2011 hockey tournament

You win. Behold the power of the Michigan internets, as it collectively raised nearly six grand for refugees last week:

1. Michigan 46 5843.83
2. Auburn 45 3,870.21
3. Alabama 14 1991.66
4. UGA 20 1915.21
5. Texas 5 1625.73

Michigan nearly tripled everyone except Auburn. Ohio State chipped in 232.67, Michigan State 126.81, Penn State 48.14. Yes, the Nittany Lions were beat out by Georgetown, Case Western, and NYU on a college football blog—it's the Zack Mills era again. As your reward Orson will produce fawning Michigan content, but thanks to the parsimony of the rest of the league we came up only halfway to the 50k tattoo level. Orson has a special message for everyone, as well:

Dear MGoBlog commentariat.

I would like to thank you, the Michigan fanbase, alums, and assorted daywalking saints of the Great Mitten State, for both your generosity and enthusiasm in taking part in the EDSBS Charity Drive and for helping us raise $25,000 for the cause of refugee resettlement. We at EDSBS are fond of harumphing in the direction of your Michigan Man-ness in the name of gentle mockery, but this one is from the heart to Michigan Men and Women who make the concept so much more than a hollow saying. HARUMPH! from the bottom of our gin-soaked heart, MGoBlog.

We love you, and we thank you. Now that we're all awkwardly emotional, um [XKCD CARTOON OR MUPPETS GO HERE. ]

--Spencer

Orson asked what I'd like to see as he temporarily re-skins EDSBS and I was like "Tim Biakabutuka but we should ask the internet," so throw your ideas for anything below this post.

This Week In "I Forgot About This Draft." I threw a bunch of links in a post with the intent of getting to them later and totally forgot about them, thus robbing you of my opinion on Brady Hoke's contract*, some memories of Vada Murray, one with an embarrassing URL, and Chad Ford saying "a number of NBA scouts($)" believe Darius Morris needs to return to school. Also this, the most Michigan sign ever:

 
(Via @ChildrenOfYost, @sgtwolverine)

The Michigan Difference is saving refugees while making wikipedia jokes.

*[Why is Hoke's buyout double Rodriguez's? What's the benefit of locking yourself in like that when your man would "walk to Ann Arbor"? Like… in the unlikely event Hoke wins three games the next three years wouldn't you want to move on to the next guy?]

Yes, sir, anything you want me to convert to sir. Buried towards the end of a lengthy profile of 6'6", 330 pound weightlifting champ and OL walk-on Gary Yerden is this biographical tidbit:

Yerden is a Jehovah's Witness….

…one who gets results, no doubt.

Sundry basketball recruiting bits. UMHoops hit up last weekend's Pitt AAU tournament and came back with scouting reports and seven minutes of Glen Robinson III video. (Nick Stauskas was supposed to attend but got sick, leaving Robinson the featured attraction.) The scouting video reveals many, many dunks but not a whole lot of play in a structured halfcourt offense—such is the nature of AAU.

It's apparent that Robinson will instantly be Michigan's best athlete when he arrives. Dude can get up. His shooting is more of a question. He's got a nice-looking stroke but started that tournament with some bricks worthy of Brent Petway. He did warm up late.

As for the class of 2011, Max Preps has put out their final top 100. It features Burke and Brundidge in their usual slots between 60 and 80 (in this edition Brundidge is 62, Burke 80—the usual, one most Michigan fans with an opinion believe is backwards), and then here's a surprise:

100 Max Bielfeldt, PF/C Notre Dame (Peoria, IL) 6-9/230 

That would make Bielfeldt about as big of a prospect as Matt Vogrich, who showed up 100th on Scout's list because he was "the best shooter in the country" but didn't make any other. The Maxpreps list says it is a "composite" based both on high school production and college potential, the former of which helped the ultra-productive Bielfeldt.

So… I'll take a Vogrich-level 6'9" PF. Michigan didn't have a ton of irons in the fire for 2012 anyway and if Morris jets before he's a senior they'll still have an open scholarship for SIM BHULLAR(!).

Notre Dame series not so permanent. Remember when Michigan and Notre Dame agreed to play for 30 straight years? Not so much. We know they're taking a break in 2018 and 2019 and now David Brandon is creating the future in a way that might not include the Irish:

"I have to have seven home games a year. If you think about a nine-game Big Ten schedule, there will be one year I have four home games and one year I have five. In the year that I have four, I have to play every one of my non-conference games at home, so I can't be in a world where I have four Big Ten home games and I'm supposed to play Notre Dame (in South Bend). I can't live in that world. Those are the kinds of issues I have to deal with."

Let's ignore David Brandon speaking like he's the Queen of England for a second: a nine game conference schedule means the ND/OSU/Nebraska home-home-home thing might come to a head. It's possible that Michigan gets their way and won't have to change their ND schedule—the conference has a motivation to protect a rivalry game TV apparently loves because for insane reasons they get 11/12ths of the revenue—but if they do it's doubtful the series continues unless ND is willing to have UM and USC be home or away at the same time. They might since they tend to have another marquee opponent regularly and the Michigan game is important for their TV contract (which they don't have to share).

Ramgod shamgod. Add "mascot" to the list of things associated with OH OL Kyle Dodson that are epic:

I feel molested just looking at that thing. It's a Tom of Finland Thundercat, and it wants to sexy wrestle me.

Etc.: Kenpom adds coaching resumes. Now I don't have to thumb through each page to confirm last year's Michigan D was the best Beilein has fielded in a BCS conference. Zach Travis's spring game post is bullish on caveats before getting into opinions. Forward Thinking on Kaleb Ringer.

4/9/2011 – Michigan 2, Minnesota-Duluth 3 (OT) – 29-11-4, season over

There's a track on the Robert Earl Keen live album I've listened to incessantly since I was maybe a junior in college in which it's just him introing a song with a story. It's about how he went to the second Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic. Keen lies that he was "about 27 years old" at the time and had a date—his first date ever. He had so much fun in "the Willy Way" that he had to go take a nap.

He woke up from his nap to hear a man on the PA announcing that there had been a fire in the parking lot and that 40 cars had burned up. The first winner: RHP 997. Now, you might wonder why Keen and I remember that so well. In Keen's case it's because it was his car. In my case it's because I've listened to this story hundreds of times.

Keen's obviously devastated by this news, but his date laughs. Keen reminds her "we don't have a ride"; she responds "I do." Keen is introduced to Tarzan and Adonis, who promise to "take care of her, man." She departs. Keen is left with not enough of a car to carbon-14 date and no date when just a few hours ago he having the best time of his life.

He sits down.

He sits down on the grass. On the burnt grass, the black, burnt dirt and grass, and he weeps. "Big, old, giant tears."

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I don't know, man.

I've got a post in the hopper titled "the bottom" that details the stunning descent in Michigan athletics that started when Bo died the day before Football Armageddon and to my eyes stopped on January 17th when Greg Mattison was hired away from an NFL team to coordinate Michigan's defense. Since then the basketball team exceeded anything approximating reasonable expectations, Jim Tressel and Ohio State seem to have started a long, ugly process of implosion, and the hockey team deflected its way to a 50-50 shot at glory. We are finally on the way up.

That doesn't mean they are. Hagelin and Scooter and Hunwick just saw something slip through their fingers they'll never get back. I guess Hunwick has a shot next year but a quick look at the roster shows a team that should be happy to extend the tourney streak—in all likelihood this was it for Tiny Jesus. I'm trying to decide whether this is actually worse than last year. At least last year promised this year; right now it's hard to see Michigan back here for years, like when Boo Nieves is a sophomore and whichever 2013 forwards stick might be awesome. Next year's impact help is playing in the OHL.

So I'm not sure when that shot will come again. Maybe it will be next year—hockey is bizarre that way—but despite a season as frustrating as a conference championship can be by the end I was deeply, deeply invested in Hagelin and the kids who gave him a flag and our 5'7" third-string walk-on goalie with a story the Air Bud producers would send back as too hackneyed. The hours after the North Dakota game were one long shuddering as my body gradually remembered things other than pure terror, and to lose—to frankly deserve to lose—after that was like all the horror described last year but with more finality. That happened and won't happen again and it wasn't enough.

Keen goes on to room with Lyle Lovett and carve out a career as a minor country star who doesn't have to give a crap what Nashville thinks, but being a musician doesn't come with eligibility restrictions. I spent Saturday thinking of all the guys who came and went during Michigan's long championship interregnum: Cammalleri and Comrie and Shouneyia and Hensick and all the other brilliant 5'8" guys college hockey makes into gods. Jed Ortmeyer, who has more work ethic in a finger than I do in my entire body and once killed two St. Cloud players in the first five minutes of a tourney game at Yost. Jack Johnson. Milan Gajic and his magic ability to not score spectacular goals. Jason Ryznar and Craig Murray always seeming way better than they were. Al Montoya sitting in the penalty box. Brandon Kaleniecki living inside the goalie's jersey. Jay Vancik convincing me he was an NHL player. Bob Gassoff, who I once screamed "why even give him a stick?" in the general direction of.

I wrote about the fans and thought I'd write about them after—I guess I am, but not in the way I wanted to. Today we add Caporusso and Vaughn and Hagelin and Langlais and Winnett and Rust and Hogan to the list of people to valorize at some point in the indeterminate future.

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As Keen was dripping onto the grass some guy from the festival came up and said "the least we can do is let you meet Willy," but Willy had to go jam with Leon Russell. Many years later he recorded one of Keen's songs as part of the Highwaymen—this is all in the story.

At some point Michigan is actually going to win another goddamned national championship and some of this will be redeemed. Not all of it, though. Shawn Hunwick is never going to do that again, and nothing's ever going to match the Swedish flag and my complete failure to get people to replace all words in the goal cheer with "bork" when Hagelin scores. Things come and go; this one has gone and I'm stunned at how much I miss it already.

Seriously, No Bullets

Why this is so early in the morning. You see, Rudy, the fiancée's dissertation is due today and it's like 350 pages and I edited all of it and at one point there was a sentence with three different serial commas in it and my head exploded and I haven't actually gone to bed yet. So 1) early post because I decided it was now or never and 2) I am going to bed and will see you tomorrow and will bump Tom's weekly when I wake up this afternoon. kthxbye.

Okay, one. Congratulations to Duluth, who got a deserved win. I don't know what it was, but they spent the entire game turning Michigan's defensemen. Were they just blown out from the North Dakota game? I find that hard to believe when they had two days off and Duluth also played, but I hadn't seen anyone get around Michigan's D with that consistency all year. Since that includes UND and some other very good teams I wonder if the semi just took too much out of them.

It's impossible to be mad at a team with no previous titles and so many guys with awesome beards that don't match their blonde hair; congrats.

MGoBlue /Ghostwhistle. Not in picture: Hockey East referee being incompetent.

Site note: If you're here for the official MGo-Take on last night's championship game, only Brian can deliver that. These are my opinions, not the blog's. And my opinion is that "Intent to Blow" is the worst rule in sports:

As there is a human factor involved in blowing the whistle to stop play, the referee may intend for the play to be stopped slightly before the whistle actually being blown. For example, the fact that the puck may come loose or cross the goal line before the sound of the whistle has no bearing if the referee determined that the play had stopped.

I have been saying that for years, mostly because the Red Wings are famous for getting screwed by it like all the time. So when Michigan had their first goal waived off last night, I already knew what I'd be writing about this morning, because "Intent to Blow" is one of those topics that I – like pretty much anyone else with who spends an unhealthy amount of time at Kukla's Korner - get screaming mad about whenever it's brought up. The internet hockey world thinks it's such a joke that it's the nom de plume of its best satire guy.

So of course the consensus most mindfuckingly stupid rule ever goes ahead and rips away a National Championship from Michigan.

I can't get into the ludicrous penalty disparity (thanks again Hockey East) that had M playing one fifth of the game with 20% fewer players; I wasn't taking notes, and don't have the torrent yet. Not that it matters: during the course of a hockey game a puck squirted through a sieve and entered the UMD net several seconds before a whistle was blown. As is always the case with game-altering intent to blow calls, the referee was out of position in the corner, lost sight of the puck, and made up his mind that all official hockey activity had ceased. After making some tea and ambling his way behind the net, he finally deigned to blow his whistle to let everyone else know that hockey activities had ceased, and that all things that had transpired in the interim never happened.

In slow-mo thanks to hal2thevic0r:

The point of the rule, as I understand it, is to discourage dangerous scrums in front of the net between when the goalie goes down on the puck and the ref manages to get whistle to lips. But that is rendered moot by the players, who will play until they hear the whistle. Ultimately the refs should blow a play dead when they lose sight of the puck. However in an age when video replay is available and in use, it's all too easy to use standards for goal scoring and stoppage of play that are not at all subjective: pucks cross lines, whistles blow, and we just go to the evidence.

Above I linked the last round of a "worst rule in hockey" tournament by the Minnesota Wild SBNation site. The blog had this to say:

Intent to blow has crushed all opponents thus far in this competition. The reason is clear. Fans are tired of a rule that has so clearly cost teams games. The referees are not supposed to affect the outcome of a game. They are simply supposed to call the penalties and ensure a fair game. With a rule such as this, they have the subjective control to change the outcome of a game. That's just not acceptable.

The rule of "play to the whistle" seems so simple. It is reviewable, it is fair, and it is indisputable. Was the puck across when the whistle blew? Yes or no are the only two answers. Was the puck across the line when the referee intended to blow the whistle? How are we ever supposed to know that?

I'll go further: Video makes the Intent clause nothing more than a cover for referee fallibility. It's the ref's fault, not the players', if he's out of position and loses sight of the puck because of it. Even good refs can have bouts of incompetence, because hockey changes direction faster than jetpack Smurf Denards on swivel rollerskates.* If he blows an early whistle, well, that's an inevitable thing that happens with human refs. The Intent rule was an understandable standard in the absence of instant replay, because how else do you make a call out of a total clusterf—?

MGoBlue /How dare you question my intent! To the box, all of ye!

Video changes this because we now have what is essentially another referee who's usually in the perfect position and can provide incontrovertible evidence of everything he saw. So if the on-ice ref doesn't blow his whistle until later, what the bloody hell does it matter when he lost sight of the puck, just so long as the video didn't? Why codify errors that are easily avoided? Why keep a rule which its only extant function is to disallow good goals?

I swear if Michigan had scored the overtime winner I'd still hate the stupid rule. If UMD had a goal disallowed I'd still hate the stupid rule. But of course the stupid rule had to be the exact difference in a national title for the one team I can't possibly claim a lack of total idiot bias for.

Due to the butterfly effect we have no idea if the game would have transpired differently had that goal been allowed, but it doesn't change the fact that except for a rule that allows referee incompetence to trump video evidence Michigan scored 3 goals before Minnesota-Duluth did. If you're here from UMD looking for some sour grapes, okay, you have a fine hockey team which played some championship-worthy hockey these past few weeks. Congratulations. Also: the Bulldog is a silly name for a hockey team.

Way to go Champ.

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* If you allow that there are competent NCAA hockey refs surely you'll forgive me jetpack Smurf Denards and their associated accoutrements.

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Diaries and Whatnot, but First Lose the Shirt

Eddie Shore?

2006 Tigers fans will nod at this: sometimes you have a team that looked kinda good but not like world beaters, and then all of a sudden they're in a miracle season with new traditions and a palpable excitement, and then they topple Goliath and the only thing between it and a championship is the one thing all year they're actually favored a little bit to beat. Then it goes to hell, and not in the "well we came as far as we could" kind of way of freshmen losing to Duke by two but in the 20 errors by pitchers while the dream is shot and stabbed kind of way.

The way Michigan was playing last night after Intent to Blow you thought they were the better team. Then came all the UMD power plays – a few of them actually deserved – and by overtime you could tell Scooter had lost a step and Rust was run ragged and with all of that shaking something had to finally come loose.

It's been five years since the '06 Tigers got within sight of The Thing then fell out of the tree, but all I remember today is the climb. There was gum and Verlander and Inge fouling off 25 pitches from Barry Zito and the Slam in the Bronx, and all of that. Five years from now, what will we remember? The penalties will sting, but more than that it'll be Caporusso's Valentine, Scooter's shot, Rust's defiance of human capacity, a huge Swedish flag, and a tiny little goalie who made big.

Your Diarist of the Week is Gordon, who's already there:

At this time next year, around the time that new banners go up, and old banners get updated, there will be a Carl Hagelin plaque hanging in the north hallway of Yost. Is that anything to be disappointed about?

That's the conclusion of Gordon's diary, but like the 2010-11 Michigan Men's Ice Hockey season, it's not about the end but the journey.

Old Time Hockey?

Before the championship game became literally just this, Brian – as only that guy can do – aptly summarized the "1-0" victory over NoDak as the "world's longest penalty kill." Shortly before that Blazefire made a much less apropos analogy of Berenson's coaching v. UND to a Lloyd game:

"Make that lead hold up, boys! Drive them crazy!"

Just like a Lloyd coached game, UND had chances, and plenty of them. But what they got very little of was the break away, one on that makes goalies around the world wet themselves. Most of their good chances erupted from a pile of bodies, more of which were Maize and Blue than Green and White.  But it was always in a pile of chaos that’s hard to take advantage of.

“We’re gonna out-execute them. No mistakes. Do it right every time.”

Blazefire is pretty much wrong on the comparison – that's just my e-opinion – except for the part of the quote I bolded. If you ask me, Berenson's more Fielding Yost than Lloyd Carr or Bo. But I could totally see him telling his players on the bench that whole UND game: "keep up the pressure, you're driving them crazy!"

FTR, I like Blazefire. I just think the analogy isn't a fit.

They Teach You How to Underline in College

Board, meet yourself:

This is but one small sample of wingedsig's survey results, posted mere moments before I was going to post this. I haven't even read through it all yet but it's MGoDemographics and long so giddyup!

User ertai last week laid out his case for paying D-I revenue sport players, comparing Ph.D. students and their stipends on the basis of how much $ and prestige they bring to the university by choosing to do their work here. Some folks negged him out of hand because paying players is going to be a non-starter for the current NCAA folks. But:

As we can see, from a high level perspective, there are many similarities. The difference is that PhD students get a stipend, which varies based on the school and the location. Also schools may offer PhD students different amounts of money for their services based on how good they are. For example, an OSU PhD student choosing between OSU, MIT and Stanford will probably get a larger offer from OSU than one who just got into OSU. Stipends range between 15K to 30K a year, based on the department, school, and your attractiveness as a candidate.

Read and lend your e-pinion – it's obvious he put some time and thought into the proposal. The strongest case I can make against it is that for most schools, even in D-I, the revenue sports can barely bring in enough to pay for the rest of the athletic department, so we'd essentially be going back to a system of a few mega-Haves and the Boise States of the world unable to compete. Michigan would obviously be a Have, but the other 90% would raise so much hell it's a non-starter.

The folks who don't like Johnny RBUAS got a rep in the diaries in zoltan the destroyer, who riffed on Johnny's guest post. Of course, zoltan totally missed the point: the intellectual weakness of a Johnny post isn't in being kindly sentimental to his subjects, just in the bias of choosing Michigan subjects. When I can explain in less than 800 words why Johnny fans like me naturally get bent out of shape when a cynic breaks up our sap, I'll do so. Just a thought from a writer's perspective: the reason the thoughts he puts in M players' heads are those of great good isn't saying they're all heroes; he's doing that because in our own heads we're all heroes. Make sense? Probably not. Have a haterz gif.

PLAYOFF TIME IS HOCKEY BEAR TIME

The Essentials 

Minnesota-Duluth

Record. 25-10-6, 15-8-5 WCHA.  Duluth is necessarily less terrifying than North Dakota. They're approximately as terrifying as UNO: they finished a point behind the Mavericks in the WCHA and were +28 in goal differential (UNO was +35). Their nonconference performance was a bit better than UNO's, but other than a weird nonconference matchup with North Dakota the opponents were not strong. KRACH—which stopped updating before tournament results came in—has them 7th. Michigan is 6th. (North Dakota was an easy #1.)

The Bulldogs spent time earlier in the year at #1 but struggled late in their conference schedule. After a sweep of Michigan Tech in late January they finished the regular season 3-4-3; their best opponents were CC (one point) and UNO (split). In the WCHA playoffs they beat St. Cloud in the first round, then lost to Bemidji in the quarterfinals.

In the tournament they were fortunate to be the only non-AH/ECAC team in Yale's regional. They beat Union 2-0 despite getting outshot 32-26 by scoring two power play goals. Against Yale they jumped out to a 3-0 lead. After Yale got one back, Brian O'Neill, the goalscorer and Yale's best player, was kicked out of the game on a clean open-ice hit. UMD scored twice on the ensuing five-minute power play and that was all she wrote; Yale did add two PP goals of their own in the third. Yesterday they fell behind in the first period twice but bounced back quickly; their power play scored three more goals. An ND shortie closed the gap but not all the way.

If you're scoring at home, Duluth has two even strength goals in three NCAA tournament games. They've been outshot by 6, 7, and 13.

Previous meetings. None. How about…

Common opponents. Chart? Chart.

Duluth is 7-6-4 with a –1 goal differential; Michigan is 11-3-1 with a +19 goal differential. Woot? Well, here the schedule strength is not close at all since Michigan's only got the one game against North Dakota and four against meh CCHA teams like LSSU and Northern. On the other hand, Minnesota was pretty bad this year and Michigan only got one crack at them—they lost, but if they played four they might have done better than 1-1-2.

Yes, everyone on UMD dyed their hair blond.
Yes, this makes everyone look like eurotrash except the guys with beards.
Yes, the guys with beards just look amazing.
Clint Austin/Duluth News

Dangermen. Also way less terrifying than North Dakota's. Closer to CC's with a stronger second line and much worse depth. CC has six forwards with more than 20 points; four are on a PPG-ish pace. From Michigan's perspective, that's better than UND's six. Their top line is outstanding—brothers Mike (28-26-54) and Jack Connolly (18-41-59) team with Justin Fontaine (22-36-58) to create a line on par with CC's Schwartz/Schultz combo and not far off UND's Frattin/Malone/Trupp. Their even strength numbers are a bit less impressive, as 26 of the line's 68 goals came with an advantage. Scooter actually has more ES goals than Jack Connolly and Fontaine. That's not to say scoring on the PP lots is bad thing—it's just that they're two different phases. North Dakota's even strength scoring was far more intimidating.

The second line is pretty strong as well, with JT Brown's 16-20-36 leading the way and a couple others not far behind. After that scoring collapses. One guy has thirteen points and then it's a bunch of nothing—this should be a game in which Michigan's third and fourth lines dominate.

Defense and goalie and whatnot. Junior Kenny Reiter is a step back from UND's Aaron Dell but is better than the  goalies for either of Michigan's regional opponents. He has a slightly above average .914 save percentage. Tiny Jesus is up to .925 after blanking North Dakota.

Faulk has played Michigan before. Mark Bialik/AnnArbor.com.

The UMD defense has one ultra-star in freshman Justin Faulk, a second round pick of the Hurricanes in last year's draft. Faulk has 8-25-33 and is hyped up by many as the best freshman defenseman in the country. Jon Merrill might have something to say about that, but he's very good. The United States of Hockey scouts him:

As I mentioned, a big reason UMD’s power play works so well is because of the threat Faulk provides from the top of the point. Teams don’t want him to unleash his accurate and heavy shot without someone in his face. Due to that, there’s more room down low and on the half walls for the Connollys, Brown and Fontaine.

The other thing about Faulk, as friend of the blog Corey Pronman pointed out, is that he doesn’t shoot if he doesn’t have a lane and is far more than an offense-only defenseman. I think that’s why he’s probably the best pro prospect playing.

People in the NHL think he has "50 point upside."

Six of his eight goals are on the PP, and no other UMD defenseman has more than a few goals with token assists—they're a stay at home bunch. UMD radio guy Bruce Ciskie on the D corps:

UMD was hit with the mid-season departure of former Chicago first-rounder Dylan Olsen, who was going to be academically ineligible for the second half of the season. An injury to junior Brady Lamb made them quite thin for a time in February. They're better now, with senior captain Mike Montgomery and freshman sensation Justin Faulk (2010 second-round pick by Carolina) taking most of the big minutes. Lamb and sophomore Wade Bergman will see plenty of ice time. Sophomore Drew Olson needs to be more consistent, but he's been better while paired with fifth-year senior Trent Palm.

Sounds like the third pairing is a bit of an issue.

Special teams. Your power plays per game:

Duluth is slightly less likely to draw and more likely to commit an infraction. Michigan can't buy a call.

This is the same story as the previous two games: UMD, CC, and North Dakota are 7-8-9 in power play effectiveness, which means they're very very good and you are playing with fire every time you go to the box. The only power conference teams in front of that trio are BC and Miami. UMD's given up only three shorthanded goals compared to CC's 11 and UND's 7, so they're even a bit better than the numbers suggest.

Michigan's mediocre play earlier in the season gave way to an outstanding penalty kill in the tournament. North Dakota could hardly get set up on their five opportunities and CC was shut down. They're still languishing in the 20s; they're playing much, much better than that.

On the flipside it's a matchup between the #27 PP and the #27 PK that will be won or lost by the accuracy of Michigan point shots.

Michigan Vs Those Guys

Erin Kirkland/Daily

Rust Annihilation Co. Again Michigan comes across a team vulnerable to the incredible shutdown line they've iced since the three-game slide at the three-quarters pole. With last change Michigan will throw Rust, Glendening, and Winnett out there against the Connollys and hope to outscore with their other three lines. (Yes, three. I take it all back, fourth line.) If Rust and company can do what they did to the Schwartzes Michigan is halfway home.

STAY OUT OF THE BOX. I realize this can be difficult when refs think your shoulder is your elbow and ignore boarding and charging from the other team, but seriously: UMD has two even strength goals in the tourney. That's not very many. While Michigan doesn't have many more they are a different sort of team. Michigan is 6th in goals allowed, UMD 17th. If Michigan keeps the penalties in check and kills them the way they did against UND they're three quarters of the way home, leaving…

Scooter, Caporusso, Moffatt, Treais, someone: score. Hagelin and Caporusso will draw the second UMD scoring line, leaving a bunch of mugs up against Michigan's third and fourth lines. With UMD's third defensive pairing also a little shaky, those lines need to be at least +1 collectively. We can't bank on the Annihilation Co actually outscoring the opposition's mad awesome line again.

How likely is this? At least somewhat. UMD's been significantly outshot in the tournament despite a wicked power play; if Michigan can play the game five on five they should have a territorial advantage. They bombed a team with a similar lack of depth in the regional final and only scored two because Joe Howe went Hunwick and Joe Howe's posts did too.

Burlon? I was surprised Burlon wasn't ready to go. Actually, I'm not sure he wasn't. It sounds like the reason he was scratched was Red wanting to leave the regionals lineup intact. That's very strange to me because Clare does not get a whole lot of run—certainly not as much as Burlon would—and there's at least one shift a game where the speed of these good WCHA teams clearly overwhelms his ability to get rid of the puck in an effective fashion. I'm guessing we'll see Clare out there again, but there's a case that you can hide Burlon against these iffy UMD lines, especially with last change. Having him out there for his offense seems like a benefit.

You can make the same case for Sparks over Rohrkemper but that's definitely not happening. /shakes fist

HUNWIIIIIIIIICK. From the North Dakota preview:

Hunwick has done it before this year and while my past self is inventing a time machine just so he can show up right after I type this to slap some sense into me, most win scenarios involve Hunwick setting up halfway to the blue line and stopping every first shot and then doing some crazy stuff you can't even believe is happening.

He probably won't have to do that in this game—shots figure to be at least even—but if he's on like that it's party time. He can't possibly be again, but this is hockey so yeah he could.

Pray like hell. Seriously, yo.

The Big Picture

Win or die.

Elsewhere

i just did one of these but in the meantime there has been a TWB post on Shawn Hunwick…

Jon Merrill rang an almost-perfect shot off the crossbar, and with 13:26 remaining in the first period Ben Winnett — a player who had scored all of three goals this season — eventually corralled the rebound and buried it to give Michigan the all-important 1-0 lead. A North Dakota fan flashed his middle finger, one of those derogatory gestures meant to say, “Enjoy it while you can,” in expectation of the inevitable comeback. The Sioux battled back with increased intensity, turning up the pressure on the Wolverines and turning the game into one of those Hockey Games That Take Years Off Your Life. Watching North Dakota play, it was hard not to agree with Middle Finger Guy: This was far from over.

…and a torrent.

Guh:

Junior defenseman Brandon Burlon is listed as a healthy scratch on Michigan's line chart for tonight's Frozen Four semifinal against North Dakota (8:30 p.m., ESPN2).

I wonder how much run they'll give Clare; it'll probably depend on how effective North Dakota's forecheck is.

Epic fark. There is a Jim Tressel Signing Things fark thread at TigerDroppings featuring frequent contributions from LSUFreek. There's an excessive quantity of lolbewbs but there are also gems like this:

Try to get that out of your head within the next decade.

Refinements. Frequent diarist the_white_tiger has started up his blog, Maize Colored Glasses, and one of his first posts is a refinement of the polynomial graphs purveyed on The Only Colors that show performance trends over the conference season. TWT increased the polynomial count—this allows more "turns" in the graph—and normalized for opponent performance.

Michigan's result won't surprise you but the way they got there might:

There might have been a very slight uptick in the offense; the defense got massively better. The really really high yellow spot on the graph was that Indiana blowout. Horrible team given many points == ugly. From there the turnaround was gradual improvement. I linked one of John Gasaway's "Tuesday Truths" column around the middle of the conference season to point out that Michigan was dead last in defense; the year-end numbers TWT is using show them squarely middle of the road (sixth).

My favorite other graph is Minnesota's:

There should be a vertical line at game seven labeled "Al Nolen explodes, season goes with it."

Burlon status. Brandon Burlon is tentatively expected to play at next weekend's Frozen Four:

After not being able to eat solid foods last week, losing close to 20 pounds and as a result having to sit out during the regional round of the playoffs. Brandon Burlon skated at Monday and Tuesday’s practices. He said he’s regaining the weight steadily.

Burlon said he expects to play next weekend, but a final determination has not been made.

Twenty pounds seems a little sensational. In any case, getting Burlon back would be huge as Michigan goes up against a Sioux team featuring the best—or, from Michigan's perspective, worst—aspects of the UNO and CC teams they beat to reach St. Paul. Like CC, they have a lights out top line. Hobey lock Matt Frattin is coring at a nearly goal-per-game pace. Like UNO, they have scoring depth. Six forwards have at least 13 goals, a couple more have eight, and two defensemen are putting up Moffie-like numbers. Getting Burlon back gives Michigan the defensive depth to match UND's forward depth.

Hypothetically, anyway. I've been looking at their stats for the past five minutes and feeling deeply unhappy.

Stunning omission. I have beef with The Wolverine Blog's Faces of Tim Hardaway top ten. It omits the face that launched the meme in the immediate aftermath of DEATH TO BACKBOARDS:

That's clearly #3 behind Douglass throwing Tennessee in a volcano and the f-yeah shot from MSU. This concludes my beef.

The only lawyer in America. Someone on the board linked to an article about a lawyer discussing what's going down at Ohio State and if they can expect more than the wrist slap they've given themselves, and I just knew in my bones we were about to get a quote from…

“If I was representing a coach in that similar situation, I would advise my client to expect not only a show-cause order assessed against him or her, but also significant individual penalties that may cause their employer, which is the university, to either terminate their employment or some other significant employment action,” said Michael L. Buckner, of Pompano Beach, Fla., whose law firm specializes in representing schools and individuals before the NCAA. “I’d tell them they should be prepared for that.“

I like him so much more when he's producing alarmist soundbites about other teams.

Buckner-issued proclamations about Michigan's NCAA foofaraw turned out to be just that but media framing had a lot to do with that—see this article titled "Avoiding show-cause order a must for Michigan, Rodriguez" from Dave Birkett that has Buckner explaining that show-cause is bad, mmmkay, despite the fact that no one thought it was even vaguely plausible once the hype about the initial article was replaced by a general sense that it was crap. In that article Buckner has this to say:

“Michigan would have to make sure that Coach Rodriguez follows the show-cause order,” Buckner said. “If he’s found to have committed the failure to monitor, issued a show-cause order, and then he goes to West Virginia … and if he’s found to have failed to monitor in that case, than a show-cause order can be enhanced significantly."

Buckner said Michigan must “provide as much evidence as (it) can to defend Coach Rodriguez so that (it) can eliminate that failure to monitor allegation.”

“Whether or not you can actually do that” remains to be seen, he said.

There's a big gap between "if, if, if" in the latter article—it did turn out Michigan had enough to eliminate the failure to monitor allegation, for all the good that did for Rodriguez's employment prospects—and "expect not only a show cause but significant individual penalties."

FWIW, that's a Bruce Hooley article. Hooley's the guy who went ape on the radio about this whole thing and is apparently going whole hog in an effort to become a guy who makes money by being hated. He's not exactly unbiased.

BONUS: Eleven Warriors is totally right that Stanley McClover claiming he got cash from OSU and MSU isn't going to amount to anything, but I loved to imagine an Ohio State fan who was one of the legion saying "I remember when he decommitted, not surprised there was some funny business going on there" watching the HBO special and going from smug to outraged in the space of an anecdote.

BONUS BONUS: Tressel situation "totally unacceptable," OSU president says!

Oregon State president Ed Ray was executive vice president and provost at Ohio State in 2001, and had input into the hiring of Tressel. He’s now chairman of the NCAA executive committee, and told Rachel Bachman of The Oregonian that “this whole episode to me is beyond the pale. It’s totally unacceptable. I’m pretty disappointed and startled by it all.”

Goddammit, Sporting News headline writers. I hate you so much.

BONUS BONUS BONUS: Is it possible to see Rich Rodriguez these days and not think he's constantly fighting the urge to kill everyone in the room?

Three years ago I was a broken thumb away from a national championship game. I was a hero. I invented the spread offense.

Now everyone in two states hates me and thinks I'm retarded. A month ago I interviewed my replacement—who walked into Denard Robinson and Jim Tressel making my fake NCAA violations look like the Nobel Peace Prize—on television. Right this instant I'm staring at Jason Whitlock, surrounded by men in suits. Jason Whitlock. Suits. Whitlocksuits. whssiiisisfi

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU /goes Falling Down on universe

"It is not often that you have to stare the death of your basketball program in the face". Matt Painter's flirtation with Missouri was an earth-shaking event for Purdue fans. For confirmation a quick check of the first two pages at Hammer and Rails will suffice. Open letter: check. Open thread soaring well past a thousand comments: check. Bolded quote: check. Wholesale demolition of your entire athletic department:

Check. The answer is pretty much "yes"; contained within the link is a more comprehensive explosion of an athletic department than you'll find anywhere. IU fans should bookmark it for future e-peen wars. It incidentally makes you go "whoah" halfway through:

Total Number of Big Ten Championships as of spring 2009:

Michigan             347

Illinois                 228

Ohio State          185

Wisconsin           180

Indiana                 162

Minnesota          154

Iowa                      104

Michigan State 81

Northwestern   69

Purdue                 67

Penn State          50

Nebraska             0 (obviously)

Michigan has a lot of sports and has been around a lot of years but holy crap, man. That doesn't even include hockey.

And now for a completely different tangent on Painter. I've been annoyed at Braves & Birds' theory that the Big Ten has been disappointing in football because it hires losers like Ron Zook and nuts like Tim Brewster over actual football coaches. Lately I'm just annoyed it's right. It's hard to dispute after the latest round of hires from the Richest Conference In The Universe is MAC and Mountain West guys with iffy records. None of these guys are Bobby Petrino.

Painter has been wildly successful. Missouri is locked into an abusive relationship with Texas and would have punched a swan to get into the Big Ten this summer. Their TV contract sucks. They have little cachet outside their home state. They do not have a network that drops by every once in a while to drop off a new diamond boat. If Purdue had been too cheap to keep him that would have been a stunning indictment of Purdue, and I think that would have bled over into the entire mentality of a conference that really expects people to call its conferences "Legends and Leaders."

As it is the fact that it was even close is a mild indictment.

Etc.: Gasaway on his lack of moral outrage at NCAA amateurism. Incoming goalie John Gibson interviewed.