eastern michigan

[Bryan Fuller]

Aftermath of a decision. Spencer tackles the boggling end of the Penn State-Ohio State game. Two timeouts and two checks to the sideline resulted in this:

image

This is the PSU version of that one screenshot from Lloyd Carr's last Ohio State game.

It is truly boggling even aside from the stunt that eats the play whole. Penn State's left tackle doesn't let the backside end go! PSU options nobody on fourth and five! Trace McSorley had 175 rushing yards! This is after two timeouts! And two checks to the sideline! Three different guys are utterly unblocked! What!

In related news:

FFS, James Franklin. Next year is going to be real interesting for PSU. McSorley is the thing propping them up right now in their Moorhead Wile E Coyote year. Could be very different next year. PSU fans can console themselves on 24/7; Franklin is recruiting his ass off. Which he'd better since he's the gameday equal of Brady Hoke. Except with more yelling at fans.

Someone please stop EMU. This looks like Pleasantville State taking on Generic Green Opponent That Has Frenched A Lady's Bosom*:

I am mesmerized, but it feels like NIU folks entering the endzone should suddenly burst into color.

*[I don't quite remember the plot of Pleasantville. Or, apparently, what to do in the boudoir. Boudoir. Boodwah.]

[After THE JUMP: Maryland's culture is screwed all the way to the boosters]

Hello. Sorry about that involuntary vacation there. Dumping water on your laptop is not fun, especially when the backup you had on hand for just such an eventuality doesn't boot either. Then I was at Blogs With Balls yesterday, trying to look somewhat official.

I am back now, even if the change in keyboard styles makes me want to die. Nothing makes me angrier than trying to use a keyboard I'm not familiar with. It's like having a stroke, one that suddenly puts punctuation all over the place for no reason. Anyway.

screen-shot-2016-04-26-at-123355-pmpng-03ac33950d3248c5

Just another day in the life. Offseason is relative.

Jim Harbaugh gives his version of Drake's album cover, gets RT'd by the First Lady

Anonymous NFL scout strikes again. The woooooorst:

There's about a 90% chance that the dude anonymously slamming Apple's life skills spends most of his life in hotels, has been divorced four times, and hasn't cooked anything more complicated than cereal since the 1970s. Also, this random slam from a guy who doesn't even know Apple appears to be 100% false:

The NFL draft starts tonight so our brief annual spate of anonymous, ludicrous slams of NFL prospects is just about over. Tune in next year, when someone accuses Jourdan Lewis of setting fire to his toaster.

Durkin on Harbaugh. None of this is actually a surprise; it is a confirmation about what life under Harbaugh is like:

CR: I'd imagine your early days at Stanford under Jim Harbaugh were a lot like the early ones at Bowling Green under Meyer. Is that accurate?

Durkin: It was absolute mayhem. It really was.

When I first got there, it was like, oh my gosh. Then you finally spend more time with Jim. The guy is really smart. Extremely smart. Everything is for a reason, but he loves chaos. That's just how he operates. He loves confrontation, chaos, conflict. He doesn't want it to be everyone comfortable, this is the schedule. He just loves throwing a wrench in the works.

So, when you first get there, it's like, what's going on? But it was great. To see someone impose their will, their confidence, their vision on a program, to totally change it—total 180. Stanford was known as a soft, academic, wine-sipping program. Now it's the total opposite. He definitely imposed his will on the place.

This was Bo's approach to the point where he would deliberately stoke fights between his coaches just to see what everyone really thought. Harbaugh runs through a lot of coaches; they generally move on up afterwards, often quickly, because life under Harbaugh is a pressure cooker.

Durkin also relates the one-on-one story we've heard a couple times before:

CR: Let's end with the story of you playing Harbaugh one-on-one at Stanford. What do you remember?

Durkin: It was a random day in the office. We were meeting, talking about something, and he was dribbling a basketball. We were talking about something—recruiting or something—and the conversation somehow got to, "Hey, let's go out and play."

So we went to play one-on-one. First to seven. Great. So we're playing. I went up for a layup or something, he fouled—I mean, hacked me. And I didn't call it. I didn't expect him to call foul. No, we're good. Check up.

Then it became, O.K., if that's not a foul, there are no fouls. So the game went on for—the reason it became epic—it was over an hour-long game. To seven. And people are up there watching. No one wanted to lose, and no one would call a foul. So it was, if the guy got a step on you, chuck him in the back, lose the ball. Nope, no foul. Good, your ball. So it went on. It was well over an hour. A game to seven.

CR: Who won?

Durkin: He won. I let him win in the end. Job security.

I've repeatedly stated that I was skeptical about how good of a DC Durkin actually was after Michigan tailed off against spread teams late, but he's the kind of guy who could be much better as a head coach than a coordinator*. He's already done some good things with Maryland's recruiting.

*[And he's just unproven there, not necessarily bad. Last year was his first truly running his own D after operating under Will Muschamp at Florida and he inherited a ton of talent from the previous guy. It's striking how close the parallels are between 2015 and 2006, which also saw a hotshot new coordinator inherit a bucket of talent, turn his unit into one of the nation's best, and then get annihilated by Ohio State while doing something seemingly nonsensical. With Durkin that was running a safety at 15 yards against a spread to run offense; with Ron English it was trying to cover an NFL first-round WR with Chris Graham.]

Maryland doesn't recruit good and stuff. Excellent data post from Capital News service detailing the futility of Maryland recruiting despite a healthy amount of local talent. It incidentally proves our Mississippi Is A Black Hole Nothing Escapes theory:

image

That will never cease being a mystery to me.

I do think there are some questionable assumptions the data invites you to take away here because their list of top talent-producing states has Delaware(?!) third and Hawaii fifth. This is correct on a per-capita basis, but why that's relevant to a college trying to fill a recruiting class is unclear. (Delaware is likely that high because of ECA, the controversial magnet school that Freddy Canteen and Brandon Watson attended.)

Incoming Cain? MI SF Jamal Cain got his Michigan offer. Cain, a 2017 kid ranked as a three star by the world, got a bunch of Michigan predictions on his 247 page in the immediate aftermath. It doesn't sound like he'll drop immediately…

"His recruiting is rapidly growing," said Covington, a former player at Oakland, who added that Cain is likely to go through the recruiting process and not commit anywhere until before or duirng his senior year at Cornerstone Prep.

Cain is currently rated as the No. 190 overall played in the 2016 class in the 247 Sports Composite.

…but plans have a tendency to change. Endless Motor has an interview with Cain that is of interest:

EM: Can you tell us a a bit about the basketball presentation?

JC: Coach Beilein showed me film of Tim Hardaway Jr. and Zak Irvin, and said he wanted me to play a similar role at the shooting guard/small forward spots, and that I would be used in that way. Coach Beilein said I could really thrive in that role at UM.

In Trey-Burke-ish basketball recruiting news, Xavier SImpson surges into the top 50 in ESPN's final rankings after an outstanding senior season that saw him win the USA Today POY in the state.

So much for that. JT Compher signs with the Avs and CCM is gone lock, stock, and barrel. When Red returned one of the arguments made in favor of that decision was that CCM was more likely to return—at least portions of it—in Ann Arbor. That obviously did not work out.

With NHL departures now (probably) completed, this is what Michigan's looking at next year. I'm bumping Cutler Martin up to F:

Kile/Marody/Calderone
Dancs/Lockwood/Warren
Pastujov/Shuart/Allen
Sanchez/Winborg/Martin

On D:

De Jong/Boka
Cecconi/Piazza
L Martin/Luce

That does not look like a tournament team unless Michigan is better than it's been on defense since Mel left. Michigan loses six of its top seven scorers and gets back only two forwards who were significantly above zero in +/-: Kile and Dancs.

Goodbye Idaho. If only EMU would follow. The Vandals are dropping down to I-AA after getting booted from the Sun Belt, which only admitted them in the first place so they could have a conference championship game. With no conference home and none pending, their only logical move was to drop down and play with the Montanas and North Dakota States of the world. Two things: this apparently won't even save them money…

The athletic department will save money having to fund fewer scholarships (63 as opposed to 85), but a source told CBS Sports that the program will lose money overall.

…and Idaho football costs about 20% as much as EMU's athletic deficit.

While the move enjoys some support in the community, Idaho will lose its FBS branding -- playing at the highest level of college football. Idaho students fund football to the tune of $127 per semester in their tuition payments.

Which is boggling if you think about it. EMU faculty and students just urged the university to drop football, to which the regents said "nah." Eastern's athletic department spending is completely insane:

The study point to an increase in the total full time equivalent athletic staff from 64 in 2006-07 to 85 in 2015-16, doubling staff salaries from $3.2 million to $6.4 million as the department saw 10 more coaching positions and more than 11 "athletic personnel" added during the same time period. During that same time period, the report indicates EMU's entire faculty increased by just 15.78 full-time equivalent personnel.

The arms race at the top of college athletics makes sense because the money's got to go somewhere. Eastern is setting money on fire—its students' money.

Rappists say nice things. I mean, I think they do. Migos on Harbaugh:

"He knows the music," Migos member Offset told TMZ. "He's a real cool playa. He's a playa, man, from the Himalayas."

#wellactually he goes to the Andes mountains, person who was clearly trying to rhyme things.

SBN on the Big Ten's rights situation. This is a point worth considering:

Will coaches freak out if their games aren’t on ESPN?
Yes, and so will administrators throughout the conference. Years ago, when the ACC flirted with leaving ESPN for Fox, some of the conference’s powerful basketball coaches were not shy about voicing their displeasure, believing that the lack of ESPN coverage would hurt their recruiting efforts. It’s too early to know how Big Ten coaches and athletic directors will react. But consider this: When school administrators asked at the recent league meetings if it’s possible for ESPN to get shut out, they were told, “Anything is possible.” One senior official at a Big Ten school said his peers “were scared to death” at the prospect of not having games on ESPN, which could eat into their recruiting.

ESPN's "lowball" offer for half the rights package was easy to pass over. It'll be harder for the Big Ten to extract maximum revenue from the second half without abandoning ESPN entirely, and that's a move everyone is wary of. Well, maybe. I've yet to see the Big Ten do anything other than maximize revenue.

Etc.: MLS to Detroit? If so you have to make them Detroit City and call them "The Rock." This is not negotiable. Profiles of Graham Glasgow and Jourdan Lewis. More on Glasgow's draft status. Jabrill Peppers already being talked about for next year's draft. A CFB commissioner is discussed; seems impractical. Baseball doing well. Holding The Rope on personnel shifts at ESPN.

THE ESSENTIALS

emu-smash

WHAT Michigan (6-2) vs.

Eastern Michigan (7-1)
WHERE Crisler Center,

Ann Arbor, Michigan
WHEN 9:00* pm EST, Tuesday
LINE Michigan -10 (KenPom)
TV BTN ESPNU

*Actual time TBD. Game tips after 6:30 WBB game vs. Princeton

SO THAT HAPPENED

Okay, elephant in the room. Michigan is coming off a loss to the New Jersey Institute of Technology. And not at technology things. At basketball. In a real game.

Fortunately, basketball upsets are not quite like football upsets. Rivals will guffaw, and will bring it up for years. Buckeyes and Spartans are buying NJIT stuff like hotcakes. And Michigan fans are pretty confident that unlike, say, App State, this is just a sign that crap happens. Beilein Uber Alles.

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. %Min and %Poss figure are from this season now—yes, there will be a fair amount of noise in these numbers for a while. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open.

Pos. # Name Yr. Ht./Wt. %Min %Poss SIBMIHHAT
G 1 Mike Talley Sr. 6'0, 176 61 21 No
Incredibly efficient, pass-first PG. Gets to the line a LOT.
G 0 Ray Lee So. 6'3, 170 75 30 No
Another massive usage guard. Having a really good year. DANGERMAN.
F 14 Karrington Ward Sr. 6'8, 212 79 22 Yes
Large guy. Splits time between the three and four.
F 3 Anali Okoloji Sr. 6'8, 232 56 22 Kinda
Big guy, can step out and shoot.
C 30 Mike Samuels Jr. 6'11, 285 35 27 Very
Big dude is big. Probably a more comfy matchup for Doyle.
G/F 5 Jodan Price So. 6'7, 180 52 18 No
Splits between the two and three. Exclusively a deep threat. Literally.
C 12 Lekan Ajayi Jr. 6'11, 245 37 10 Oh yeah
Splits time with Samuels at the five. Zero offensive anything, other than OR%
G 25 Ethan Alvano Fr. 6'1, 170 41 16 Yup yup yup
10% eFG% is bad. 0-11 from deep. Really good A/TO ratio.

*returning starter

THE THEM

First, the bad news: Eastern Michigan Basketball is most decidedly not Eastern Michigan Football. The basketball version is 7-1, which is more wins than the football team has put up in the last three seasons combined. Instead of being a doormat, they are potentially in the hunt to compete in the MAC. They’re #132 in KenPom. Northwestern is #129. This is a real team.

Now, the good news: Eastern put together their seven wins by playing three Division 2 schools, four schools in the 200’s or worse in KenPom (#206 Oakland, #201 Youngstown State, #293 UNC Greensboro, and #343 Longwood*). They are coming off a nine point loss to #56 Dayton, however, which isn’t a terrible result.

More good news: Michigan already beat the much better version of this team. It was called Syracuse. EMU head coach Rob Murphy spent six years as an assistant to Jim Boeheim, and runs the same 2-3 zone. And like Syracuse, EMU is tall and long; their effective height is #44 in the country, and they can run a lineup that averages over 6’8” at the two through the five. They block a lot of shots, and they pick up a lot of steals.  They give up a lot of three point attempts. Their profile is very much the profile of a 2-3 zone team, and one that runs an effective version of the 2-3.

No reason.

Offensively, Eastern is led by shooting guard Ray Lee, who uses 29.9% of possessions and takes 32% of shots when he’s on the floor. He is currently shooting 64.4% eFG% from the field, but that may be SoS-influenced; that number was 44.4% last year. He’s also shooting 46% from three, but shot only 31% as a freshman. Maybe he took a leap, but he has also undoubtedly boosted his stats by feasting on some delicious snacky cakes.

The other dangerman is point guard Mike Talley. The Duquesne transfer doesn’t shoot a lot (though he is efficient when he does so), but his assist numbers are astronomical. He also gets to the foul line; he’s one of 13 players in the country playing real minutes with more free throw attempts than field goal attempts. He is currently only 68% from the line, however. Talley is also the son of former Michigan point guard Michael Talley.

One oddity to note: primary backup Jodan Price, who spends most of his time at the three, is 38% (11-29) from three, but is 0-9 from two.

As a team, Eastern does a couple of things very well: they take care of the ball and they get to the foul line; they have four players who draw 5+ fouls per 40 minutes. Some of this may be the result of experience (they run three seniors in the starting lineup), or just being coached by someone far more not bad than the folks who have coached Eastern Michigan Football in the last ALL THE YEARS.

*Hehe. Longwood.

THE TEMPO-FREE

[Ed-Seth: I did my best to recreate Ace's thing here]

THE KEYS

Hit threes – This is a pretty obvious point for a Beilein team in pretty much every game, but nearly 40% of the shots that go up against Eastern are from beyond the arc. If Michigan’s snipers have an above-average night, this one could get out of hand early. If Zak Irvin goes 1-of-8 from deep again… Zak Irvin should not go 1-of-8 from deep again.

Stay out of foul trouble – Michigan doesn’t foul. Eastern lives on foul shots. Fortunately, most of that pressure is in the backcourt, where that prospect is a little less concerning than for the bigs, but if Caris picks up a couple of cheapies, the autobench could make things interesting going into the half. Which is why Michigan needs to…

Push it. Puh-push it real good – Eastern has played the second weakest schedule of defensive teams in the country. Their only decent opponent, Dayton, shoots under 50% eFG% and can’t shoot threes for crap. There’s a good chance that it will take the Eagles some time to adjust to this quality of offensive opponent. Michigan has a chance to wipe that New Jersey-ish taste out of its mouth if it can pressure EMU early offensively, not from a tempo standpoint but from an efficient murder-death-machine standpoint.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 10.

ELSEWHERE

Dylan’s UMHoops preview. Brennan Quinn’s MLive previews. A camera carried by a helper monkey who is following Jim Harbaugh around.