, which we won this past fall against Ohio.  Face Off is essentially the same format of competition as Blood Battle, except that we are competing against MSU rather than Ohio.  With a crucial game coming this Sunday, I thought the time was appropriate to bring this competition to everyone's attention.

Note:  My plan was to post this yesterday when it was a little more timely, but life and computer problems got in the way.  Sorry for the delay.

I thought we could use a break from disappointing recruiting news and the loss to Ohio State in basketball (I guess we were right to be worried about free throw margin)*.  and take a step back to look at the basketball season overall.  During the football season Heiko added a feature called Opponent Watch that focused on the performance of Michigan’s opponents.  I thought I would adapt that idea to the basketball season since the strength of schedule matters so much during tournament selection.  UMHoops has a feature that looks at the conference teams on a weekly basis, but they don’t recap the non-conference season.

So let's look at the basketball season as a whole in terms of our opponents and their current standing with the two most relevant rankings systems - Kenpom and RPI.  But if we want to look at this information, we're going to need....a chart?  Yes - a chart!  (rankings updated for Sunday games)

There’s a lot of interesting information there, so let’s try to break it down....

BEST WIN:  Michigan State

In this case our best emotional win is also our best resume win.  Michigan State is ranked in the top five by both KenPom and RPI.  With another chance to beat them and three-in-a-row under our belt there’s another chance this weekend to boost our resume with a win.

GOOD WINS:  Memphis, Iowa State, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Purdue

Memphis wasn’t the marquee win we expected at the time when they were ranked #8, but they’ve pulled things together enough to move to top-30 in both rankings.  Iowa State after their upset of Kansas this past weekend has moved to a top-50 team in both rankings, including all the way to top-35 with KenPom.  Minnesota and Wisconsin have both been up and down in conference play, but both are trending upward.  The Gophers have cracked the top-50 in both rankings and we are aware of KenPom’s love affair with the Badgers.  Purdue is on the fringe of the top-50 and ekes their way into this category.

GOOD LOSSES:  Duke, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio

There is no such thing as a “good loss”, but in the eyes of the committee some are better than others.  Duke and Ohio are top-tier teams and losing to them doesn’t hurt the resume.  Despite already having five losses in conference Indiana remains a darling in the eyes of the rankings thanks in no small part to their own marquee wins.  The surprising entrant on this list is Virginia, who is ranked very high in KenPom and top-40 in RPI. 

BAD LOSSES:  Iowa

This one still stings as the Hawkeyes are out of the top-100 rankings, even though road games are tough in the Big Ten.  That lackluster performance, Burke’s foul trouble, and Beilein keeping him on the bench for 13 minutes resulted in this game being the worst loss of the season by far.  On the bright side, this is the only game in this category. 

LOOKING AHEAD: Upcoming schedule & rooting interests

There are no nights off in the Big Ten and there are some tough games ahead.  MSU and Ohio are as tough as any game on the schedule all season.  There are four other games against top-50 teams also on the schedule.  In theory there are three winnable games against teams with lower rankings, but all three of them (Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State) are on the road – making them a far bigger challenge than the rankings would indicate. 

As far as rooting interests, the season is a lost cost for some of the non-conference teams on the schedule with lousy rankings, but there are plenty of teams we can root for the rest of the way.  Duke and Ohio should take care of business and remain final four contenders.  You should be rooting for Memphis, Iowa State, Minnesota, and Wisconsin whenever possible since those are Michigan’s best wins.  Having Virginia continue to play well to make that loss look good to the committee would also be helpful.  Perhaps more importantly would be to have UCLA and Arkansas go on a run and crack the top-75, which would be a boost to the resume.

CONCLUSION:  Michigan's resume so far.

As UMHoops points out in their first bracket watch post, Michigan has a very solid resume and finds itself with solid rankings in both services.  The schedule doesn't get any easier, but holding serve probably means an above average seed to the tournament. 

* A couple of quick Ohio State thoughts while I have your attention.  If you don't care to rehash that game, feel free to stop reading here and surf over to Touchthebanner to see if he's posted any interesting recruiting information....or another one of his famous pictures. 

First the good news – looking ahead to the 2013 match-up.  I concur with Brian when he says it felt like they threw a continuous stream of 6’7” athletes on the floor and due to foul trouble and Horford’s injury we were forced to play McLimans extended minutes and Colton Christian more meaningful minutes than he’s played in months as the 9^thman in the rotation.  But next year that won’t be the case.  We replace Stu (6’2”) and Novak (6’4”) with a healthy Horford (6’10”), Stauskas (6’6”), Robinson (6’7”), McGary (6’10”), and Beilfeldt (6’8”).  If Christian plays in the game next year it will be as the 12^thor 13^thman and we’ll be winning by 20 points…..let’s look forward to that!

Now the negative part. Unlike Brian, I felt that the way the game was officiated had a direct impact on the outcome.  I had no delusions that the fouls would be even given the styles of play, the home court advantage, and Ted “TV” Valentine calling the game, but I think it was still excessively skewed toward OSU.  The refs allowed them to play a very physical style of defense without calling any fouls and yet many of Michigan’s fouls had little impact on the shooters’ ability to get the ball off.  Having Morgan, Novak, and Smotrycz all on the bench with foul trouble is among the biggest reasons Michigan lost (along with OR% and missed shots at the rim).  I knew we were doomed during a sequence in the first half – Burke drove baseline and used his forearm to clear space and then draw contact…..he was called for an offensive foul.  On the NEXT POSSESSION Jared Sullinger got the ball at the high post, put his forearm into Smotrycz’s chest, shoved him out of the way, crashed into him to draw contact, and got both the basket AND the foul.  I wasn’t shocked by either call taken individually…..but the fact that they both went in OSU’s favor is an indication of how they let the game play out – and the resulting 18-4 free throw attempts coincide nicely with the margin of victory.  Let's hope for some friendlier whistles in the rematch.