2/26/2011 – Michigan 70, Minnesota 63 – 18-12, 8-9 Big Ten

via UMHoops. Uncertain provenance. / David E. Klutho, SI

Outside of Michigan, if you've heard about Zack Novak it's probably because Blake Griffin posterized him. That's what got him in Sports Illustrated, after all. The article starts off by describing Michigan's strategy—let him shoot—before noting that "the coaches do not cover what to do if he decides to jump over your head." Luke Winn reports that after it happened a Memphis fan yelled "Hey, Novak! Your kid is going to have a picture of that on his wall!" Zack Novak: not Blake Griffin.

Saturday Novak got posterized again, this time by a guy who can do this:

Substitute Novak for the motorcycle and that's basically what happened. It was lethal. I'm shocked it's not on Youtube six different ways. Bacari Alexander heard so much about it he admonished the twitter in the aftermath.

It takes a special kind of player on a special kind of team to be famous for being a vague impediment to someone going ham on the rim. It takes a floppy-haired short kid on an overmatched team, specifically. Every time an actual power forward gets on a media guide cover thanks to Novak it's a reminder that Michigan is a short, young, small, and possibly talent-deficient team just trying to make do until it can get some seniors up in here.

--------

But as Alexander pointed out: scoreboard. At the end of the game it read Michigan LOTS, Minnesota NOT QUITE AS MANY despite the fact that Novak's going to be incidentally part of ten year old Minnesotans' walls next year. There were a lot of reasons for this—Tim Hardaway going NBA Jam in the first five minutes, Darius Morris braving the trees to toss in a variety of circus shots—but just about everything that was going to happen already had and Michigan was still down one on the road with three seconds on the shot clock and ninety on the game clock.

Morris tried to drive and was cut off. He had to chuck it out to Novak; Novak was camped out at the NBA three-point line. If he was closer one of Minnesota's enormous tree people would have deflected the pass. As it was the enormous tree person got a hand in his face as he fired an instant before the shot clock hit zero.

Against Iowa and Wisconsin, Novak literally hadn't hit a shot. 

Minnesota came down the floor down two. Novak, who is maybe 6'4", ended up checking Minnesota's Ralph Sampson III (yes that Ralph Sampson). Sampson is 7'1" with long, long arms. He could eat Zack Novak in a single sitting. He'd already hit a variety of mid-range jumpers that Michigan could do nothing about other than watch, and was one-on-one in the block. This is shrug-your-shoulders time. This is the point where you acknowledge the physical limitations brought on by Benzing's test score and Cronin's hip and say "just wait till next year, Big Ten!" as you shake your little tiny baby fist.

Sampson is fighting for position hard enough for the announcer to note it. Minnesota feeds the post. This is shrug-your-shoulders-time.

People say players like Zack Novak do the little things, and they are wrong. I yelped "yes" involuntarily. This hadn't happened for anything else; anything that forces strained noises out of you is probably not a "little thing."

Maybe they say this because it's not the kind of thing that gets you on a poster. That's true, but in the alternate universe where Nick Hornby is on the 50 Sexiest People cover for the 20th straight year and Sufjan Stevens is Lady Gaga, there are posters of Novak leaping in front of Sampson, posters of the Aneurysm of Leadership, posters of Zack Novak bleeding on you and MANBOUNDING you and fronting your six-eight jumping-jack power forward. In them, Novak has an elbow in his back, blood running down his temple, and is plotting how to take a charge.

Bubble Watch

Tim has you covered. Go North Carolina Central!

Non-bullets

Massive HT. To UMHoops and Josh Houchin for Five Key Plays.

The best in annoyance. Eamonn Brennan on Michigan's chances:

Huge road win for Michigan, and an even bigger loss for Minnesota. The Wolverines have been quietly (OK, not quietly, because Michigan fans e-mail me more than any non-BYU fan base in the nation) making a late-season push for at-large consideration, and this win will only boost that case. In fact, the Wolverines are probably, if only barely, in the tournament right now. A home win over Michigan State in the regular-season finale might very well seal it.

Say what you will about Michigan fan but boy do they lacerate people on the internet with questions/responses. Hinton agrees.

The zen of good shots. I missed the first Michigan-Minnesota game because of hockey but recall from the stats that Michigan took an epic number of threes and missed damn near all of them; in the first half they took an epic number of threes (22 to just six twos) and this was frickin' awesome until they got to 35 points, at which point it was frickin' awful. What changed? It didn't look like anything. Minnesota has enormous dudes inside and was giving up wide open three after wide open three, so it made sense to take them. Was that bad? Is an open three a bad shot after you've taken five straight? What if you've missed five straight?

I'm really asking here. I can't recall more than a couple first-half threes that seemed like bad shots in isolation. An open three from a 35% shooter is something you can win a lot of games with, but as they clanged off the rim late in the first half I tried to figure out if my frustration was me being a troglodyte or not. The end result was good—9 of 22, 41%, equivalent to hitting 61% of your twos—so… can you complain?

After all, Michigan put up an excellent 1.19 points per possession. In the second half they were far more interior-oriented and scored… 35 points. There's an argument to be made that any three is less good than a layup/dunk and that a team that can get lots of those is going to be better than a team that just bombs from deep. Also an offense like that is less prone to withering droughts.

So if Michigan was really good it would be a problem, and if they're going to be really good they'll have to cut down on the threes, but they're not so fine, especially against the Brobdingnagian Gophers. I think this is what I think.

Statewatch. The popular sentiment appears to be "beat MSU and don't fall on your face and you're in"—even an previously dismissive Lunardi now has Michigan amongst his last four in. That's quite a shift from before the Minnesota game. So goings-on with the Spartans are important. They just got obliterated by Purdue 67-47:

The offensive execution before the shot wasn't great.  The ball screens and movement were enough to create open shots, and on the few occasions MSU did get offensive rebounds (OReb% of 26.3% - low, but not enough to explain a 20 point loss) they could not convert.  Seven points off 10 offensive rebounds isn't good.  Lastly, it seemed as if the Spartans were a bit tentative in the paint.  Dan Dakich made a point a couple times during the telecast that Green and Roe were falling forward on lay-ups, and I think a drive directly at the basket would've at least drawn a foul.

While they should take care of Iowa at home they made the Hawkeyes look like Purdue the last time out. Either way MSU is going to be playing for its tourney life in Crisler on Saturday. It will be the most important, competitive game between the teams in years.

BONUS: The elf who bakes cookies is MSU's third-leading scorer in the last couple games.

Tim Hardaway: five star? Big Ten Geeks asked people to name "ten freshmen better than Tim Hardaway Jr" apropos of nothing on the twitter and then followed that up a comparison between THJ and some of his more hyped peers:

Here’s how he stacks up in terms of offensive rating and possessions consumed in conference play with some other more recognizable freshmen:

Player	Offensive Rating	Poss%
Tim Hardaway Jr.	112.1	24.4
Jared Sullinger	118.2	26.4
Harrison Barnes	103.4	26.3
Terrence Jones	107.4	29.2
Brandon Knight	112.1	24.8
Perry Jones	114.7	22.2
Tobias Harris	103.1	26
Josh Smith	108.8	25.7

It’s not like Hardaway is a tweener, either.  At 6-5, he’s got the size to play guard at the next level.  We should probably see Hardaway on more mock draft boards, very soon.

Not as good as Jared Sullinger. Everyone else is at least debatable and he's got a clear edge on many. (Caveats about defense apply.)

John Beilein's eagle eye. Hardaway's emergence and Jordan Morgan turning into a way better player than classmate Derrick Nix have provided enough evidence for me to suggest that Beilein's seems to have an eye for players who are overlooked by recruiting sites. I didn't follow the Pittsnogle era at WVU closely enough to have a grasp on the players he was recruiting and didn't get, but various Michigan targets who have outperformed expectations:

• Beilein was hard after Klay Thompson as he tried to fill out his first recruiting class but Thompson decided to go to Washington State(!?!), whereupon he exploded. He's shooting 42% from 3 and has a 106.4 ORtg despite using a third of WSU's possessions.
• That same year he pursued Kyle Kuric heavily but didn't get him. Kuric went somewhere less embarrassing: Louisville. He's currently sporting a 129.8(!) ORtg because he's hitting 46% from three and 60% from two. He has low usage and only plays 57% of available minutes, but dang.
• Beilein went after Vermont transfer Joe Trapani but lost him to BC. As a senior he's got a 104 ORtg while shooting 29% of the time. He shoots 36% from 3.
• Robin Benzing fell one SAT question short of making this edition of Michigan insane. He was the leading scorer in a U20 Euro championship, got time on the actual German national team, and is a guy who keeps popping up on NBA draft radars.
• Hardaway was a meh three star when he committed.
• Smotrycz was a meh three star when he committed before shooting up with a strong AAU season; he's struggled a bit so far but has potential and was no one when he committed to M.
• Novak had his Valpo offer pulled.
• Morgan had no other D-I offers and even his father was surprised he got one from Michigan.

Add in Pittsnogle and Joe Alexander and Gansey, etc., and I think you've got a strong case to trust the coaches when Beilein brings in someone you've never heard of who doesn't have any offers. Not everyone can pan out explosively but Beilein seems to be more hit than miss.

Dang. Random BTN tweet:

Jordan Morgan has averaged 15.0 ppg and 4.8 rpg over his last five games. He's shooting 71.4 pct during this span.

Elsewhere

Recap from UMHoops. Also AnnArbor.com. Big Ten tourney scenarios from AC1997. Zach Travis of MNB on the other Zack. Big House Blog on Novak. Maize n Blue Nation on Novak. Mets Maize on… Novak. Little things… not so much.

In Soviet Russia, Novak discusses topic of dunk:

“I didn’t even really see it. I was turned around a little bit,” Novak said. “So I was under the basket and I saw him dunk it. I didn’t know it was that bad.

“But (my teammates) told me it was pretty bad. He’s just, he’s a great player.”

Rothstein also recaps Michigan's league situation.

And finally, here's this:

Feel free to shoot me for the headline.

2/6/2011 – Michigan 65, Penn State 62 – 14-10, 4-7 Big Ten

via UMHoops 

Michigan played well for about ten minutes yesterday but in those ten minutes they poured in three pointers from all over, drove to the basket with abandon, and twice turned double-digit Penn State leads into deficits. Since Darius Morris kept Michigan in contact during the other thirty and six of the ten minutes came at the end of the game that meant Michigan won.

That isn't a small feat. Penn State spent the past month cannibalizing seeds across the Big Ten by defending their home court. They beat Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan State at the Bryce-Jordan Center. On the road they were this close to enormous upsets of Ohio State (L 69-66) and Purdue (L 63-62). In a not-very-alternate universe they were cruising towards a tourney bid even if they did get crushed by Maine.

So that was a good, weird win. If you want it in a chart (chart):

The point on the graph where it drops like a stone until the end should be labeled "Hardaway kill switch engaged." Down ten and aimless with nine minutes left is when the fan packs it in and starts grumbling. In this game it's also when Tim Hardaway goes from Freshman Liability, Jr., to Just Tim Hardaway, Thanks.

In the two minutes of video above a possible future of Michigan basketball reveals itself. When UMHoops describes the Hardaway sequence above as a "coming of age" Dylan's talking about Hardaway himself, but it could be one for the team as a whole. Those things don't seem that different right now.

Everyone comes back next year, so the various bits of basketball that depend on cohesion (rotation on D, cuts and passing on O, etc.) should improve. Everyone should get incrementally better, which gets you an increment. Michigan's hopes to go from an NIT hopeful to a solid NCAA team rely on at least one guy getting so much better that twitter threatens to kill Tim Doyle again, and the erratic freshman leading Michigan in shots is the obvious candidate.

In the clips above it's not the three-pointers that set hopes to tingle. We've seen Hardaway shoot a ton of threes this year and while he's adding a couple points of shooting percentage to them is encouraging, Michigan has plenty of guys who can take shots from outside the arc. It's the two different drives to the hoop where he glides into the lane and elevates to finish. Yes, you are 6'5". Yes, you are Tim Hardaway's son. Yes, you can turn into the kind of player who's an all-around nightmare. Yes, please, by next year.

This year we expected and got that graph above, struggles punctuated by tantalizing flashes. So far we've gotten slightly more of the latter than we were banking on. Maintain that, reach the NIT, and get one guy—one guy—to make a Morris-like leap and next year Beilein's program can establish itself for real.

Let's get ahead of ourselves bullets

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. File this under general fan overreaction as well:

After PSU Win, Can U-M Make a Tourney Run?

That's The Wolverine Blog laying out Michigan's stretch run and saying "well?" Said run, home games in bold:

Feb. 9 — vs. Northwestern — 14-8 overall (4-7 Big Ten, 3-4 road), No. 53 Sagarin, No. 76 RPI
Feb. 12 — vs. Indiana — 12-12 overall (3-8 Big Ten, 0-7 road), No. 89 Sagarin, No. 148 RPI
Feb. 16 — at Illinois — 15-8 overall (5-5 Big Ten, 11-1 home), No. 27 Sagarin, No. 37 RPI
Feb. 19 — at Iowa — 10-13 overall (3-8 Big Ten, 7-5 home), No. 103 Sagarin, No. 130 RPI
Feb. 23 — vs. Wisconsin — 17-5 overall (7-3 Big Ten, 2-4 road), No. 14 Sagarin, No. 20 RPI
Feb. 26 — at Minnesota — 16-7 overall (5-6 Big Ten, 11-2 home), No. 32 Sagarin, No. 24 RPI
Mar. 5 — vs. Michigan State — 13-10 overall (5-6 Big Ten, 3-6 road), No. 43 Sagarin, No. 49 RPI

Opposite the hockey devil sitting on my shoulder there's a basketball angel screaming "THIS IS TOTALLY DOABLE." There are four games on the schedule (the home games that aren't Wisconsin and @ Iowa) that look like should-wins, which gets Michigan to eight wins, and then if you squint real hard you can see Michigan picking off one of the others to get to 9-9 in the nation's toughest conference. That plus 19-12 overall could get into the new, pointlessly larger field.

There's a problem with the mind's definition of "should," though. Accrording to Kenpom Michigan's easiest game left is against Indiana. Michigan has a 69% shot to win that. Even if Kenpom is wildly pessimistic and Michigan has a 70% shot at all four of its "should-wins" that means they have just a 24% shot to win all four, and even then they'd have to pick off one of the other three, and in reality Kenpom has Michigan a slight underdog @ Iowa. Add it all up and a pretty accurate mathematical model says Michigan has a 10% chance to get to 9-9. Not so good.

Michigan really needed to pull out that Kansas game or the Ohio State game that immediately followed. Even without making the small positive adjustment in expectations that would give them a 35% chance to finish 9-9 or better and a marquee win to thrill the committee with. And at that point 8-10 might be feasible since they'd still be 19-12 overall in that scenario. If that was in play they'd have a 60-70% shot at the tourney.

As it stands they'll have to play perfectly to make it, and with all these freshmen the chances of that are slim. If I had to guess it'd say 17 or 18 wins and an NIT bid, which would be fine by me.

More evidence about the getting ahead of yourself. Michigan's still tenth in the league in efficiency margin, though said margins aren't huge and Michigan's finishing stretch is probably easier than average:

                     W-L     Pace    PPP    Opp. PPP   EM
1.  Wisconsin        7-3     56.1    1.19     1.03   +0.16
2.  Ohio St.        11-0     63.0    1.14     1.00   +0.14
3.  Purdue           7-3     64.0    1.14     1.04   +0.10
4.  Illinois         5-5     62.7    1.10     1.03   +0.07
5.  Penn St.         5-6     58.6    1.07     1.09   -0.02
6.  Minnesota        5-6     61.7    1.07     1.10   -0.03
7.  Northwestern     4-7     63.2    1.08     1.14   -0.06
8.  Indiana          3-8     63.0    1.06     1.13   -0.07
9.  Michigan St.     5-6     61.6    1.03     1.10   -0.07
10. Michigan         4-7     59.7    1.07     1.15   -0.08
11. Iowa             3-8     65.9    1.00     1.11   -0.11
AVG.                         61.8    1.09

Big Ten Wonk (aka John Gasaway) dubs this "The Year Nobody Sucked" because the league's worst team is way better than LSU or DePaul or Wake Forest, all of whom are just getting hammered. So… on paper we're filing three teams with better conference efficiency margins as should-wins when we're constructing our tourney fantasies.

Also of note in the above numbers: Michigan's defense is the worst in the league. It's close; the number is still the number. This isn't hugely surprising given the fleet of underclassmen and Zach Novak's persistent inability to escape the 4, but it's a comedown from earlier in the season when the Michigan D was shockingly proficient. I think we've got an obvious route for Michigan's offense to improve, but the defense is murkier. Michigan needs Smotrycz and Hardaway to get a lot better, I think, but without numbers that's just one guy's opinion.

Very aggressive. Earlier in the year I mentioned that Morris should have more of a nose for the basket when Michigan ran the shot clock under ten and in this game he went nuts with an array of floaters in the lane, layups he'd fought for tooth and nail, and various other shots where the viewer was like "bad idea bad idea bad idea actually that looks like he got a decent shot off it went in yay."

Part of this was Penn State adopting OSU's defensive approach—stick to the shooters and force shots from the lane. It worked for OSU because they have athletic shotblockers in the post and Michigan missed a lot of short-range shots. Penn State just gave up a lot of points in the lane.

Elsewhere

Torrent. The rest of UMHoops' five key plays. Game recap. AnnArbor.com scouts Trey Burke against Brookhaven; UMHoops catches him going for 35 in a narrow loss to St. Edward. Mets Maize also chips in recap bits. Since I neglected to mention him:

Just when I thought you couldn't possibly be any dumber, Stu Douglass,  you go and do something like this... and totally redeem yourself! Consitent with Michigan's inconsistent season, Stu, who probably had his worst game of the year against Ohio State a few days ago, had his best game yet: 14 points, including 4/5 from behind the arc, 4 boards and 3 assists off the bench. I still think Stu needs to have more shot clock awareness at the 1, but he made timely 3's all game. One 3 came mid-way through the 2nd half to cut Penn States's lead from 10 to 7 when Michigan JUST started to look as if they were ready to give up. STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

MGoUser 2012 also assesses Michigan's chances at a tourney bid and comes to the same conclusion—wait 'til next year.

Disclaimer. You probably don't care about any of this but while we wait for an "embattled" Rodrigez to meet with Dave Brandon today and the 7PM meeting with the players that seems like a likely moment for news to break, here's some other stuff. I've gotten a couple oddly-sourced things claiming that the office of Mark Hollis, Esq., Michigan State athletic director, is now telling people Rich Rodriguez is going to be fired today, not like that would come as a surprise or anything.

Also Harbaugh is now apparently a hot candidate for the Dolphins job, which would be a Michigan owner pirating Michigan's best coaching candidate to coach Chad Henne and Jake Long and would be the ultimate FOAD from God. Seriously, just jump.

Nothing to see here. Terrelle Pryor's college career should be over. He's already suspended for the first five games of next year and three(!) times since he arrived in Columbus he's been pulled over in someone else's car:

Three times in the past three years, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor was stopped for traffic violations while driving cars that were owned by a car salesman or a Columbus used-car lot where the salesman worked, according to traffic citations obtained by The Dispatch.

Amazingly, Ohio State and Pryor spun out a story about car repairs and a test drive to Pennsylvania even after getting wind of a very familiar scheme…

Ohio State examined the relationship between its athletes and Auto Direct in July after receiving an anonymous letter saying that employees were trading use of cars for autographed memorabilia. Archie concluded that there were no NCAA violations.

…and the NCAA was all like "yeah, that makes total sense to me!"

Unbelievable. Michigan gets a "major violation" for niggling details and Ohio State players are bartering memorabilia for services at every business in Columbus and no NCAA violations are occurring. It's completely irrational to believe that if Terrelle Pryor was a 5'7" chemistry major that he'd get a free test drive of a thousand miles, but the NCAA turns a blind eye because logic is hard. Dan Wetzel's crusading about Pryor exposing the "charade of college athletics" and the NCAA can't even be bothered to suspend him for a measly year. I hate everything.

Chaos not limited. Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that Penn State's coaching staff could fall to bits in the near future? Yeah, didn't look like it would happen after Pitt insanely hired Mike Haywood. But then Haywood got in some legal trouble and got O'Leary'd and Maryland bizarrely hired Randy Edsall, leaving two prominent Northeast openings.

Meanwhile, Penn State message boards are filled with rumors that would be lurid insanity (mass chaos in the coaching staff, Paterno declaring his return without consulting anyone, threats of defection) if former players weren't talking trash on facebook and the highly-touted freshman quarterback who spent a big chunk of the year starting didn't watch a walk on throw five interceptions against Florida without getting a single snap himself and then book:

A day after Penn State's loss to Florida in the Outback Bowl, the father of true freshman Rob Bolden told Lions247.com that his son will seek a transfer from the school.

"It's true, he's looking to leave Penn State,"said Robert Bolden, Sr. on Sunday afternoon. "He's notified the coaches, that's as far as it's gone so far. We're waiting on the next step now."

With Kevin Newsome already headed out the door (and clearly more of a tight end than a quarterback by this point anyway) that leaves Penn State with McGloin and redshirt freshman Paul Jones. Jones is highly touted but there's probably a reason Bolden won the job in fall.

There are also rumors that much of the Penn State staff could be headed elsewhere. Tom Bradley missed on the Pitt job last time around but right now he seems to be one of two leading candidates along with Marvin Lewis of the Bengals. Lewis is now expected to "work out" his differences with Cincinnati, however, leaving Pitt with one giant blinking locally respected recruiting-class salvaging guy who seems to want to GTFO and take a big chunk of PSU's staff with him.

BSD has a roundup of the various things being said that includes the ridiculous—Bradley will leave PSU to become Pitt's defensive coordinator—and plausibly unsettling if you're a PSU fan; Slow States says that if Bradley does depart that "could and should" end the Paterno era, or "charade," if you will. Misery loves company.

Cheery reminder. FUN!

Robinson was asked after the game if he will be playing for the Wolverines if Rodriguez is not the coach.

"No response," Robinson said.

When asked how he would feel if Rodriguez does not return, Robinson did not say much more.

"That's my coach, that's who recruited me," Robinson said. "That's it."

If there's a new coach he's going to have a lot of work to do to convince Robinson to stick around.

Etc.: MVictors holding onto the Gordon Lightfoot lyrics. HSR writes an elegy. The women's basketball team could actually be good.

HATE THE BCS? HATE AMERICA

The dumbest thing ever written. This is not literally true, but it may be the dumbest thing ever written about college football. It is this Bill Hancock guy's shoddily argued nonsense about the BCS. I've become a playoff guy over the past decade or so but even BCS proponents in the blogosphere (of which there appears to be one, the guy behind Get The Picture) have to wince at statements like this:

College football was one weekend away from Boise State participating in the BCS National Championship Game because of what happened on the playing field — not in a chatroom, a boardroom or a newsroom.

In the event that Auburn lost and Boise State won, yes. The reverse happened and instead the BCS works and is fair and that's Gary Patterson's artery spraying a red mist over most of the Southwest but how did you think Sedona, Arizona, ended up looking like that? Do you want a thriving tourist mecca to evaporate overnight when college football coaches cease venting the bloodmist that gently descends on the mesas?

Orson has gone FJM on the thing—it exists to be fisked, I thought about doing it myself—but you don't have to do anything other than blockquote to obliterate this extremely stupid system:

A playoff also would mean the end of America's bowl tradition as we know it. As Rick Baker, president of the Cotton Bowl, said, "A playoff system would ruin the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic."

We can't have that.

BONUS: Putting "Classic" in the name of your thing is a 100% sure way to tell that your thing is neither classic nor an actual thing anymore, in the, you know, traditional sense where entities are somewhat authentic outgrowths of desires instead of remanufactured bullcrap like "chocolate" diamonds that make me wish that authentic outgrowths of desires that form entities like Adbusters weren't equally odious and even more shrill. The "Cotton Bowl Classic" is at Jerryworld, not the Cotton Bowl. It can die in a fire for all I care.

OBLIGATORY REMINDER OF MGOBLOG PLAYOFF PLAN: Six teams, no autobids, byes to the top two teams. No more than two teams per conference, and those teams can't play each other in the first round. Home games until the final, one the week after the championship games, one on January 1st, final at the Rose Bowl January 8th, leave bowl system alone.

This preserves almost all of the urgency of regular season and guarantees that the champion is also the team with the best season-long resume since five of the top six lose and anyone not 1 or 2 wades through three elite opponents, staking an undeniable claim.

This year's hypothetical bracket:

1. Oregon vs winner of 3. TCU / 6. Ohio State
2. Auburn vs winner of 4. Wisconsin / 5. Stanford

If Auburn had lost to Alabama they would probably have fallen to fifth (ballparking it) and gone from a first round bye and January 1 home game to a first round game in Madison or Palo Alto—a freaking huge deal. Losing one game boots Boise and Michigan State, and two is fatal for everyone. Since the current system frequently sees one-loss teams into the championship game it's difficult to argue this system cheapens the regular season.

If you want a lengthier explanation I pretended I was talking to Joe Posnanski about it last January. In sum, there is no reason people who do not stand to lose money would oppose the idea.

This Week In Less Charismatic Than Stalin. Terrelle Pryor:

"I'll put it like this: You put me in any of their offenses — any of them — and I'd dominate," Pryor said, when asked about the attention afforded the likes of Newton, Robinson and Persa. "I'd dominate the nation. What those guys do, that's what they're supposed to do in their offense."

He goes on to say the usual boilerplate about how he's all about winning, which could be interpreted as a mitigating factor if Pryor didn't manage to twist every bit of boilerplate into another reason to think Pryor should be locked in the basement by Tressel until his graduation. Doctor Saturday looks at the numbers and says pretty much what I did in the OSU preview—against defenses that are actually good Pryor folds alarmingly.

In contrast:

Robinson said he also remembers picking up some snow, playfully chucking it at Rodriguez, "and then running pretty fast after that."
Robinson also packed snow into a plastic bag for his return flight.
"Melted on the plane," he said.

How does Robinson know if he's running fast?

This Week In Coaching Blah Blah Blah. Have fielded a couple inquiries as to why I'm not covering the "coaching search" or "situation," depending on your point of view. I'm not because there is no "search" and there is no reliable information on the situation. Time and again I have been told by people one or two or three steps removed from insiders that Rodriguez is going to get fired after the Ohio State game. Or on Monday (yes, as in three days ago, which makes absolutely no sense). Or pretty dang soon. Or that Brady Hoke is a viable candidate. Or etc etc etc etc. I got so much chatter in my inbox that made no sense that even the plausible stuff now carries the sheen of ulterior motive (not necessarily from the emailer, but from the discontent insider-type person) or wishful thinking (from Brady Hoke's friends and family).

I have no updates that are reliable enough to relate. There is a cottage industry of people telling other people that Rodriguez is definitely gone that has proven inaccurate multiple times so far in the past month, so I probably won't be able to say much definitively unless I get something solid from a few established guys.

To reiterate, I've run everything I've heard through filters of reliability and making a damn lick of sense and come up with this:

1. There is a nonzero chance Rodriguez is not brought back or Brandon would have/should have already announced it.
2. There is a nonzero chance Rodriguez is brought back or ditto.
3. One game is probably not the deciding factor.
4. Harbaugh exists. No other candidate strong enough to make a move compelling does.
5. You cannot start a real coaching search that takes two to four weeks a month before Signing Day.

The conclusion is that on January second Harbaugh or Rodriguez will be Michigan's coach and that person will be the coach in 2011. No one peddling a story other than that is credible unless their name is Dave Brandon, and even then he's probably just having you on.

I don't know which is more likely. If I get anything that changes my opinion I'll mention it.

BONUS: A scientific poll shows that Michigan fans are split right down the middle: 35 percent want him gone, 32 percent want him to stay, and 33 percent are unsure. That's amazingly apropos. Too bad it doesn't include a section asking people "have you raged incoherently at someone about this opinion?" Three percent said they'd prefer Brady Hoke over Harbaugh (64 percent) or Miles(23 percent).

Penn State exodus? With Joe Paterno slightly old and doddering Penn State relies heavily on its ancient, incredibly stable coaching staff to prop up the ship. There was slight panic when DL coach Larry Johnson Sr. seriously considered taking the Illinois DC job a few years ago—it's testament to the loyalty of the staff that he stayed—and now with Pitt searching around BSD's a little concerned the Panthers might look at the blindingly obvious candidate: Tom Bradley. Bradley's considered the be the heir apparent to Paterno and probably should be since he's been the motive force behind the good bit of Penn State forever, but if he can't leverage the Pitt opening into something approximating a guarantee he's the guy he could be tempted to go. Too bad the NCAA put a kibosh on that coach-in-waiting stuff.

Meanwhile, LB coach Ron Vanderlinden is "linked to" the Ball State job. This will probably lead to nothing except a couple of raises but it's worth keeping an eye on if only to see how easy OSU's path to the Big Ten Championship game is going to be.

Etc.: The Daily's Nicole Auerbach scores a WSJ article about the Big Chill and the growth potential of college hockey. Big Ten Hockey cannot come fast enough. Thoroughly patronizing AA.com article explains to you what "faceoffs" and "hat tricks" are. Dave Brandon says Michigan is "highly interested" in adding D-I lacrosse if it proves viable. Monumental's series of awesome wallpapers continues.

Newsbits of importance from Tom. Dark I'm-not-saying-I'm-just-saying rumors about Craig Roh and Demetrius Hart have been flying around the internets this week. Tom clarifies. On Craig Roh:

My source told me that Craig has been concerned with his position switch to linebacker, and believes he is much more effective as a defensive end.

Craig actually vocalized his concern about his position to the coaches after the Penn State game, and my source says that he has been playing much more on the defensive line during practice this week.

Roh's apparently been handed to Bruce Tall and will no longer be mostly a linebacker. This is both good and another instance of players coaching themselves. Meanwhile, Demetrius Hart decommit rumors are false:

There was a slight mix up with Demetrius' enrollment with Michigan, but it has been cleared up. That was the issue, it wasn't that anyone was recruiting him harder, or anything along those lines. Everything has been straightened out, and his mom says Demetrius will be at Michigan in January.

Insert the usual CYA boilerplate about how anything can happen, but you can focus your panic elsewhere.

Crowded. JT Floyd is officially out for the year with "freak" ligament damage in his ankle. Hooray.

The Never Forget banner guy has updated it, and if any further members of the secondary wish to make themselves unavailable they'd advised to do it quickly because we're running out of room:

New additions are Michael Williams (concussions), JT Floyd (ligament damage), Jared Van Slyke (leg injury), and Vlad Emilien (transfer). Available locations are limited to that patch of maize underneath the crying wolverine. Given the state of the secondary this is getting considerably more RR-fault-ridden as the year goes along. Justin Turner and Vlad Emilien's transfers are big deals with the free safety depth chart reading "Ray Vinopal" and the corner depth chart reading "Random Three Star Freshman Projects and James Rogers."

At least the Floyd injury has been a productive one for the legions of Michigan photoshoppers:

So we've got that going for us. Courtney Avery will draw into the lineup for Floyd.

Okay, a final final final word or two. It's unfortunate that Anchorman references are vastly overused because sometimes there's nothing you can say except…

…I'm not even mad, I'm impressed. That is amazing. I'm sitting on this pile of ninja corpses, covered in blood. As the sun rises over a scene of indescribable gore I laugh, because what else is there to do?

Probably not in the special section about how naughty Michigan's been:

the committee wrote that "though serious," the overage was "far less extensive than originally reported and that no student-athletes were substantially harmed."

Though this was obvious as soon as the smoke cleared last August because the piece was so shoddily written, it is now official. Hurrah for pyrrhic victories.

Watch this. The House Rock Built's "Stuffing The Passer" series is the best thing going in the CFB blogosphere right now:

If "Shit My Dad Says" is being made into a sitcom, Stuffing The Passer can't be far behind.

Elsewhere in coach grumbling. You've probably seen this but Brandon Graham has some depressing quotes that point towards the Those Meddling Kids theory:

I’m surprised they didn’t stick with what Coach Robinson was running,” Graham said of the 3-4 the team deployed in 2009, its first year under Robinson. … “Let Coach Robinson play his defense,” Graham said. “Let him do what he knows. He was thrown off, I would say. I know the 3-3-5 is what he (Rodriguez) has been doing for so long. He’s just got to adjust to the Big Ten.”

Michigan ran a 4-3 under last year but that's beside the point. Those quotes from a guy who was in the program last year indicate that no one who doesn't know a 3-3-5 like the back of his hand is ever going to be comfortable as a defensive coordinator at Michigan as long as the WVU guys are around saying things like "hey it's a bye week, I've got this great idea."

While everyone says "scheme is overrated," Michigan's offense puts the lie to that. It's not necessarily the 3-3-5 itself—this is not a BLANK can't work in the Big Ten argument—but attempting to run an exotic niche defense with a guy who doesn't know it (and evidence suggests is a terrible coach anyway).

I'm pretty sure this is as close as we'll get to an opinion from Angelique Chengelis, if that's actually what it is:

Hope for next year?

Much has been made about Michigan's defense, which is near the bottom of several national categories, including total defense. Illinois was in a similar spot last year, but has made strides under new defensive coordinator Vic Koenning:

Scoring defense: 30.2 (96th) in 2009, 16.8 (12th) in 2010

Total defense: 403.3 (91st) in 2009, 301.4 (15th) in 2010

Pass defense: 248.8 (100th) in 2009, 183.9 (19th) in 2010

Rush defense: 154.4 (76th) in 2009, 117.5 (26th) in 2010

That certainly reads like a "hint, hint."

Defensive antidote. Via Wolverine Historian:

Penn State jerkos. As an internet fanbase, Penn State has a remarkable knack for accusing others of pathologies they're displaying literally within the accusation itself. The latest example is a piece at Black Shoe Diaries the author probably thinks is Swiftian satire that takes a sentence from the game recap, some random comment I don't recognize and didn't make about the Terrence Talbott whiffed PBU that turned into 40 yards, a somewhat maudlin paragraph from Maize and Brew supporting Rodriguez, and a random quote from pissed off David Molk. It combines these to show how self-centered Michigan fans are… in a post whining that Michigan fans didn't give Penn State its proper respect.

BSD can talk about self-centered behavior when they do this:

Indiana has a legitimately very good pass offense. They had 41 opportunities to make catches and made 40. Chappell almost never went to the wrong guy and missed on maybe five of his 65 attempts. Their receivers are tall and fast and shifty. One dollar they're the most productive pass offense in the conference at the end of the year.

And this:

Michigan State has somehow acquired the without-question best stable of tailbacks in the league; Iowa's Adam Robinson isn't bad but he's not the equivalent of Baker/Bell/Caper, and there's only one of him.

Indiana imploded and Michigan State's run game is pretty mediocre. We tried the credit-the-opponent bit and then all of the opponents turned out to be much worse on offense than Michigan made them look. Doing it now against your gritty moxie ginger neckbeard quarterback would be delusional. Penn State sucks and Michigan is worse. But I said Ogbu is a beast, so your pathetic insecurities can be a tiny bit less pathetic. Let's hold hands.

Now go talk about how arrogant we are as you caress each other's soft places while whispering "what if Michigan never comes back" and we discuss whether we should keep Rich Rodriguez and worry about falling into a Notre Dame-like fallow period. Tim was right to describe BSD as a place utterly incapable of recognizing irony.

Etc.: Craig Roh's eyebrows, and the rest of Craig Roh, are attractive to some guy who ranks him the #13 "hottie" of the year in CFB. Yost Built has ten things to know about Alaska. Amani Toomer is running marathons now.

Macho man. Invaluable video guy Boyz in the Pahokee noticed something that's gone unremarked upon for five years. Note the score, time, and bicep kiss:

WHERE'S YOUR BICEP NOW? And how did the director of the game not cut back to Bicep Guy after Manningham went New Math on people?

Maize 'n' Brew just named the 2005 game Michigan's second-best win over Penn State in the series's short history. No dollars if you can guess the winner.

via the Shredder

Not sure if serious. So the news that a loose cannon walk-on is going to start tomorrow should be fairly crushing news to Penn State fans, but if I could be excited about Michigan's 2007 recruiting class they can be excited about Matt McGloin:

Mcgloin

This might just be the kick in the pants to spark this offense. We will see. Good luck to the young man.

by abpsu13 on Oct 28, 2010 4:58 PM PDT

I'm so hyped up about this

This kid has gigantic balls!

I’m so glad we have a pure passer starting in this game, I think it gives us the best chance to win. Knewsome can’t pass and Bolden would never WIN us this game. Now, granted McFarve might lose the game, but there is a chance he could WIN us the game.

by markpsu on Oct 29, 2010 5:30 AM PDT

I already used the image macro once today so I'll forgo it, but… seriously?

A later BSD posts breaks down his performance and even includes video. It could be chopped better—I'm spoiled by BitP's Every Snap videos—but the overall effect is to turn not sure if serious into definitely not serious in the comments, and should be reassuring to anyone fretting. Here's a UFR chart for McGloin:

MATT MCGLOIN

I seem to be missing one of his throws but that won't change the overall picture much. The BSD predictionfest goes 4-2 to Michigan, FWIW.

If you change your colors to orange you can get them on the field faster. I suppose I have to say something about Chris L. Rucker's reinstatement. Anyone who didn't see this coming a mile away hasn't been paying attention. People haven't, though, because Dantonio says things like "I don't believe in superstition, I believe in God" and has a square jaw. But all it took was…

• Dantonio baldly lying about Roderick Jenrette's "family issues" that were in fact robberies,
• 20% of the team descending on a party to ignite a melee,
• Glenn Winston injuring a hockey player in that melee so badly he missed an entire season,
• Winston going to jail for five months,
• Dantonio reinstating him literally as soon as he got out of prison,
• 20% of the team, most prominently Jenrette and Winston, descending on a dorm room to ignite a melee,
• Dantonio reinstating most of the players who attended  and promising zero tolerance, and
• Rucker being reinstated two seconds after he got out of jail…

…for the media to notice. But notice they have, with Rittenberg, Wojo, and even Mitch Albom(!) saying "hey, wait a minute." So, fine. As long as the correct win-at-all costs guy is being identified, fine. My whole thing here has not necessarily been to hammer Michigan State but to point out how little sense the media storyline about Rodriguez being some sort of renegade has made given the epic crime spree MSU has been on.

So now we know: Dantonio is just another boys-will-be-boys football coach, albeit one who wears his faith as a shield in a crassly cynical way. We can stop vilifying Rich Rodriguez for taking another job now, right?

Hockey weekend. The athletic department managed to schedule the home half of the Ferris State home and home at the exact same time Michigan plays Penn State, and then didn't move the game to Sunday, so 14 people will enjoy a matchup against the Bulldogs tomorrow. The away half is tonight; Yost Built has ten things about Ferris for you. The Bulldogs are 4-2 so far with a sweep of St. Lawrence, a split against Ohio State, and a split against Alabama-Huntsville. It doesn't seem like this is one of the occasional FSU teams that's a contender for a tourney bid.

More Ufer. Nice hair, everyone!

Also Frank Beckmann fluff.

Etc.: I can see why PSU folk think David Jones is their Drew Sharp. Soony Saad scores from distance… like own-half distance. Kenpom says he has "a special place in [his] heart" for MGoBlog because of its David Berri screed. Swoon! Michigan's apple tradition. A look at the future (and distant future) of the weakside linebacker position.