facilities

Thursday, five PM: muppets? If Michigan actually nails down Mitch McGary I think I might deploy the first-ever recruiting muppets. This is when and how that might happen:

The 6-foot-10 McGary will announce Thursday for either Michigan, Duke or Florida, and his father confirmed Mitch will announce on ESPN.

“Yes he will,” Tim McGary said by text.

ESPNU has a “Recruiting Nation” show slated for 5 p.m. EST Thursday.

Both ESPN and Scout are already calling McGary to Michigan.

After a brief period of worry about Duke, everyone who's offered an opinion says it's M. Duke is on the verge of locking down another PF ranked in the top 25—must be nice—and Florida hasn't gotten a visit in a long time.

If and when McGary picks Michigan, the muppets will be warranted. That recruiting class will be McGary, Glen Robinson III, and Nick Stauskas: a top 10, top 50, and top 100 recruit to go with Burke/Brundidge/Hardaway/Horford/Morgan and followed by the Irvin/Walton/Donnal 2013 class. It will be the cherry on top of a basketball program that is all the way back to national relevance and the capper to the surge that began in East Lansing last January.

PDC, yeah you know me. It is here. It has iPads:

Brundidge, Novak, McLimans, and Burke:

"Tap it again to make the white one poop out a bomb"

It may be a ridiculous outlay of funds on something of debatable social value, but hey, man, it comes with touchscreens. Don't be a downer.

The usual. Epic Daily profile makes you wonder how long various students will outperform the local paid media? Epic Daily profile makes you wonder how long various students will outperform the local paid media. This one is on Tim Hardaway Jr:

Marissa McClain/Daily

The doors on the all-white BMW 645Ci slammed shut, beginning the short journey home that would feel like an eternity.

The father, who had all the glory any man could hope for, was in the driver’s seat, casually turning the wheel in rhythm with the Miami streets. The son, a 16-year-old child trying to forge his own story in the shadow of his very name, leaned against the door of the passenger’s seat, with nothing to say.

It was like after any other of the

son’s high school basketball games. He won or he lost, and he and his father climbed into the luxury car without saying a word, draped in an oppressive silence.

I didn't even have time to link up the previous Molk piece before this one hit.

A monster draft beckons. NHL.com had three fellows deploy mock drafts and they are littered with Michigan players. One is expected—Jacob Trouba is widely regarded a top-ten lock. We've been hearing stuff about Boo Nieves as a second-rounder or a late first, and then there's a guy already on the team making an appearance. Their projections:

• Trouba: 5th, 8th, 10th
• Nieves: 19th, 26th, 28th
• Phil Di Giuseppe: 11th(!), 28th, NR

That's a bit higher than expected for Nieves and hello Mr. Di Giuseppe. Michigan hockey followers have been buzzing about Di Guiseppe since he started pumping goals in and it appears a couple of the guys in suits who hang around Yost have also taken notice. The guy Michigan picked up in the aftermath of Lucas Lessio's defection looks like he'll go higher than Lessio did (56th). This isn't ironic but it's the kind of thing people identify as ironic.

I actually missed Di Giuseppe on both mocks he features on because I wasn't even looking for his name. What a find. If Rutledge plays well Michigan will be a contender next year.

As for this year, Michigan continues the longest home winning streak in its history and takes on WMU this weekend in a game that suddenly looks like a huge one in the conference race. The undefeated (5-0-3, paging user Undefeated Dream Season of 1992) Broncos were the second consecutive team to sweep Miami and are currently the only team without a conference loss. They're the league's stingiest defense with only 13 goals allowed; Michigan is ten goals clear of those same Broncos in scoring, all of which came in a single game against St. Lawrence.

Groping a bit. Not like that. A couple things in Michigan Monday this week irked me. Irk #1: asserting that Denard's interception was a lock-on before the snap. It was a second read, something that Belotti pointed out on the replay by circling the first read on the other side of the field. He got beat by the eight-man drop but he at least went through a progression. Irk #2:

As an aside, a 41-yard carry for a non-fast quarterback makes you wonder what's going to happen over the next month when they face Nathan Scheelhaase, Taylor Martinez and Braxton Miller, no?

That run came with the score at 36-7 in the fourth quarter. Various starters had been pulled, including the WDE. True freshman Frank Clark blew the contain on the QB. So… yeah. Not relevant. 

What I am saying about the thing I was saying. Braves & Birds has a profile of two anonymous teams:

	Team A	Team B
Sagarin Predictor	80.40	78.24
Sagarin SOS	68.38	75.20
SRS	9.9	6.12
SRS SOS	2.75	5.86
Pts Per Game	21.4	26.0
Pts Allowed Per Game	12.4	19.5
Scoring Margin	+9.0	+6.5
Yards Per Play Gained	5.1	5.6
Yards Per Play Allowed	4.2	4.5
Yards Per Play Margin	+0.9	+1.1
Turnover Margin	+6	-8

They're basically identical except one is in the Big Ten and has one loss and the other is… not. Michigan's schedule has been even softer than Team A, which okay I'll tell you is Penn State.

This is my concern, dude. Everyone regards PSU as a fraud, and we're kind of the same team except our loss was more competitive and our conference wins against even weaker competition.

A second chance. A couple years ago the BTN debuted internet streaming of untelevised games. This didn't go well. When I hit it up to watch a hockey game @ OSU the lag was such that I ragequit after one period in which the screen froze twice and came back to OSU celebrating a goal.

Maybe it's better? You can stream Michigan's basketball exhibition for free with the coupon code "BTDN3FR33"—good opportunity to find out if the product has improved.

Etc.: Bacon chat at the Detroit News tomorrow. Get your tickets for the outdoor hockey game in Cleveland. More MST3K Michigan defense parody. The Blue Ribbon preview of Michigan is a freebie. Michigan Hockey Net rounds up Michigan's commitments and how they're performing. Remember when we all would have killed for Jeff Tedford?

It was a surprisingly busy July day for Michigan's Athletic Department, as they opened the doors to Michigan Stadium's new premium seating areas, FieldTurf announced a new deal with the Wolverines (way to piggyback off the day's news, guys!), the official seating capacity of 109,901 was announced for the 2010 season, and Athletic Director David Brandon held a press conference to talk about the newest features of Wolverine Mecca. It's all stadium, all day.

Apologies for poor photo quality, as cellphone shots will have to stand in for the out-of-commission pro camera. If it's higher-quality shots you want, UMTailgate can hook you up. Firstly, I was surprised how many people showed up to the event in the first place, many of them decked out in their gameday garb. Pioneer's lot was mostly filled up in the late morning.

Structures

Athletic Director Dave Brandon said that the structures will help keep crowd noise in the stadium, a welcome (but by no means novel anymore) idea to Michigan fans. He said that sound engineers estimated a 30% increase in volume at the 50-yard line, but to get more concrete data, they'll test the sound early in the year.

Another note about the structures themselves is the classic look. Brandon noted that the aesthetic fit with the rest of athletic campus (seen at right from the fourth floor of the East structure) makes the look perfect for Michigan.

Adding these structures also helped Michigan provide a variety of gameday experiences for fans with different preferences. Those who want to sit in traditional bleachers can continue to do so, but there are also options for those who want - and can afford - to sit in chairback seats, club seats, or suites.

Suites And Seats

The suites themselves looked exactly like the one Brian and I toured last summer, except now there are lots of them. The ones on the corners also get good views of campus or the golf course, as well as looking down on the crowd (insert The Hero Of Tiananmen Square-ism here):

Of the 81 total suites, only 20 are available at this time. Approximately 60% of the suites have been purchased by individuals or small groups, and 40% are for corporate customers. Associate Athletic Director for Development Joe Parker said that is a pretty good reservation number, and he does not anticipate single-game suite rentals becoming an option to fill them all.

When other schools have added premium seating, and even when Michigan added it at Yost Ice Arena, 100% occupancy hasn't been reached until the third year. Michigan should have all 81 suites committed by then.

Meta

I know lots of MGoBloggers are interested in the behind-the-scenes media access stuff, so here's a shot of the new press box. It's a decided improvement over the old one, to say the least:

There's another row on the left there, and the ceilings are a good 15-20 feet high. In addition, AD Dave Brandon (jokingly) promised that the media will have better food options this season.

The Numbers

At this point, capital gifts and suite/club seat reservations have paid for the $226 million of the renovations(!). The rest of the way, these income sources should be positive cashflow for the Athletic Department. Though he didn't have exact numbers, Parker said that the premium seating areas will increase the profitability of each home game in the future.

What's Next?

Inside the stadium, the 2009 Michigan/Notre Dame game was displayed on the scoreboards as the fans made their way through the new premium seating areas in the East Side structure. Those scoreboards might not be long for this world, according to Dave Brandon. The Athletic Department is already discussing further expansion of the stadium, but the scoreboards are going to be the next part of the stadium improved.

Brandon said he hopes that the existing architecture of the scoreboards can be maintained (speculation - so as to not waste money when stadium expansion forces them to move within a few years?), but it's time for them to be upgraded. The Athletic Department will explore all possible revenue streams to pay for that project, though there are currently no plans for in-stadium advertising.

In a (thankfully brief) ceremony yesterday, the next phase of Michigan's basketball programs kicked off with the groundbreaking on a new practice facility.

Though most Athletic Department representatives didn't say it raises expectations - they want to win every game, every year, how can you get higher than that? - the facility will help both the men's and women's programs reach new levels of success. The expectations haven't changed, but the ability to reach them has improved. There are two ways in which the facility will help the program: getting top recruits on campus, and helping them improve once they're Wolverines.

AD David Brandon summed up the recruiting benefit simply, saying "I always look at these things from the perspective of a recruit." Young kids will want to see that the school is trying to help them reach their goals on the basketball court before they ever consider committing to Michigan. Men's coach John Beilein said that recruits don't talk about the lack of a practice facility, but their silence speaks volumes.  

Once top recruits are on campus, the new practice facility will be a huge benefit to improving their game. The main gym at Crisler Arena is the only basketball court on Michigan's Athletic campus (depending on what you consider the free-for-all gyms at the IM Building). Now, there will be courts to use for practice even when Crisler Arena is occupied by other events. Players will also have access to practice facilities during non-peak hours, meaning it's easier for them to take the classes they want. The players will also be practicing in the same facility that their coaches work, which isn't the case right now. Currently, the coaches' offices are in the main athletic department complex.

Though the schedule is not set in stone, the completion date for the project is in Fall of 2011. There's a good chance construction goes ahead of schedule, as it has for the Michigan Stadium Project, but the coaches are telling 2011 recruits that the facility should be done around the time they enter school.

Yay, we will finally have a practice facility!

Side Note: According to Associate AD Joe Parker, 59 of the 81 suites in Michigan Stadium are committed. All but two of those have been paid for. There will be an open house in June for those who have committed to suites or club seats to come sit in their seats and see what the view will be like. For more info, head to michiganstadiumproject.com.