hockey scheduling

[Patrick Barron]

Mooch'd. Shemy Schembechler came, and then he went. Warde Manuel:

"Effective this afternoon, Shemy Schembechler has resigned his position with Michigan Football. We are aware of some comments and likes on social media that have caused concern and pain for individuals in our community. Michigan Athletics is fully committed to a place where our coaches, staff and student-athletes feel welcome and where we fully support the University's and Athletic Department's commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion."

Schembechler got booted for his twitter account, which had dozens and dozens of likes on posts ranging between debatably racist and obviously racist. The ESPN story linked about asserts that "a source with knowledge of the situation told ESPN that Schembechler went through a thorough background check during the hiring process," which uh no he did not. When your background check misses publicly available information it was not thorough. Or even a "check," really.

Add it to the "What The Hell Is Warde Manuel Doing?" files. This is currently an athletic department that's winning the most important game on the schedule and doing very little else right. At this point the number of unforced PR errors that the department is stumbling into like so many rakes in front of Sideshow Bob is, dare I say it, Brandonesque. Articles are rolling in with titles like "Michigan leadership continues to embarrass itself" from places like The Athletic—not exactly the RCMB.

Shemy released a statement repudiating his hundreds of endorsements of racist right wing tweets, for what little that's worth.

[After the JUMP: anonymous quotes article woo]

The last GLI: 2019. [James Coller]

28 HOURS TO GO: If you haven’t gotten in on the Kickstarter for HTTV 2021 do so now! Friday night it ends. One guy said he’s buying it just for my writing (which, there’s a lot of it), so whatever excuse you come up with for why you want to have this, it’s definitely not the worst one.

image

I am printing only a limited amount this year and expect to sell out before they get to any shelves. Yes, I’ll have a Kindle version but that won’t be ready until mid-August. I wrote my piece this morning, not counting the Table of Contents and the title page. The covers have already been printed. Buy ‘em up!

RELEASE THE SPREADSHEETS: Texas got sick of carrying the league they thought they would dominate and Oklahoma did until Iowa State upset everybody. The wheels are now set in motion for the Sooners and Longhorns to join the SEC when the Big 12’s TV deal expires in 2025. At that point the Longhorn Network will become part of the Mouse, Texas A&M goes back to being the Michigan State of a larger state, and the SEC will become the super-conference (more of a league) that will finally be as strong as they incessantly tell people they are.

Here is the best take:

The Big Ten is preparing its borders by letting it be known that only refugees with valid AAU membership cards will even be considered.

…unless, of course, you’re rich.

It’s also set the college football anthill into a frenzy. The people who like neat and same-sized columns are busy working on their justifications why jamming regionally and culturally affiliated institutions into their specific 16-team boxes is right and good. The guy who’s got a source willing to admit that Michigan and Ohio State once got asked out by someone who knows Alabama is going to have his day circulated among pretend media until a critical mass of brains have rejected it as goofy.

The Big 12 has more existential concerns, like do they exist? Commissioner Bob Bowlsby sent ESPN a cease and desist letter accusing the network of trying lure 3-5 members to the AAC to get the Big 12 to dissolve. Why?

"It's not so much about the taking of the members, what it does — and what it's intended to do — is destabilize the Big 12 so that it implodes, thus absolving OU and Texas of their grant of rights obligations and their exit fee obligations. If the Big 12 fails to exist as an entity, they can move quicker and they can do so for less money.”

That’s fair, but as Mathlete recently pointed out, the Big 12 has some Monty Python vibes right now.

[After THE JUMP: What do we do?]

jackhughes_interview-800x445

it might be happening

Unfortunately, a miss. ALSO JACK HUGHES?! Oliver Wahlstrom will play at BC next year. Michigan is still waiting on Jack Hughes, who everyone says will either play at the NTDP next year or accelerate like Zach Werenski. Mike Spath just said today on Inside the Huddle that Hughes hasn't made a decision yet, but: "there's a very strong likelihood" that he accelerates and that he's "in position to do so."

Per Spath, the potential catch is that if Quinn Hughes gets drafted and decides to sign, a major motivation for Jack to accelerate goes away. The upshot: "if Quinn and the family decide to come back for one more year at Michigan, look for Jack to join him."

Zach Shaw suggests you'd prefer the Rangers or Red Wings grab Hughes, then.

Strongly prefer.

The Big Ten hockey schedule is bad again. Prepare for another year with the vast majority of Michigan hockey's home games in the fall semester, when everything is happening. The Big Ten schedule features just four home games after the break:

2018-19 Michigan B1G Schedule
Nov. 9-10 -- Notre Dame
Nov. 16-17 -- at Penn State
Nov. 23-24 -- Wisconsin
Nov. 30 -- at Michigan State
Dec. 1 -- Michigan State
Dec. 7-8 -- Minnesota
Jan. 4-5, 2019 -- at Notre Dame
Jan. 11-12 -- at Ohio State
Jan. 24 -- Penn State
Jan. 26 -- Penn State (Super Saturday, New York, N.Y.)
Feb. 1-2 -- at Minnesota
Feb. 8 -- Michigan State
Feb. 9 -- vs. Michigan State (site TBA)
Feb. 22-23 -- Ohio State
March 1-2 -- at Wisconsin

Notable bad things: two(!) bye weeks, the Notre Dame series are not home-and-homes, and Michigan is shipping a Penn State game to NYC. The latter is payback for PSU doing the same thing. While it's slightly annoying for season ticket holders at least 1) the AD didn't announce this after season tickets were due, 2) after asserting a price cut that moving the MSU game actually turned into a price increase, and 3) to play in front of nobody in an outdoor game in Chicago. Announced attendance at the first game was almost 14k.

Hopefully Michigan can fill in those blank spots with nonconference home dates, but even then those are more likely to be Arizona State-ish teams than actually compelling games.

Also of interest: the Michigan State game that is traditionally at the Joe is now listed as TBA. The new version of the JLA might be too crowded to accommodate them? If so they should probably just move those games back to campus. There's no other arena worth having an MSU-M game in.

An outdoor game that's a good idea! The January 5th game at Notre Dame is going to be outdoors:

According to WTKA’s Michael Spath, the Michigan hockey team will return its game to the great outdoors this winter, as the Wolverines are slated to face off against Notre Dame at the Fighting Irish’s football stadium as part of the festivities surrounding the 2019 NHL Winter Classic.

The main event, which will pit the Chicago Blackhawks against the Boston Bruins at Notre Dame Stadium for the 11th installment of the event, will take place Jan. 1, 2019. While official details for Michigan’s game have yet to be announced, a source indicated to WTKA’s Inside The Huddle that the game is set to take place Jan. 5, one week after the Wolverines’ annual participation in the Great Lakes Invitational in downtown Detroit.

My tolerance for outdoor games has about bottomed out but this one passes muster. It'll be jam-packed. Hopefully the appeal of that outdoor game is an incentive to return for Quinn and attend for Jack.

Matthews decision status. Charles Matthews spoke to the media after one of his draft workouts, and you can try to read between the lines:

“Really just trying to wear all my options out,” Matthews said while attending a workout with the Denver Nuggets this week. “Basically go through all of the workouts that I have scheduled and just reconcile with my family and do what we feel is best. …

“It has been really good, especially if I do come back to school,” Matthews said. “Get some good experience to know what this process is like. If I choose to stay in, raise my confidence overall.”

Not a whole lot there, but the press conference did cause Andrew Kahn to reiterate the data he'd gathered about missing the combine. I'd been looking for since Matthews didn't get invited to the combine:

Should he keep his name in the draft, experts don't think his name will be called on June 21. ESPN's Jonathan Givony projects Matthews as a late first-round pick in next year's draft, as does NBAdraft.net. Givony does not list Matthews among his top 100 prospects at this time.

Last year, 137 college underclassmen declared for the draft, many without signing an agent. Eighty-four of them were not invited to the combine. Only four of the non-invitees kept their name in the draft; none were selected.

So you return unless you can't go back to school because of your academics or are staring down the prospect of getting 15 minutes a game because Tom Izzo's got his eye on a walk-on. I'd imagine Matthews returns for a final year, a la Moe.

LET'S GOOOOOOO. Our long national nightmare is finally, finally, finally over:

Dr. Pepper. You had Pitbull under an overpass, and then saddled us with this epic doof for years and years. Choose light. Choose Pitbull again.

Etc.: Barstool, imo.