haiku

Glorified scrimmage

Would be the game they get hot

Hot damn, Charles Matthews

Fine, some bullets:

But for real, of all the games for three-point luck to even out. Michigan went a scorching 15-for-28 from beyond the arc. Chaminade canned a couple fluky ones and still only made 5-of-22.

Anyway, Charles Matthews! Even against D-II competition, this is a quite a stat line for a guy who also had a huge game last night: 22 points on perfect 8-for-8 shooting, ten rebounds, four assists, two turnovers, three blocks, and two steals in 29 minutes. Matthews played with every bit of effort and skill that stat line suggests.

Duncan Robinson found his shot. 14 points, 4-for-9 from beyond the arc, unfair in transition. A nice bounceback after a rough go against LSU.

Eli Brooks got his first start. Brooks had a nice start with a catch-and-shoot three and a slick pick-and-roll assist, but his effectiveness didn't last; he went 1-for-4 with one assist and a turnover the rest of the way. Jaaron Simmons, the next point guard to get in, nearly put up an 11-minute trillion. Zavier Simpson was the best PG tonight but didn't exactly stand out.

Jordan Poole got a longer look. Poole looked good in his first extended action, doing what he's supposed to do: get buckets. He needed only nine minutes to score ten points, drilling two of his three shots from downtown. While he's got a long way to go on defense, he should cut into Ibi Watson's minutes if he keeps hitting jumpers.

Rahk, sharing. For the fourth straight game, Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman scored double-digit points with at least four assists. He's turned the ball over just once in that four-game span, an especially remarkable feat considering how often he drives into traffic. That's a big development with the point guards struggling to produce.

Rebounding: not great. Outside of Matthews, the team didn't rebound well. Michigan had only three offensive boards (Jon Teske grabbed the third) before Austin Davis had three on his lonesome in the late going. Chaminade, meanwhile, pulled down 16 of their 39 missed shots (41%). After doing well on the boards early on, this didn't look like nearly as good an effort from Moe Wagner on first viewing.

Tomorrow's game. Michigan faces VCU, 83-69 winners over Cal, at 5 pm EST on ESPN 2. KenPom has the good guys as five-point favorites.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]

Here's a photo that pretty much captures the quarterback depth chart:

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Fuller from the Media Day set

Borges is re-teaching Michigan about the magic of throwing this object. Freshman Garrett Moores (15) is utterly confounded by this. Alex Swieca (13) is thinking about how he can get this object to the turf. Cleary is represented only by a noodly arm. Bellomy and Morris stand in the background, tempting yet inaccessible. And then Gardner, who just has SO MANY ideas of what he can do with this brown oblong thing, smiling because he knows physics will only be a mild hindrance.

Reminding again of the Friday, September 6 event featuring Marlin Jackson and MGoBlog. MGoPatio is behind the 2nd house on the right on Berkley. We plan to start gathering around 7pm and Marlin will join us at 8. Still looking for one or two more co-sponsors for that. Free to come with an optional donation to Marlin's Foundation and/or the beer fund.

Leave it to LSAClassof2000 to verbosify a concept as simple as "loss." He compared 3rd down performance (o minus d) to winning and made pretty charts going back to the Year of Infinite Pain claiming he's discovered r-squared's latest favorite win correlation. Let's play…

IS IT MORE TELLING THAN YARDS PER PLAY?

Compare M's yardage differential to 3rd down differential and see when losing the 3rd down battle affected the outcome:

Opponent Off YPP Def YPP YPP Diff 3rdDwn Diff Result
Illinois 7.98 2.53 +5.45 +14 W 45-0
UMass 8.60 3.92 +4.68 +12 W 63-13
Iowa 8.27 5.15 +3.12 +6 W 42-17
Air Force 7.54 4.63 +2.91 -7 W 31-25
Minnesota 6.59 3.99 +2.6 -3 W 35-13
Purdue 5.84 3.49 +2.35 +4 W 44-13
Northwestern 6.76 5.46 +1.30 -6 W 38-31
MSU 5.26 4.68 +0.58 even W 12-10
Ohio State 5.94 5.66 +0.28 -9 L 21-26
Notre Dame 4.53 4.78 -0.25 +5 L 6-13
Alabama 4.80 6.84 -2.04 -9 L 14-41
Nebraska 2.94 5.02 -2.08 -2 L 9-23
S Carolina 4.33 8.04 -3.71 +7 L 28-33

Hey, whaddaya know: the games when Michigan averaged a half a yard per play or more better than their opponent they won. Third downs mattered in keeping the South Carolina, Northwestern and Air Force games closer than they might have been, and a –9 differential at Ohio State accounts for some but perhaps too little of the 21-26 final score. YPP is still better.

I'm giving Diarist of the Week to Six Zero for his best interview yet, though it should probably go to the interviewee, that champion of Mixed Marital Arts, CRex. The Cliff Notes:

Uh, Michigan? Never heard; not real school.

Stop Ruining a Funny Joke By Being Srsly. Njia wrote a Bleacher Report-y thing collecting crazy coaching moments; I'm only mentioning it because for the last friggin' time the Woody Hayes turtle story is a joke. It's a good joke. It's a very OLD joke. Hayes was insane and yes, Urban Meyer and the truth haven't been on speaking terms for a long time, but this story is an example of neither of those things because it is just a joke.

Etc. In the final episode of the k.o.k.Law miniseries our heroes enter The Dome in Atlanta with a hoops national title on the line. Oh. My. God, Becky, look at Jake Butt.

[Jump for Best of the Board and Zen]

Trapped in enemy territory, their far smaller band weakened by attrition and fearing the superior recruitment of the unchallengeable and suppressive French, the English cower in fear and mull surrender, but for those bowered by their once mocked, portly, stalwart and heroic monarch. Cloaked as a commoner he walks amongst his men.

NARRATOR: With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty; that every wretch, pining and pale before, beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks; A largess universal, like the sun, His liberal eye doth give to every one, Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all. Behold, as may unworthiness define, A little touch of Harry in the night.

And so our scene must to the battle fly; Where- O for pity!- we shall much disgrace, with four or five most vile and ragged foils, right ill-dispos'd in brawl ridiculous, the name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see, Minding true things by what their mock'ries be.

Enter the KING.

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(Hover over the links to see which diary is which)

WESTMORELAND: O that we now had here but nineteen-ninety seven's men of England, that have not eligibility today.
 
KING:

What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark'd to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men recruited, the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires.

But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour as one man more methinks would share from me.

For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian!

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He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, and rouse him at the name of football season come again. He that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, and say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, but he'll remember, with advantages, what feats he did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words: Brady the King, Shoelace and Omameh, Kovacs and Campbell, Demens and Floyd, Barnum and Schofield and Roundtree, Lewan and Toussaint, Hopkins and Gallon and Mealer, Roh, and Black, and Washington and Morgan, Gordon and Countess and Hagerup and Gibbons and Moore, be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red!

This story shall the good man teach his son; and Opening Weekend shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered--

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day!

(Take the jump, or close the wall up with our English dead)