Duke

aw hamburgers

Hello, Duke. Michigan draws a game at Cameron Indoor for next year's Big Ten/ACC challenge. Irritatingly, that's Duke's second consecutive home game and Michigan went on the road twice in a row in 2011 and 2010. But, hey, Duke. That likely concludes the big boy section of the nonconference schedule, which now reads:

• @ Duke
• @ Iowa State
• vs Arizona
• vs Stanford (N)
• Hypothetical Puerto Rico slate: Auburn, Florida State/VCU, Georgetown/K-State

If Michigan doesn't get knocked into the crappy section of their tournament they'll have six games against quality high-major (or VCU, same thing) competition. Auburn doesn't count, and they may put Michigan with Long Beach State or Charlotte if they think those teams are actually worse than the Tigers.

That is some heavy lifting in the nonconference. It's not quite as heavy as Duke's epic schedule a year ago but as long as Michigan doesn't screw it up by putting a bunch of Binghamtons on the schedule they should have a quality nonconference SOS number.

That's resolved then. Jared Rutledge is officially headed back to the USHL for a year:

Red Berenson: "Rutledge is returning to junior hockey for a year. He will either come back here or transfer to another school."

Hockey is weird in that you can just do that and come back and it's like nothing ever happened. It does count as a redshirt year since his five-year clock started last year, so he will have three years to play three when he returns to college. Will he want to return to a place with two more years of Racine and three of Nagelvoort? I'm a little doubtful about that, but with the way Red is you know the door will be open.

gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. etc.

Kind of good, part two. Six(!) softball players were named first-team All Big Ten after Michigan roared through the league schedule 20-2. Sierra Romero was both the freshman and player of the year, Carol Hutchins coach of the year, etc.

Here is Romero's Big Ten slugging percentage.

1.125

!!!

Also her on-base percentage was .659. That is nuts.

No Wolverines made the All-Defensive Team, probably because they didn't have to dodge missiles from Romero.

You have destroyed all comers. The current tote board for the EDSBS charity bowl:

Our rivals feel decrepitude and shame, except the Notre Dame folk, who immediately start talking about African-American graduation rates because that's what they do after every setback in life. Impotent? But the graduation rates!

Here is a fairer tote board:

MICHIGAN: 4,462.88
REST OF BIG TEN COMBINED: 1009.96

Northwestern does get a point for having one donation for 54.51. /shakes fist

Punting will be just fine. Kyle Meinke saves me the trouble of filtering through Matt Wile's pooch-infested yardage record and coming up with the correct statistical profile we should use going into a season where he's going to be the obvious starter at the spot. Drumroll:

Filtering out pooch punts, Wile has averaged 42.6 yards on his 20 career attempts. That would have ranked 35th nationally last year, and third in the Big Ten behind Hagerup and Michigan State's Mike Sadler.

Wile blasted three Outback punts an average of 49 yards and dropped seven of his nine pooch punts inside the 20. He's mastered that drop-it-funny sky kick that's getting more popular these days.

So, yeah, Michigan will be fine. Given what we saw from Kenny Allen in spring they've even got a backup plan. I'd expect Wile to move over to kicker next year with Brendan Gibbons gone, leaving Allen and Hagerup to battle for the punter job.

Credit where it's due. Michigan's revenue blew up since 2009. Why? Hmm.

Michigan made $52.4 million in ticket sales in 2012, up from $37.5 million at the start of the boom in 2009. That's a 39.7-percent leap.

Going by the budget numbers:

CLUB/SUITE REVENUE, 2009: 0.
CLUB/SUITE REVENUE, 2010: $7.8 million
CLUB/SUITE REVENUE, 2011: $14.8 million

That's almost entirely Bill Martin's doing, along with the usual incremental increases in ticket price. The vast majority of the rest of it is the Big Ten Network, leaving things like The Big Chill being sponsored by Arby's and Let's Present This Basketball To A Middle Manager doing almost nothing other than paying for the salary of the guy Brandon hired to copy things from pro teams.

On the other hand, Brandon doesn't appear to be playing polo on a sailboat at critical junctures, so he's got that going for him. One day we will have an athletic director who has the faintest idea of what it's like to not be filthy rich.

Kameron incoming? A previously tentative suggestion that CA SF Kameron Chatman would visit Michigan is… well, still tentative.

“They said that they have an offer for me, they just want me to get on campus,” Chatman explained. “They don’t really like to offer without you being able to visit the campus and see what they really want. They said once I get on campus, they’ll offer me.

“I think my dad was talking about me going up there for my birthday, June 1st. They have a camp or something like that. I’m not sure right now, but I think I might go up there.”

He seems to have a hazy top three of Michigan, Oregon, and Washington, with Washington rumored a tenuous favorite. He's originally from Portland before he moved to Long Beach. Surprised MSU isn't involved since his AAU team is ICP Elite.

Meanwhile, 2015s won't get offered until June 15th, always the most interesting recruiting day on Michigan basketball's calendar these days. IL PG Hyron Edwards is likely to get one of those offers:

The Illini and Boilermakers have offered and the Wolverines, who won’t offer class of 2015 prospects until June 15, seem to be heading in that direction. He said he hopes to work in an unofficial visit to Bloomington when in town for the adidas May Classic and will be in Ann Arbor on June 1 for Michigan’s elite camp.

“(Assistant) coach (LaVall) Jordan has been talking to me about it,” he said of a potential scholarship offer from Michigan. “If I do get the offer, that would be pretty great.”

Indiana also offered a while ago.

Etc.: Chris Webber! Chris Webber! But I want to hang out with Maurice Taylor, you guyyyys. And Louis Bullock. Vince Edwards still status quo, deciding between Michigan and Purdue. Staples ranks M 16th. Hruby on who exactly is harmed by the McLemore money moving around thing, references Catch-22.

I still can't believe it's called "The Journey," which should by rights be a Hallmark Channel series about entering puberty. But it's talking Michigan-Michigan State. Cazzie Russell gets his eyebrow on and Novak rains threes in Breslin:

The Aneurysm of Leadership is discussed. 

It's the… uh… economy? This is unbelievable:

Once regularly an asylum for 1,200 Crazies, Section 17 at Cameron Indoor Stadium now rarely plays host to a student-only crowd.

Student attendance at men’s basketball games has fallen consistently over the last five years, even dropping after Duke won its fourth national championship in 2010. This season, approximately 650 undergraduates have attended each game, 150 fewer than during the 2008-09 season. As a result, Duke Athletics has begun to sell an increasing number of general admission tickets in the student section on a regular basis.

“It has nothing to do with the revenue. We just want it to be full,” Director of Marketing and Relations Mike Forman said. “If there were 1,200 students every game we would love it.”

I've given Michigan students crap for late/spotty attendance at football and hockey (basketball seems immune for some reason) but, like… Jebus. If Duke can't sell out their student tickets it is a nationwide epidemic.

The article goes on to describe a couple of reasons for the decline: the prevalence of online streaming (which seems ludicrous since I'm sure all Duke games are televised in Durham) and "the students' misconception of the time commitment involved." Apparently it's first-come, first-serve and you show up for a game sans ticket and hope to get in. That's a little nuts.

Even if Duke is too far at one end of the scale, Michigan could slide closer to them without incurring the same effect. Offer incentives for having your tickets scanned on time or early and revoke student ticket privileges for people who don't bother to show up.

Attacking the symptom. Bowls are out of control but this does not attack the matter at its heart:

There is "growing support" among conference commissioners, athletic directors and bowl officials to increase the difficulty of becoming bowl eligible by requiring teams to have seven victories, or a winning record, when the new BCS cycle begins in 2014, multiple sources have told CBSSports.com. The seven-win requirement would also mean a handful of bowls likely would be discontinued because there would not be enough eligible teams to fill all of the current 70 berths. In the past two years alone, 27 teams with 6-6 records were needed to fill all the bowl slots, meaning nearly 20 percent of the bowl field didn't have a winning record.

That would hack out about seven of the existing bowls, none of which would be missed in the slightest. It would still allow a dozen or more bowls that are net negatives to exist. The way to fix the current system is to get rid of ticket and hotel guarantees and let the bowls, not the schools, assume the risk of a crappy matchup.

Slicing out the bottom of the barrel is better than nothing, I guess. And at least athletic directors and presidents are getting wise to the scam:

"The 7-5 proposal is getting serious support," a non-BCS bowl official said. "They're telling a coach [that] 6-6 doesn't cut it, but then the coach gets a $50,000 or $100,000 bonus for a bowl game that none of the fan base wants to see. Athletic directors feel like they're pouring money down a hole and they're getting frustrated with it. The only people making out on 6-6 bowl games are the coaches."

…and the dudes in blazers, of course.

Burn. The Daily profiles Brian Wiseman by featuring his ridiculous peewee campaign:

You’ve probably heard about Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson’s phenomenal six-goal game with the St. Louis Blues in 1968. But what about the record-breaking season of one of his assistants, who averaged over five goals per game en route to a 413-goal campaign?

“They didn’t even keep those stats when I was a kid,” Berenson said.

Alex Guptill says no sale.

@_BrianWiseman I've seen this guys wrist shot, there is no way he scored 413 goals... #allstar

Wiseman can only say "keep scoring" at the moment, but don't find yourself in a drought, Alex.

I'll take f-bombs for 1000. David Molk is interviewed by Kyle Mienke:

He's certain of one thing, though: He has doubters. And he knows exactly where they can go.

"It's just, stuff like that pisses me off," Molk said, voice rising. "Any scout who denies me pisses me off. 'Oh, this is what you got. You’re not good enough.'

"Well, (to hell with) you, let me show you what I got."

For the record, I have never doubted Molk and move around constantly so my location cannot be pinned down. Also, Molk's Sugar Bowl injury was a severed tendon. Competition for center of the 2010s is now closed.

Surprise unwarranted. After the Purdue game I noted that Michigan's bench was a nonfactor this year. A UMHoops mailbag points out that is no outlier:

Here are the statistics for the percentage of minutes played by the bench (Bench Minutes/Total minutes) under John Beilein since 2005:

Year	Bench %	Rk
2012	22.3%	327
2011	19.3%	337
2010	22.1%	327
2009	35.6%	66
2008	31.6%	147
2007	24.7%	282
2006	20.0%	n/a
2005	31.2%	n/a
Average	25.9%

Beilein has high expectations and he’s going to play who he trusts at any given time.

The last three years Michigan has been incredibly thin. I'm hoping that changes next year. Michigan's not going to shoot up into Arkansas territory but if they can get into the middle of the pack injuries get a lot less frightening and players having off nights can spend more of them on the bench.

Etc.: Martin pwns Brewster at the Senior Bowl. Penn State flips a QB commit from… Rice. Scout folks say Diamond, Grant to M, Garnett to Stanford, Kozan to Iowa, and punt on Reeves.

Liveblogging it. Hands up. Liveblog Chaos Mitigation Post. Read it.

Yeah, pretty much

“We were expecting to have practice (today),” sophomore guard Josh Bartelstein said. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do after class."

torrent