Hello Hibbitts. Brent Hibbitts did decide to sign on with Michigan as a preferred walk-on over various MAC and other mid-major offers. This is more notable than most other walk-on acquisitions because Hibbits has intriguing size—he's 6'8"—and had a high level of interest from D-I programs. His skill set also fits in with Michigan:

Hibbitts averaged 17.4 points and 11.5 rebounds per game as a senior at Hudsonville last season, earning Associated Press Class A All-State honorable mention status and leading the Eagles to a district championship.

"He has a really nice skill set," Hudsonville coach Eric Elliott told MLive last Wednesday. "He can handle the ball, is a great passer with court vision and has a nice shooting touch. Interested schools see him as a stretch four. That's his ideal position."

There's a lot of competition at that spot presently, but give Hibbitts some time and there's a nonzero chance he's a contributor late in his career. I mean, we all know where the Stain Train started.

Weirder things have happened.

This is about to change. It already has with Dennis Norfleet's exit, in fact. It is a breakdown of attrition in the Big Ten:

TEAM	2011	2012	2013	2014	TOTAL
IOWA	10	8	7	0	25
Rutgers	10	3	5	1	19
Michigan	14	1	2	1	18
Illinois	8	5	3	1	17
Ohio State	11	4	0	1	16
Nebraska	6	4	5	1	16
Minnesota	6	3	4	2	15
Maryland	7	5	2	0	14
Penn State	4	3	5	1	13
Wisconsin	1	4	4	3	12
Purdue	2	5	2	2	11
Indiana	7	1	3	0	11
Michigan State	5	4	1	0	10
Northwestern	0	2	2	0	4

That is spectacular on Michigan's part. The 2011 class rivaled 2010 in flameouts, and then virtually nobody left for three years. There's about to be a major uptick, but at least Michigan retained the bulk of their prospects before the inevitable attrition that comes with a coaching turnover.

Iowa is pretty salty about what's going on there BTW:

In all of the non-Iowa seasons in which a program lost 10 or more players -- 2011 Michigan, Ohio State and Rutgers -- a coach had left, with the new coach either cleaning house (Meyer, Hoke/Harbaugh) or failing to keep the last coach's guys (Flood).  Iowa, of course, has no such impetus for big attrition.

That is especially galling when Wisconsin and Michigan State are quality redshirt-and-develop programs with recruiting approximately on Iowa's level. It seems impossible that Ferentz will get Iowa back to even B+ football before his buyout reaches plausibility.

DAYTON. ONLY DAYTON. I mean.

Who did it better me or @spidadmitchell @hoopmixtape @ballislife @teamflightbrothers #LITE

A video posted by Aubrey Dawkins (@siraubreydawkins) on May 11, 2015 at 11:12am PDT

If Hibbitts had been offered by Dayton he would have gotten a full hello post, I think.

Overseas options hit hockey. I don't think this is going to be a trend since 18-year-olds can just go play in the NHL if they're that good, but uber-prospect Auston Matthews is at least considering the option of spending next year in Switzerland:

The Everett Silvertips of the Western Hockey League hold his junior rights after selecting him in the third round of the 2012 bantam draft. A report from Switzerland’s Blick News Service on Sunday said Matthews had signed a contract to play for the Zurich Lions in the Swiss A League.

He denied that report, but said he was keeping all options—including the A League—open. It was doubtful Matthews was going to sign on with Michigan, and more doubtful after the Copp stuff broke. It would have been fun to see him in college anyway.

HATIN' ASS MICHIGAN SPURRIER. The fruits of your labors, ladies and gentlemen:

Notre Dame players hit that "Play Like A Champion Today" sign, and dang if they don't look like a ten dollar sweatshirt you got in 1993.

Don't think Michigan fans should be torn up about the Notre Dame rivalry ending. If they want to play a religious school that goes .500 against USC, Boston College is free.

Rudy and The Lego Movie are basically the same story, except nobody pretends The Lego Movie is a documentary.

Bielfeldt is on the move. Any remaining hopes that Michigan might hang on to Max Bielfeldt are now gone, and it is definitely the coaching staff's choosing.

"I did tell the coaches that I did want to come back to Michigan," Bielfeldt said. "But at the end of the day things didn't work out and we both decided to move on."

Bielfedlt added, "I told (coaches) that I wanted to stay (and) Michigan was my first choice but as time went on I had to explore other options."

That is odd since it doesn't look like they are going to fill their 13th spot this year. I am more enthused about Ricky Doyle than most people but even I think Bielfeldt is a backup plan worth having when you have major questions about the guys behind him.

Etc.: Sierra Romero is ESPNW's softballist of the year. The Longhorn Network is a disaster. Jay Mariotti still has Jay Mariotti opinions. Rudock profiled. Remember this site calling the pursuit of Jim Harbaugh the "Harbaugh Hail Mary?" Here's a Harbaugh Hail Mary. On the shoe wars. Exposure U details.

Random Canadian Bo appearance. Fire as per usual:

 

More Jaylen Brown. Brown sat down with Evan Daniels to talk about his recruitment. On Michigan:

Michigan is definitely going to be in the front runner of things. Talking to Coach Beilein, he’s like an offensive genius the way he gets these guys that aren’t really ranked high to be lottery picks in the draft is amazing. It’s definitely something that drew my attention. Also Michigan is a great education school. They have one of the top public universities in America with Cal-Berkeley, UCLA and North Carolina.

He also said that "I took a lot of visits and nobody's basketball programs was as good as Kentucky," so temper that enthusiasm. Rivals is continually throwing cold water on any speculation Michigan might get him, but it sounds like Sam Webb is talking to a lot of people close to the situation while Rivals cites national analyst Eric Bossi.

FWIW, nobody is saying Michigan is a lock or even necessarily a leader: the difference here is between Scout guys thinking Michigan has a legitimate shot and Rivals saying not so much.

UPDATE: Brown told ESPN that he would be going to an Adidas school, flat-out. That would knock out Kentucky, leaving Michigan up against Kansas and UCLA.

Legends update. MVictors talks to Ben McCready, the godson of Bennie Oosterbaan:

Nothing is official, but U-M is indeed evaluating the Legends program and considering changes.

The evaluation is being driven, in part, by feedback from the players.

McCready’s understanding is that they do intend to maintain the Legends distinction, but are considering honoring those players in a different way.

All options are on the table including a presence in the stadium to recognize the Legends.

I'm mildly distressed by the "feedback from the players" bit since in the past that's been used as a won't someone think of the children cover for Adidas pandering and the like. Suspect that they don't actually dislike it enough to make a difference. But some sort of in-stadium note that hey, Desmond Howard played here would be nice—with the boxes there is a ton of blank space to act as canvas.

An excellent example of the hockey tournament's absurdity. Providence was literally the last team in the field—if Michigan had won the Big Ten tourney they would have bounced the Friars. They happen to host this year, so #4 seed Providence got to welcome #1 seed Miami.

They won that game in a looney-tunes 7-5 contest in which Miami played with an extra attacker for almost half the third period after falling behind 6-2, then beat Denver the next night and are now in the Frozen Four. This happens almost every year. RIT took out another overall #1 seed in the opener. That's the hockey equivalent of a 16 over 1 upset, something that has never ever happened in basketball but has been achieved by a single small school in upstate New York twice.

Single elimination basketball can be random; it is much less so than hockey. Good basketball teams win almost all their games. Good hockey teams win two thirds. Look at the pro level to see the spread between good teams and bad. Hockey is closer to baseball, where 100 wins—a measly 62%—is considered the benchmark for an excellent team, than basketball, where three NBA teams cleared 70% last year with Indiana a game back of that number.

So Miami has a season worth of a one seed and their reward is to fly cross country to play Providence in Providence in a one-off game in a building that was half empty* even by the inflated official count. I defy you to come up with a system more nonsensical than that. Can't be done.

Okay, okay, can't be done outside of cricket.

*[Two-day attendance of 14,234 in a building holding 12,400.]

Um? Hockey recruiting coverage is scanty and Auston Matthews is a big deal so let's hold on to this for a brief moment:

Matthews, who is expected to be selected No. 1 in the 2016 NHL draft, will center Heinen and Moore if he chooses DU over Michigan, among others, and the major-junior route.

Later that article reiterates that Matthews's top college choices are those two schools, and reading between the lines it appears that intelligence comes directly from the Denver program. Everett, a WHL team based in a midsize Washington city, has his CHL rights.

I remember. Harbaugh on his CSG presidency aspirations:

Disappointed w/ 4th place finish 4 @umich student body Pres. Competitive juices flowing! Hat in the ring for 2016 & will campaign w/ #EUTM!

— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) March 30, 2015

Yes, that is a hashtag for "enthusiasm unknown to mankind" that I will be enthusiastically, if ironically adopting.

But the best part of all this is that a Rivals commenter reminded me of the existence of Hideki. Hideki, a contemporary of mine at the university, won the then-MSA presidency in a landslide because he had a silly sign he carried with him everywhere:

These were the halcyon days in which the the student government's main function was dealing with BAMN so the rest of us didn't have to. We could safely dispatch an amiable man without a platform or a solid grasp of English as our representative, and we were rewarded with petty imbroglios like "that one time the vice president said the president had difficulty communicating and was called super racist":

Wong called for an apology from Secreto for "allowing the election to become a vehicle to foster racism on campus."

Many representatives and constituents said race was not the reason they were unhappy with Tsutsumi"s term.

"My problems are not with his language," said LSA senior Rodolfo Palma-Lulion. "It"s with his ideology."

"I don"t support the attacks on Hideki, but I don"t see them as racist," Kinesiology Rep. T.J. Wharry said. "I can"t understand what my grandparents say but they"re just as white as I am."

Tsutsumi said he felt all attacks on him were politically motivated and that he is "above the fray of party politics."

Drop that mike, Hideki. You clearly had all the vocabulary required to be a politician.

These days the CSG is serious business. It has to fix the athletic department's student ticketing policies, and cannot be solely deployed as a hilarious parody of national politics.

You'll never believe me. It turns out that Nick Saban doesn't care about one solitary thing in this world other than how to win many football games. It's almost like he's a robot programmed to act like a human being… poorly.

Etc.: On gentrifying the stadium experience. Jon Teske highlights. Gundy adapting.

Complying with the Norfleet Atomic Dog Act of 2560. What's better than Dennis Norfleet? Dennis Norfleet holding bread!

Regents meeting stuff. Not a whole lot happened other than a couple of students bombing Brandon hard; they did so more professionally than Brandon handled the Shane Morris incident.

Schissel reiterated his disappointment with the way the Shane Morris incident was handled; Andrea Newman publicly supported Brandon (the earliest we can terminate her status as regent is 2018, unfortunately); Mark Bernstein was the guy who sounded like he was talking the most sense:

“The Shane Morris incident, the poor performance of the football team, that’s like a spark in a very, very dry forest. And there’s not a lot of water around right now," Bernstein said. "I think the actions of the athletic department, I believe (some) generally agree, have drained whatever reservoir of goodwill there is with Michigan football in particular. So it makes navigating this issue far more difficult.

“Therefore, it makes this moment much more complex. Is that the fault of the athletic director? Partially. But at the same time, we all care deeply about this university. We care about the student-athletes who are working hard every day at the game they love. We care about our students, our fans, our alums. We want to get this right. And that’s why it’s essential that the board support the president’s deliberative, methodical approach to this to figure out the best course of action.”

He offered a no comment when asked whether he supports Brandon, which is as close as you'll get to a "hell no" in this situation.

Yes, it is incredibly frustrating that the wheels are turning so slowly here—this is a situation in which Michigan is likely to be searching for the most important employee in the department in six weeks, with an ideal candidate probably available. If Michigan can't take its shot at Harbaugh because Brandon's not quite on the cart you'll hear the million-strong facepalm across the state. 

The impression the meeting left was still bad for the AD. Baumgardner:

There's no hiding it any longer. Thursday's meeting was standing-room only. Every major media outlet in the state was represented, most brought more than one person. And most left with one clear thought in their mind.

Brandon's future at Michigan appears to be in real jeopardy.

Thursday's meeting was a public, formal airing of grievances about the environment that's been created around Michigan's athletic department, and it left no stone unturned.

This wasn't just about the handling of the Shane Morris injury, or the athletic department's public relations debacle that soon followed. It wasn't just about the variety of stunts -- from skywriters to fireworks to ticket prices -- pulled by this department. It wasn't just about the lack of communication internally and externally. And it wasn't just about the fact that the sense of community -- and culture -- surrounding Michigan athletics appears to be on life support.

It was about all of it.

Niyo:

For the record, any buyout of Brandon's guaranteed contract likely will cost $3 million or so, not including the refreshments or confetti. But any concerns about backlash from major donors might have been assuaged by last weekend's alumni gatherings surrounding the Penn State game.

Brandon was noticeably absent as Stephen Ross, the real-estate magnate whose $200-million donation to the university last fall included $100 million earmarked for a new athletic campus, took part in a question-and-answer session with university president Mark Schlissel, who reiterated his "disappointment" in the way the Morris situation was handled.

I got a report from this meeting in which it felt like Brandon was not going to make it, FWIW.

After the regent's meeting, Brandon released a statement about how he looked forward to "repairing" his relationship with the students and announced a significant cut in ticket prices.

He also said the was looking forward to going for a walk and felt "happy."

Stitt happened. I did not live tweet the Colorado School of Mines game because I don't get CBS Sports. /shakes fist at UVerse.

But it went well, as Bob Stitt kind of hilariously took on a team coached by John L Smith:

Mines played Fort Lewis, John L. Smith's team. Smith's Skyhawks had just ended Colorado State-Pueblo's 42-game regular season winning streak, but they had no answers whatsoever for the Mines attack. The Orediggers gained 662 yards, scored touchdowns on each of the first four possessions, and cruised to a 56-14 win. Fort Lewis probably should have scheduled Homecoming for last week.

The Orediggers are 7-0, and oh my I have to sit down

"I treat fourth-down conversions as a turnover," Stitt told me in 2012. "We were 58 percent on fourth down [in 2012], went for 36 of them. Our opponents went for 18. We’re a lot higher percentage than 58 when it’s fourth-and-5 or less. I’ll even go for it on fourth-and-8 when it’s a situation where we’re on the 50 or their 40.

"That’s a turnover! If you get it, it’s like the defense just got you the ball on their 50-yard line. We’ve got to be able to have confidence as an offense that -– hey, when we get around the 50, Coach is gonna go for it – and the defense has to have it in their head that, hey, they’re gonna go for it, and if they don’t get it, we have to get excited and make sure the opponent doesn’t get points out of it."

Once you get past the Harbaugh/Mullen tier it gets very thin very quickly this year and a lot of the guys you'd take a poke at afterwards seem like they would be hard to get—lot of dudes with good job security at their alma mater. So… yeah. Bob Stitt.

(Yes, that is Kevin Sumlin.)

Chance of any chance. Hoke's return by the numerical projections:

In other words

NOPE

(Although this is pessimistic now that Indiana is apparently starting a Pokemon named Zander Diamont at QB.)

That's not actually good. One of the good things about Brandon cited in an ESPN article:

The football troubles outweighed the building upgrades that Hamilton oversaw while taking Tennessee's athletic department from a $750,000 deficit to a $9 million surplus in his time at its helm. They outweigh the two top-10 finishes in the Directors' Cup, which measures a school's success in all varsity sports.

Michigan also has been in the Directors' Cup top 10 twice under Brandon and made a trip to the men's Final Four

Michigan finished in the top five every year from 1999 to 2009.

All you need to know about the last couple of years in hockey. I mean:

Everyone finishes the lift, heads to the ice through a locker room, one with a complete makeover from the last season. Gone is the sign that said, “Win the next game.” It’s been replaced with key words such as “Unity” and “Respect.”

I'm not a big chemistry guy when looking for explanations as to why things go wrong, but I make an exception in this case.

That would be nice. Hockey megaprospect Auston Matthews is "50/50" between college and the OHL:

'97 C Auston Matthews of NTDP tells me he's 50/50 on college vs. WHL. Says he's talking to BC, BU, Denver, Michigan.

— Mark Divver (@MarkDivver) October 16, 2014

Don Granato, the U18s' head coach, says he's "leaning" to college, FWIW.

Mathews, like Zach Werenski, Jack Eichel, and Noah Hanifin, would have to accelerate an entire year of school to arrive on campus next fall. Like BU super-recruit Eichel, Matthews is playing with the U18s despite his young age.

Interesting dynamic here: the NCAA's new autonomy push should give the Big Ten schools an edge against smaller conferences and the OHL. A couple weeks ago the league announced a raft of benefits including full cost of attendance scholarships and a "lifetime educational commitment" that stands in stark contrast to the OHL's current policy, in which playing pro hockey on any level for more than a year makes your scholarship package evaporate.

Meanwhile a school like BU is big time in hockey but in conferences that are not going to follow suit; the OHL will also have to step up its game to maintain its level of attractiveness.

HELLO ANN ARBOR. Ennui levels reaching critical.

Etc.: Brian Phillips on Landon Donovan is an auto-link. Bye week means it's Ufer time. Michigan has a very pretty story on Willis Ward. The plight of the long snapper.