iowa

Iowa. Asian pop bands. A love that is forever. Via the message board, another inexplicable Asian pop song in which the Hawkeyes feature prominently. This one is less pedobear and more 120 Minutes.

One correction to the MGoBoard poster: Girls' Generation is totally not obscure. "Gee" was the longest-running #1 song on KBS's Music Bank, I will have you know.

Enter the Schnell. Michigan will play Howard Schnellenberger University, also known as Florida Atlantic, in 2012:

It appears the Owls will play at Michigan in 2012 barring any snags in the final negotiations.

"It looks like both sides are amenable to it," said FAU AD Craig Angelos.

I don't really care who Michigan brings in as a random tomato can, but do have a preference for local schools. I guess the FAU game is a vague attempt to increase Michigan's profile in the state, or something. Rod Payne is a coach there and Grant Debenedictis an athletic department employee, FWIW.

"Hey, in my kit back there where I've got all my dope." I hit up NCAA.org today in search of APR information to update last summer's post about what will certainly be a dip in Michigan's numbers this year—more on that later—and the top headline is the fourth item in a series about Division II reform. This would normally rank low on my list of things to bring you, but here's the topic:

Hourly limits to be evaluated in Phase II review

Among the areas of review in Phase II of the Life in the Balance initiative is the nebulous “20/8-hour rule,” which regulates athletically related activities in and out of season.

Given that it’s difficult to understand and even harder to track (the rule trips up Division I institutions, too), it’s probably going to be tough for the Division II Legislation Committee to develop recommendations for modifying it.

The NCAA's official website just called the in- and out-of-season hourly limits "nebulous," "difficult to understand," and "even harder to track." So there you go.

Well… yeah. Add this to the pile of former Michigan players asked about Rich Rodriguez who all basically say the same thing in different ways. It's Brandon Graham's turn:

“After the season, we said that, ‘you can’t be up for so long, eventually you have to pay taxes,’ ” Graham said on Saturday. “That’s how we look at it until we get it back up. That’s what we’re going to do. I hope them boys get right next year. Because coach (Rich Rodriguez has) only got one more year — if they don’t do (anything). Because of the allegations, and then, if you have a bad year, then you’ve got to get someone new.”

Again, this is just a different version of the same opinion heard in all of these quotes. They don't say anything about Rodriguez, really. They say something about the guy offering the quote. Brandon Graham, as per usual, is win.

Another version of same. Doctor Saturday evaluates Michigan in his "road to recovery" series and comes to basically the same conclusion as the rest of the planet:

Target date for reacquisition of mojo. … If you mean "enough for Rich Rodriguez to keep his job," there is no patience for those questions to work themselves out; it's 2010 or never. The Wolverines need seven regular season wins to ward off the inevitable mob clamoring for Rodriguez's head, which probably means breaking even in Big Ten play, which means winning more conference games this season (four) than the 2008-09 teams won in the last two combined (three).

That's a dramatically lowered bar relative to anything Michigan has considered a reasonable standard in 40 years. At this point, though, beggars can't be choosers: Every energy this fall has to go to getting back above .500, finding something to hang a helmet on and setting higher goals from there.

Yeah, basically.

A theory put to the test. My swanky blogging program has an auto-link capacity that I've used to link to my Bleacher Report hating (hey, there it goes) since I published it. In that post is this assertion:

The mere fact that people can't immediately tell the difference between the dreck on the Bleacher Report and your average MSM columnist is perhaps the most damning criticism you can offer of MSM columnists.

Now we'll get an opportunity to test that out in practice. A few newspapers desperate for free content have signed one of them content-sharing agreements. Congratulations to newspaper subscribers in Houston, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Seattle: you are the vanguard. Someone who works for a newspaper said this:

“Bleacher Report’s publishing platform provides a powerful way to serve our readers quality, original content that complements our own coverage,” Stephen Weis, executive vice president of the Houston Chronicle and general manager of Chron.com, said in a statement. “Working with Bleacher Report, we’re able to reach out to local fans and add a variety of viewpoints on each of the day’s sports stories that matters most to our readers in their home markets.”

Sporting News colleague Dan Levy says "there's something missing" in his BR critique on the Sporting Blog. This is because Dan Levy is a very nice man. I have many theories as to what the missing thing is that are not very nice. I do eagerly anticipate the day when either the Free Press or the LA Times hops on board and people can't tell the difference between Plaschke, Sharp, and a 14-year-old whose main interests are Tony Hawk and imagining what it would be like to touch a boob. Dress them up in Official Journalist trappings and give them once-over from a copy editor and it'll be hard to distinguish.

Etc.: Tom Harmon goes to work.

Michigan 80 Iowa 78 (OT), MIchigan 13-12 (6-7 Big Ten)

It wasn't pretty, but at this point in the season it would be improper to take any win for granted, right? If Michigan was in position to grab an NCAA tournament bid, this would have been a scary game. However, the Wolverines are closer to missing the NIT than they are to making the Big Dance. Let's just enjoy the win.

After steady improvement throughout the month of January and the beginning of February, it's clear that Michigan's defense is not at a level that will win basketball games when the offense isn't working right. Like Wisconsin and Northwestern before them, the Hawkeyes shot the ball well, finishing with a 55 eFG%. Had Michigan not matched that number in one of their better shooting performances of the year, this game could have gotten ugly. Michigan opened up a 10-point lead late in the first half, but let Iowa claw back to tie it up by the break. Play was much more back-and-forth in the second half, but Iowa led by five with only 22 seconds to go, before Michigan managed to force overtime.

There were some bright points. On top of the newly-found shooting competence, this team actually showed some heart for the first time in quite a while, gutting out a win when it looked like all hope was lost. If they'd been able to do that a couple more times this year, maybe we'd be talking NCAA Tournament fringe instead of NIT fringe. A number of players stepped up that one probably wouldn't expect (primarily Laval Lucas-Perry), and seven whole players got double-digit minutes!

BULLETS

• Rough game for Manny Harris despite decent numbers on the scoresheet. He had six turnovers, and nearly fouled out. A couple of his fouls were borderline calls, but they were also plays he should be smart enough not to make. He shot just 7 of 17.
• DeShawn Sims, as we've come to expect, was this team's leader. He struggled making some layups through contact, otherwise he would have had a stellar outing. Very interesting for Beilein to (finally, in the eyes of some) play him with Gibson.
• Darius Morris was super-quiet. Two assists, three missed shots, and two personal fouls isn't a statline that shows off how much he's improved over the course of the year. He still needs lots of work on his shot, but this game wasn't as big a step backwards as it might seem.
• If we're criticizing LLP for being invisible most of the time, let's also give him props when he shows up to play. His 3/3 shooting from behind the arc to start the game got the offense moving, and though he didn't do a whole lot after that, he was the catalyst for Michigan's big run.
• Man, the Big Ten Network presentation was awful. We constantly got shots of the lights or the back of someone's head instead of, you know, the game. We got about 10 seconds of ridiculously loud music, presumably off someone's iPod in the production truck (I kid). The commentary was often too quiet to hear, but it doesn't matter, because the announcers had no interest in talking about the game. The Big Ten Network doesn't have a great reputation to begin with, and it's painfully clear that they have no interest in correcting that.
• [Editor's note: anyone else notice Jim Jackson's somewhat disturbing morph into Hubie Brown? I heard "blank is the best blank we have have in our league" a dozen times.
• It's nice to see Stu Douglass and Zack Novak find something of a shooting stroke. Both only shot 3-pointers, but if they can continue shooting well, Michigan might be able to surprise a team at the end of the year, and get some confidence for the future.
• Michigan still has a chance to go on a bit of a run here, with Ken Pomeroy favoring them to win three of the last five, including the next two. Dylan is hinting that Michigan is capable of sneaking into the tournament, but I wouldn't get so far ahead of ourselves quite yet.
• Getting back to the officiating for a second, I think Oops Pow Surprise said it best:
  

  We're not stupid enough to think that Hightower and Valentine were somehow actively conspiring against Iowa; not only is Michigan plainly unworthy of a conspiratorial effort (see: not a tournament team), but that theory would require the supposition that the two men are actually capable of calling a good game and just choose not to. That's a fantasy.

  Further, it's not the case that all the calls went against Iowa for the balance of the game. There were several calls that seemed to be a whistle just blown at random, and a good amount of them were in Iowa's favor. This is what happens in a Hightower/Valentine game.

  Bad officiating is frustrating for all, even when it's not heavily slanted in one direction or another

• [Editor's note: UMHoops pointed this out about the refereeing: DeShawn Sims says he complained to the refs about his game-tying three and the ref said he would have called a foul if he had missed, which just goes to show that every conspiracy theory you've ever had about basketball refereeing is true. Bastards.]

• Did Anthony Wright get in a bar fight or something? Beilein:

  “The facts are, over the last day, I believe that Anthony had done nothing wrong to what the facts that were presented to me,” Beilein said. “If the facts change, then I will make appropriate action. But the facts are the facts that we discussed.”

  People, don't punch Ant Wright please.

Up Next

The Nittany Lions of Penn State travel to Crisler Arena Saturday, looking to win their first game in the Big Ten this year(!). This is a good opportunity for the Wolverines to get a win against a pretty bad team, and it's also a football junior day (about which more in Wednesday Recruitin'), so let's get this team some fan support to close out the year.

The Essentials

*Line provided by online sports betting site Sportsbetting.com.

When Last We Met

In one of the least thrilling games I've seen in Crisler Arena, Michigan kept its foot on the neck of the Hawkeyes for just long enough to show that they could win by blowout if they tried. After that point, they decided to stop trying, putting in a half-hearted effort. They still emerged with a comfortable win. Iowa is a bad team.

Deshawn Sims asserted his dominance early, scoring 11 first-half points on just 7 shots. He would go on to finish with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Manny also finished with 20 points, but he also committed six turnovers. At least a couple of those were due to the malaise that set in, with Michigan players either playing sloppy or trying to make plays a little too spectacular. Though Darius Morris didn't start, he ultimately played more minutes than Laval Lucas-Perry. Anthony Wright managed to log 20 minutes.

For the Hawkeyes, Aaron Fuller was the only double-digit scorer (16 points and 8 rebounds), though Cully Payne and Eric May each put up eight points. John Lickliter, who is awesome, nailed a truly righteous 3-pointer.

Since Last We Met

Michigan's lineup has been shaken up, with Darius Morris inserted into the starting lineup instead of LLP. Morris has started to come into his own, giving Wolverine fans some hope that next year's squad can improve. The Wolverines' rebounding has gotten slightly better (though that is partially attributable to a strong showing against Iowa last time), but other than that, the team's statistics haven't changed radically.

The Hawkeyes have lost to Illinois, Ohio State, and Purdue, while knocking of Northwestern at home. During that run, Iowa has gotten much worse offensively but their defense has improved. Either way, this remains a bad team with very little depth, especially with the permanent departure of Anthony Tucker.

Tempo-Free Breakdown

If you need an explanation of the stats, check out Ken Pomeroy.

Difference of more than 10 places in the national rankings get a 1-letter advantage, more than 100 gets a 2-letter advantage, more than 200 gets a 3-letter advantage, etc.

Michigan is a far superior team. This shouldn't be a surprise, as Iowa has been hemorrhaging players from its roster for two years straight now: They're basically like the Michigan football team in Year One of the RichRod era except their coach is in his third season.

The only area in which Iowa has an advantage is rebounding on Michigan's end of the floor, but last times these two teams met the Wolverines had one of their best offensive rebounding outings of the year. Other areas of Iowa advantage like Michigan's ability to get to the free throw line and defend Iowa shooting are probably irrelevant and insignificant, respectively. Iowa has had success when they've forced the opposition into lots of turnovers, but that doesn't seem likely in this contest.

Despite Michigan's previous result against the Hawkeyes, Iowa isn't necessarily a pushover. They've had surprisingly close contests at Illinois, home against Michigan State, and in both of their games against Ohio State. That said, they haven't been able to actually, you know, win any of those games. KenPom likes Michigan by 3, and Vegas likes them by 4. I'm a little more confident than either. Michigan gets its second-straight road win 62-53.

Elsewhere

Dylan previews the game at UMHoops, pointing out that Iowa doesn't match up well with Michigan. Black Heart Gold Pants is the Iowa blogosphere's home base.

Michigan 60 Iowa 46, Michigan 11-10 (4-5 Big Ten)

At times in the second half of Michigan's win over Iowa on Saturday, I was literally afraid I would fall asleep in press row. The game had long ago devolved into Michigan's players putting in about 50% effort, and more often than not, trying to make spectacular plays that ended in turnovers. There's almost nothing of value that we can take from that game.

I say almost, because it was a continuation of Michigan's improvement in defensive efficiency since conference play began. Here's a graphical representation of that, in terms of their rank in adjusted efficiency (which takes into account quality of opposition) since conference play began. Each data point comes from the preview for a particular game (so the first IU point is at the end of the non-conference season other than UConn):

The defense has gone from mediocre to quite good. Offensively, there has been some improvement since the Indiana game, but the poor offensive performance against Iowa was at least partially attributable to guys not taking the game seriously when it was clear Iowa couldn't score, at least from this observer's point of view.

BULLETS

• Tons of offensive rebounding for Michigan, but they aren't going to make their living by picking up their missed shots in most games.
• Dude, Iowa is so bad. Michigan could have won by about 40 if they'd played with intensity for the entire game. Yet the Hawkeyes have still managed to knock off Indiana and Penn State, both of whom gave Michigan trouble.
• DeShawn Sims could have dominated in the paint even more than he did. That's scary.
• John Lickliter. Just, wow. Props to the fans for cheering his made 3-pointer.
• Check out Dylan's postgame for a more complete breakdown.

PHOTO GALLERY

UP NEXT

The Wolverines travel to Evanston to take on the suddenly-competent Wildcats tomorrow night. Northwestern is gunning for their first NCAA tournament bid EVAR, and knocked of Michigan in Crisler Arena 68-62 last time these teams met.

The Essentials

*Line provided by online sports betting site Sportsbetting.com.

Michigan

After the heartbreaker against Michigan State, Michigan's tough 3-game stretch in the Big Ten Conference has come to an end. The Wolverines will have to go on quite a run to have a chance at the NCAA tournament, and will have to go better than .500 in their final 10 contests to even qualify for the NIT.

I'm still of the opinion that, since conference play has kicked off, Michigan has been a pretty good team. Despite chokes against Indiana and Northwestern, they've been steadily improving on both ends of the court, but primarily on defense (more on this following the weekend). Facing a team like Iowa, Michigan's defense should be able to shut down the opponent, creating opportunities on the other end of the floor, and hopefully leading to a blowout.

Not of particular relevance to this game, but still important to the program, is that Beilein announced yesterday that assistant coach Jerry Dunn, who has been on a leave of absence for family reason since late December, will rejoin the team following this weekend.

Iowa

The Hawkeyes are a lot like the 2007-08 Michigan team, or last year's Indiana squad: They're undermanned, and kinda terrible. The key difference is that Iowa is in year three of the Todd Lickliter Experience, not year one like those other squads were. Of course, Penn State may prevent Iowa from even finishing last in the conference, but the Hawkeyes are pretty bad.

Iowa started the year with losses to college basketball luminaries Texas-San Antonio and Duquesne, but has actually not been that bad since. They've lost to every opponent that Ken Pomeroy ranks better than 100, and beaten everyone below that line (including #108 Penn State and #135 Indiana). They currently sit at 8-13 on the season, with a 2-6 record in Big Ten Play.

Iowa is a very young team, with only two players, forwards Jarryd Cole and Devan Bawinkel, upperclassmen (a result of major attrition over the first couple year of the Lickliter era). Sophomore Matt Gatens and freshman Cully Payne play the lion's share of available minutes, but don't really excel in any one skill except not fouling opponents and dishing the ball (the only categories in which either is ranked in Ken Pomeroy's top 500 players). Gatens will play today on a sprained ankle he suffered prior to the Ohio State game. Sophomore Anthony Tucker is one of the team's most talented players, using the most possessions and shooting the ball among the best on the team when he's on the court, but he's been suspended since December for a public intoxication infraction, and will not play against Michigan.

Tempo-Free Breakdown

If you need an explanation of the stats, check out Ken Pomeroy.

Difference of more than 10 places in the national rankings get a 1-letter advantage, more than 100 gets a 2-letter advantage, more than 200 gets a 3-letter advantage, etc.

For the first time in quite a while (since the home contest against Indiana), the Wolverines have a significant advantage by the numbers. The only things Iowa looks to do well are prevent Michigan from making a lot of shots, prevent the Wolverines from coming down with those misses, and not send them to the free throw line. In terms of shooting, Michigan has struggled this year, but against an overmatched team like Iowa figures to be, Deshawn Sims can likely have a field day from midrange, and the 3-balls that so often miss might not even be attempted.

One thing that the Hawkeyes have managed to do when holding opponents to lower scoring outputs (on a per-possession basis) is turn them over, but unfortunately for them, they haven't been able to do it that frequently, and it should be no difference this afternoon, as the Wolverines are exceptional at holding onto the rock.

Ken Pomeroy predicts an 11-point Michigan win, and gives the Wolverines an 89% chance of emerging victorious. I think the margin will actually be a little wider, and Michigan pounds the overmatched Hawkeyes by a score of 70-52.

Elsewhere

Dylan previews the game at UMHoops. Black Heart Gold Pants talks a number of basketball issues, including idiotic newspaper columns and the absence of Anthony Tucker. AnnArbor.com's Michael Rothstein previews the game.

Red versus the fly. Oilers blogger Lowetide usually kicks off his posts with some old-timey pictures and a comparison between then and now. The latest one is a shot, of all possible things, of Red Berenson taking on the LA Kings:

Appparently their goalie at the time was The Fly. Somehow Red managed to not score here, by the way.

Iowa takes the lead. I'm claiming Demon Bear II for Michigan since he blows up Michigan's three primary rivals. Even so, Iowa has surged back into the lead when it comes to absurd, awesome internet memeage:

(Stanzi the Americanzi was Iowa's first point in this battle.)

Biographical note: when I was in college one of the things we carved out unassailable TV time for was a K-pop video show called "MVH"—for reasons unknown we called it "Mein Video Hitten"—that was a combination of this, ridiculous Korean hip-hop by groups like "Highfive of Teenagers" (or "HOT"), and terrible six-minute ballads in which someone was definitely going to die of a wasting disease. The tension was palpable whenever a new video would come on and we didn't know if it was going to be smokin' chicks in bathtubs or something painfully earnest. I am intensely jealous of Iowa for this. I have definitely not been watching the video most of today.

The sudden relevance of tricorn hats. I wasn't going into Signing Day thinking that musketeers would have any relevance but two separate incidents are taking us back to 1776. One is Bucknell—of the Patriot League—raiding Rutgers for a head coach:

LEWISBURG, Pa. — Bucknell hired Joe Susan to take over as head football coach Wednesday, luring back a former Bison assistant to lead a program coming off three straight losing seasons.

Why do you care? Susan is also the recruiting coordinator for Rutgers and his departure might have an impact on FL S Rashad Knight's final decision. Schiano says it won't impact recruiting but it can't help. Bleed Scarlet thinks he was an important guy, FWIW.

The other is a reminder that recruiting could always be worse:

Now all Bruce Heggie has to do is "seal the deal." Heggie, a 6-foot-6, 240-pound TE/DE at Mount Dora High, was mired in a dilemma since December. He was looking for a place to play college football and kept striking out.

"Last week FAMU backed out of their offer and said there wasn't going to be an official visit this weekend," Heggie said. "There was William & Mary, [ed: of the Colonial Athletic Association!] but other than that there weren't really anymore options."

Heggie's taking a visit to… yes… Notre Dame this weekend. It'll be interesting to see how the recruiting rivalry between Michigan and ND develops now that Weis is gone. Weis flat-out killed Michigan head to head even in the waning days of his administration; about the only folks who had a short list with both schools on it that chose Michigan were Mike Williams and Mike Schofield. Things can only get better for Michigan with Kelly there.

DANCE DANCE DANCE TILL WE RUN THIS TOWN.

More Graham. AnnArbor.com was in on a Todd McShay conference call in which the torrent of Brandon Graham praise continued:

“There wasn’t a guy here this week that hustled more, that had better technique, that picked up schemes and did things as quickly as anyone at the defensive-line position or outside-linebacker position,” McShay said. “He’s just a Bill Belichick-type of guy. He’s going to come in and love playing the game and play it better than his measurables and his skill set would lead you to believe.”

I'm hoping he lands somewhere Michigan-heavy so I can have a proxy NFL team. Also, I think we can exclude Bruce Tall from any diagnoses of what ails Michigan's defense.

Historian. This one is seriously obscure: the 1971 Michigan-OSU game, which wasn't even on TV. No audio, of course, just coaches tapes:

There's also a two-parter on the 1988 Michigan-Ohio State game (part 1, part 2)

Etc.: Weird twitter spat between a couple of reporters about Tommy Amaker. BHGP reviews the Iowa-Michigan series in the aughts.