ethics-panel

Just because everything is happening all at once and these things are the variety of news that goes yes-no-yes-no-yes-no in the modern world, here's a random 10PM update on one of the Stories Of Our Time.

The Only Colors isn't using DEFCON to measure its Izzo departure panic level, but on a scale of 1-10 they're at 4.5 and KJ is still "well under 50%." He admits that's moving towards things he hopes instead of things he thinks, and I might be in the same boat: I think they're inching just over 50% but admit that is also a necessarily biased opinion.

I've got some reasons, though. TOC appears to be banking on the idea that Izzo will do a Billy Donovan-esque pullout, because the people on the team are predicting a departure. Delvon Roe's dad:

Blanton, who lives near Cleveland, has not spoken with Izzo. But he said he thinks Izzo will end up taking the Cavs job. "My opinion is, I think he's gonna leave," Blanton said. "When you keep it in the air this long. ... I don' t know if he's happy where he's at right now."

That's considerably less encouraging* than the original Rexrode blog post, which just mentioned Blanton's opinion that Izzo was out without giving the details. Blanton appears to be guessing.

On the other hand, this opinion may have come from his son and appears to be an opinion shared by multiple current Spartan players:

Sources have told The Plain Dealer that Michigan State players left a meeting with Tom Izzo Tuesday night believing he was going to leave to accept Gilbert's offer to become the next Cavaliers coach. Izzo didn't tell them that, he called the meeting to acknowledge reports that he'd been offered the job, but players left afraid they were about to lose their coach.

And as if on cue given the Ethics Throwdown this weekend, Cleveland blog Waiting For Next Year just plain says Izzo is headed to Cleveland:

Sources close to WFNY have informed us that Tom Izzo has told his players at Michigan State that he plans on taking the Cavaliers job.  Our sources have heard directly from players on the MSU team that Izzo informed them this week that he is planning on making the move up to the NBA level under the ownership of MSU grad Dan Gilbert.

This has caused much consternation on the twitters from local beatwriters, ESPN's Pat Forde, and various other national basketball reporting folk. And… yeah… they're not wrong. WFNY's report has been directly refuted by multiple sources, with direct quotes from Blanton. This is yet another example of someone jumping the gun.

On the other hand, this sarcasm from Forde…

Stunned that anonymous blog got this wrong. RT @LarryLage MSU asst Mark Montgomery told AP Izzo informed players Tues he has talked to Cavs

…is wildly provincial given the events of the past month—which have seen a parade of false reports about conference expansion—let alone the few months that have passed since the Chicago Sun-Times refused to let the Stoops-to-ND rumors die. Mainstream media folk pretending that blogs have cornered the market on erroneous reports are just as annoying as bloggers blithely stating that the proper amount of ethics is none.

Still: WFNY could have broken a major story if they'd just, you know, gotten it right. I don't necessarily blame them. As I discovered during Michigan's coaching search, and the Sun-Times will discover sometime in 2015 when it finally becomes clear to them that Bob Stoops is not Notre Dame's next coach, these situations are nightmares to report. Solid information is thin on the ground, minds can change in an instant, and certain parties are motivated to leak information to get what they want, whether it's true or false. Getting something wrong is going to happen.

But now that there are direct quotes contradicting their story they should give readers as much detail as they can about why they believe what they do and leave the decision in the reader's hand. They're "standing by" their original report after multiple people have called them liars. It's time to stop hiding behind "sources." That's a Sun-Times move. Here's this blog's primordial example from the coaching search, and the ur-example from the Morgan Trent Broken Hand New Media Fiasco. As it is, even if Izzo does take the job they were just wrong first.

[UPDATE: WFNY has done the full data dump suggested here. I still think they would have gotten a lot less attention straight away and looked better long term if they had gone for the soft sell, but it's a major step in the right direction.]

*(I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not pulling like a mofo for Izzo to leave. Blah blah blah, Michigan is its own program, etc: lies. The absolute best State can do is get a coach just as good, and the chances of that are small.)

The view from admissions. There is virtually nothing that can convince me that not taking Demar Dorsey is a good idea as long as the university makes a good-faith effort to educate him once he arrives. What you do with the poor black kid after he shows up is what reflects the character of the institution. Admissions obviously feels differently, and the feeling that Michigan is about to embark on a Notre Dame-like wander in the wilderness only gets stronger today.

Our Helmets Have Wings, a recruiting-focused M blog, snagged an interview with a former admissions employee. Unless something has changed, this is purely about academics:

Q: Did the Admissions Office examine potential students who had legal troubles differently than other students?

A: Like all applicants, potential incoming athletes with legal troubles are required to disclose most types of possible run-ins with the law.  This is not only for the purposes of safety on campus, but also to help the university maintain its tradition of selecting students of a particular academic AND moral caliber for admission.  That being said, varsity athletes, ESPECIALLY potential scholarship recipients present special cases that are most definitely looked at differently than normal applicants, but in this realm and in regards to academics.  Again, the behavioral issues tend to fall to the discretion of the athletic department.  If they say the athlete is a good ship, or at least one that can be and will be during his time at UM, the admissions office will defer to that decision regarding said athletic applicant. I do not know, personally, of any decision that was contested by the admissions office when the athletic dept. approved.

If this is about "LifeSkills," the AD should have known about it since Dorsey enrolled there in October. I'm not entirely sure but I don't think that means he stopped going to Boyd Anderson; he probably did the LifeSkills curriculum in addition to his senior year classes at Boyd, using the alternative school credits to replace poor grades from his sophomore and junior years.

Given the nature of the problem here the university can stonewall any FOIA requests by referencing FERPA, a federal student privacy law. We will never know exactly what went down, but if Dorsey ends up at Tennessee or USC or another BCS school we'll have plain evidence that Michigan's is operating with a self-inflicted disadvantage, and negative recruiters will have a field day. There is literally no way the recruitment of a kid who never even enrolled at Michigan could have been more damaging. Now any happy ending to the media firestorm has to happen somewhere else. Thanks, admissions.

Bills update. Poster Raback Omaba reports that Jon Bills's surgery to repair broken vertebrae went well and the "prognosis for a full recovery remains high." He can move his extremities. Bills is obviously done with football, but hopefully he'll make a full recovery.

Hello: Nebraska? Multiple Big 12 ADs suggest Nebraska will be in the Big Ten by Friday. I would care a lot more about this if this Dorsey thing hadn't happened. At least their basketball team will suck.

Ethics follow-up. I posted a transcript of the tense interaction at the end of the ethics panel a couple days ago, and yesterday appeared on Dan Levy's On The DL podcast to elaborate on the opinion I'd shouted in the middle of everything. Again, totally meta, but something that's important.

World Cup content. If you're one of the many people who's been frustrated with the lack of a quality USMNT blog, I think you (and I) may have a new favorite place for the next month. It's Stars and Gripes, a just-launched Nats blog with an inclination towards strategy and a soccer version of Picture Pages:

Rooney makes his run, Johnson puts in a perfect ball, and Rooney puts in his second.

The constant switching from side to side often leaves the middle of the pitch exposed, where Lampard and Barry can move from the back and put themselves in dangerous spots just outside the box. 

Anyone willing to draw a big circle with an arrow on a still of the England-Andorra game is a champion. Read it all.

If you're the sort of soccer fan who doesn't know why everyone wants to drop Jonathan Bornstein out of the team plane (with a parachute; we're not monsters), War Blog Eagle has an excellent primer for you.

An actual number. Almost a month ago, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch deployed the FOIA to finally provide the real hard numbers on how much Big Ten schools are pulling in from TV. Somehow, no one noticed. Here's an attempt to do so. The numbers:

* Includes money from TV, bowl games, NCAA Tournament.

These are less extraordinary than the rapturous articles about Super Genius/Villain Jim Delany have claimed, but they still greatly outstrip everyone save the SEC, which they meaningfully outstrip. Meanwhile, the SEC is locked into an ESPN contract worth 12.5 million per team per year for 15 years and the Big Ten will see BTN revenue grow yearly.

Another note: SNL Kagan analyst Derek Baine says the BTN is getting 88 cents per subscriber in the footprint, which is about a dime short of what they were asking for and more than triple what the Comcast guy told me they valued the BTN at during the year-long standoff between the two. Cable companies did not win.

(Apologies to whoever linked this; unfortunately I've lost it. If you think it's you ask me for a HT.)

Mmmm. Wavery. Michigan's 2011 class is a bit thin so far, with just two forwards coming in in a year when Michigan willl require at least another player at F, D, and G. Lucas Lessio made an appearance at the Oshawa Generals' camp, but is expected to keep his commitment to Michigan. And now the other guy in the class, Ontario forward Alex Guptill, sounds like he's not a lock either:

Already committed to play for the University of Michigan in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) either this year or in 2011, Guptill said his immediate future, including where he might play come winter, will become more clear at the end of June.

“It is all up to — if a (NHL) team takes me — what their stance is and then Michigan’s,” Guptill said. “It will go from there.”

IE: hope the Kings stay away. Guptill and Lessio were both drafted by the USHL's Waterloo Blackhawks and the Blackhawks believe they'll have them next year.

There is some good news: Guptill was the recipient of the Ontario Hockey Association's "Top Prospect Award," something that's been bestowed on former Wolverines Mike Cammalleri and Andrew Cogliano plus an array of other NHL players like Jeff Carter and Rob Schremp. The OHA covers Ontario's Junior A and B leagues.

Etc.: The Daily puts out another huge article, this on the evolution of Yost from an empty, silent place to the raucous place it is today. I'm pretty sure this "shimmy down" tackling technique is the same that GERG is employing in practice. The idea is to focus on the approach more than anything else because most players can get a guy down if they're in the right spot. This may sound boring, but the words "they want to get pecker to pecker with the guy" appear.

podcast! ethics! woo!