chris fetter

The top candidate on the board [Benjamin Suddendorf/CMU Athletics]
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13

Let's Hire A Coach: Evaluating Top Baseball Coaching Candidates
Alex.Drain • June 30, 2022 • 12:48pm

Michigan Baseball has been without a coach since since mid-June, when Erik Bakich was poached by Clemson. We covered that at the time and threw out a couple possible replacement candidates, but the search is now in full force and may be nearing a conclusion any day now. Some candidates have been interviewed but then pulled their names out of the hunt, while others are still vying for the gig. In this piece I'm going to run through the various names that have come up in reports (mostly those from Rivals' Brandon Justice) and evaluate their candidacy. 

 

The Top Dogs 

These are the names who have come up most often and seem to be the foremost contenders in the eyes of the decision makers, mainly Warde Manuel: 

Jordan Bischel, Central Michigan Head Coach. Bischel was a name I mentioned in my mailbag column right from the start because it seemed so obvious. In college sports, everyone is looking to hire 2005 Urban Meyer, the young, energetic coach who has won everywhere he's been and is ready to make the jump to a bigger program. Bischel fits that mold perfectly. He's just 41 years old (younger than Bakich) and won conference regular season/tournament titles at both NAIA Midland and D2 Northwood before moving up to CMU.

The Chips hadn't been to the NCAA Tourney since 1995 and had only won MAC regular season crowns intermittently before Bischel arrived. Since then, Bischel has transformed CMU into the class of the MAC, winning the regular season crown in 2019 and 2021, before finishing 2nd this year. He won the MAC Tournament in both 2019 and 2022 to qualify for the NCAAs, while earning an at-large bid in 2021. Thus, Bischel has made the NCAAs in every full season he has coached, and has compiled a 143-57 record at CMU (82-21 in the MAC). 

Bischel's track record speaks for itself, and Michigan should be familiar with him; it was Bischel's Chips who eliminated Bakich's Wolverines from the NCAA Tournament last year in the South Bend regional. Bischel is also attractive because he's a Midwestern coach. He's from Green Bay, attended college at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and has been a head coach exclusively in Michigan. Obviously there are questions about Bischel's ability to recruit nationally the way that Bakich could, but the fact is that most of Michigan's best players under Bakich have been from the Midwest. In hiring Bischel, you'd have a coach prepared to navigate the realities of the Michigan Baseball program, and also someone with local roots to suggest he could be more keepable than Bakich, should he succeed. 

Bischel interviewed with both Ohio State and Kansas ($), but those schools went different directions. Right now, he seems to be the top candidate on Michigan's board, and he would be on my board as well. However, the fact that Michigan continues to interview other candidates leads me to think that the administration may not be completely sold on him. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: lots of assistant coaches]

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[JD Scott]
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95

Unverified Voracity Waits For Franz
Brian • June 28, 2019 • 12:07pm

RIP baseball. It was fun!

Franz time. Alba Berlin's season is over, and now FranzWatch begins.

Franz would obviously be a big deal, especially as he's started to become a real contributor to Alba:

As a reminder, this is a league where a 24-year-old Derrick Walton can't get on the court. Wagner is reportedly up to 6'9" and headed for the first round of the draft. He would be a gamechanger for Juwan Howard's first team.

[After THE JUMP: keeping various baseball persons]

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