jalen coleman

Kim Barnes Arico is taking Michigan's recruiting to new heights [JD Scott]

[waves hand]

You did not see this post hit the front page for two minutes earlier today right as Nojel Eastern announced his transfer plans.

Ari Wiggins Commits to WBB

The commitment video of Indianapolis Heritage Christian guard Ari Wiggins, who made her announcement earlier this week, is well worth a few minutes of your time.

Wiggins is the #12 overall 2021 player and #4 point guard on Prospects Nation and #30 overall on ESPN; both rate her as a five-star prospect. ESPN also gives five stars to Michigan's other 2021 pledge, Cincinnati guard Laila Phelia. Prospects Nation likes Wiggins a great deal whether the 5'8" guard is running the point or hunting shots:

Wiggins looks and plays vastly more mature now than she did when we first saw her as a freshman. She's a dynamic option who likes to get downhill off the bounce. Wiggins is super explosive in that regard but also showed here the ability to knockdown the open 3-pointer. A left-handed dominant guard, Wiggins gives Michigan a potential threat on or off the ball.

ESPN's robust women's hoops scouting service has three camp reports of similar ilk. They see her as an explosive combo guard:

Boo Williams Invitational-April 2019: Athletic combo-guard explodes off the dribble, brings attack mode in transition game; handles in transition, changes pace; rises on jumper in mid-range game, emerging deep threat arsenal. (Olson)

The 5'11" Phelia should also bring athleticism and scoring ability to the table, according to ESPN:

Classic-in-the-Country Challenge-January 2020: Athletic guard manufactures shots, knocks down jumpers at the arc; executes in half-court game, creates into the defense, rises over defenders and delivers in mid-range game; competes on both ends of the floor; among the elite guards in the class of 2021. (Olson)

This class follows a four-signee class of 2020 that includes ESPN five-star Cameron Williams and three others rated as four-star recruits by Prospects Nation, topped by their #40 overall recruit, guard Meghan Fiso. (I wrote plenty more on that class in my early look at the 2020-21 season.)

Kim Barnes Arico is putting together a program with the talent to make a serious run at the top of the Big Ten and a chance to make some noise nationally. The 2021-22 roster, which is projected to be led by senior versions of Naz Hillmon and Amy Dilk, looks particularly loaded. We're already pretty much there—this is looking like the golden era of Michigan women's basketball. There's ample room on the bandwagon.

[Hit THE JUMP for a couple MBB transfer possibilities, Matt Painter's bad quote, and more.]

Hoops: Michigan Drops Jalen Coleman

Since basketball recruiting news comes in waves with long periods of inactivity, and I'm the basketball guy around here anyway, hoops recruiting updates have been absorbed into the regular recruiting roundups; please excuse—and correct!—any errors I might make while I acclimate myself to the hoops recruiting scene, which I've largely ignored while Brian handled the updates.

The big recruiting news in either sport this week is that Michigan, in the wake of landing D-III transfer Duncan Robinson, has dropped high four-star 2015 IN PG Jalen Coleman from consideration, per GBW's Kyle Bogenschutz ($):

Via a phone call Tuesday afternoon, Coleman’s father Piankhi Lands said that recruitment is now over.

“Well we were trying to (set up an official visit) and they told us they were only recruiting one person for the class of 2015 and a Division III guy they had picked up, they didn’t want to set up an official date, Lands said. “They had already given a scholarship out.”

This means a couple things. For one, the staff must be very optimistic about Robinson if they're willing to pass on a shot at an elite 2015 recruit like Coleman to get him—Michigan was a very strong contender (along with Notre Dame, oddly) to land Coleman until this development. It also means the scope of the 2015 recruiting focus has narrowed significantly. Five-star IL PG Jalen Brunson announced five official visit destinations recently that did not include Michigan ($). Sam Webb believes Michigan is also done recruiting four-star Saginaw SG Eric Davis ($).

Two names appear to remain on the board for 2015, players Michigan would take despite the fact that either one would knock a slot out of the very promising 2016 class. The first is Indiana five-star Caleb Swanigan, a skilled 6'9" big man with offers from the likes of Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisville, and Michigan State. It's hard to see a scenario in which Michigan wouldn't take him if he wanted to come. While the Spartans are thought to lead in his recruitment, Michigan isn't out of it, per The Wolverine's Chris Balas ($):

The Michigan camper (last summer) has kept the Wolverines in the mix. 



"The relationship is pretty good," Swanigan said, "and it's starting to build strength. They usually don't offer guys until after the year because they're real concerned about academics, but they're starting to recruit me more. 



"Michigan, definitely, they show a lot of love. I've been to the facilities once or twice before. They've been pretty strong."

The other is high four-star combo guard Perry "P.J." Dozier, who's probably still under consideration because he's 6'6" (and reportedly growing) with point guard skills. He's slated to take an official visit to Michigan on September 26th. Dozier sees himself as a primary ballhander at the next level, and apparently so does Michigan, which Dozier's father said is a big positive when talking to Bogenschutz last week ($):

“And again, we never really told the coaching staff what we were looking for, we wanted them to tell us what they saw him as and Michigan did a great job in recruiting, they were there pretty early in the game, showing a lot of interest and with the history of what they’ve done there.

“And Michigan, we have much more respect for the coaching staff there. But mainly, they’re recruiting him the way he wants to be recruited.

Dozier could potentially eliminate the need/spot for a point guard or shooting guard in the 2016 class given his size and skill-set.

In 2016 hoops recruiting news, Michigan offered 6'6" five-star wing Josh Langford while he was on an unofficial visit last Friday. UMHoops has some video of him dunking all over people, among other things, at that link; Dylan has also compiled sophomore highlights for 2016 commit Jon Teske.

[Hit THE JUMP for football updates, including newly released state rankings from Scout for Michigan and Ohio, and commit Andrew David kicking footballs a very long way with accuracy.]

Well now that's over and we can think about… oh. I can't believe I got a bunch of people going "but I want to talk about football" in this offseason of all offseasons. Happy now?

Anyway, as a result of my quadrennial case of World Cup fever some of these links are a bit old. You have been warned.

The best thing to come out of the Big Ten expansion.

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This is from a completely serious BHGP article about how the Big Ten has just electrified New York City. There is also a completely serious article from Ryan Nanni that faintly reads like parody.

Let's talk about basketball. Kenpom talks offensive rebounding. Findings:

  1. OREBs are gradually declining as more teams abandon the boards for better transition defense (probably).
  2. Layups get OREB'd slightly more than 40% of the time, with jumpers and threes OREB'd slightly more than 30% of the time. Threes are least likely to get OREB'd, so don't let those long bouncers back out fool you.
  3. Anything that gets blocked and stays in play is about 32% to be OREB'd.
  4. Chart

oreb_by_minute[1]

Offensive rebounds are more likely as the game goes on, which is a pretty weird finding to me but there it is. The late surge makes sense since trailing teams will go all out and damn the transition torpedoes, but the rest of it is a bit weird.

And yet it moves. A palpable cut for one Jalen Coleman. This is not a drill (nor is it, like, something that is new, but I was waiting for more basketball recruiting news that did not appear):

Coleman, a 6-foot-3 guard from La Lumiere High School in La Porte, Ind., will choose between Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Notre Dame, UNLV and NC State, according to Scout.com recruiting analyst Brian Snow.

Notre Dame, oddly, is rumored to be Michigan's main competition. They do have proximity and (probable) playing time, but they haven't exactly been Beilein-standard during the interminable Mike Brey era.

Kings draftin' Stauskas.

Yeah, probably. Gary Parrish asks a question about Beilein:

Is John Beilein the best at turning lowly recruits into lottery picks?

Trey Burke and Nik Stauskas both shot into the lottery after being in the 70s or 80s as recruits… just wait until next year, when Caris LeVert probably adds his name in there somewhere. Parrish's trump card:

Of the 20 players selected in the top 10 of the past two NBA Drafts, 18 were former top 75 prospects and/or players who spent at least three seasons in college. The only exceptions? Burke and Stauskas -- both of whom enrolled at Michigan as unheralded recruits, earned Big Ten Player of the Year honors as sophomores, turned pro and were selected in the top 10 of the subsequent NBA Draft.

Bonkers, man. This is such a smart quote in re: how:

"We try to project whether a player is on the rise or if he's already where he's gonna be," Beilein said. "A lot of the [analysts'] early projections on players, I think, are made because the players' bodies are ahead of everybody else's bodies. And if you saw Nik or Caris, back when they were 16 years old, their bodies weren't ahead of anybody else's bodies."

Not that projecting based on bodies is necessarily a bad strategy—it seems to be working just fine for, uh, everybody. But when you're trying to assemble a starting five that's ten picks away from being all first-rounders and you don't have the recent pedigree of the Dukes and the Kentuckies, it is (obviously) a rather good idea.

Okay okay one more quote:

"Lots of coaches work on shooting with players, but Beilein teaches guys how to shoot," an NBA executive told me. "He doesn't just work with them. He actually teaches them."

Hooray Beilein.

Let's talk about hockey. Over The Boards lists the top 15 college guys for next year's draft, featuring three guys committed to Michigan at numbers 4, 5, and 6. Or mostly committed, in Zach Werenski's case. Nick Boka:

4. 97 D Nick Boka – NTDP U18 – Michigan

The Michigan recruit has an aggressive, athletic upside that could come on very strong in his draft year. Wins battles in the tough areas of the ice and can provide puck support. We like Werenski’s total skillset more right now, but Boka could easily emerge as the best American talent on the blue line in this draft behind Hanifin.

The top nine guys are all headed to Michigan, BC, or BU, FWIW.

This is appalling. National Football Post puts up a thing about NFL talent with a boggling Michigan thing. This is the second half of the chart running down the top 37 producers of NFL talent in the league, as ordered by 2013 player starts. Michigan's cliff is insane:

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Argh Harbaugh

Nutshell, meet Michigan's barely over .500 record since Bo's death. It's not quite that bad in real life, as a combination of circumstances reduced Michigan's number to the "Stanford before 2009" number you see above. Actually, it's just one circumstance: Stevie Brown getting knocked out with an injury.

Your top overall pre-2009 producers:

  1. Miami (That Miami)
  2. Michigan
  3. Tennessee
  4. Texas
  5. Florida State

Michigan is dead last since, amongst this sample. NOW ARE YOU HAPPY TO TALK ABOUT FOOTBALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL /rock musik

All right, sir, you have my attention. MmmgobluBBQ, a Michigan-themed grill/tailgate/BBQ blog exists, and… yes sir, I subscribe.

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That… is beautiful, and then you realize that the onion ring there is bacon-wrapped.

Let's not do this. Michigan went over its travel budget for the bowl game by just over 100k, causing assertions that Michigan took a loss on the thing. That is not accurate, as even the article states:

Ultimately, the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl left U-M roughly $132,000 in the red. …

U-M's loss of $132,000 does not include revenue brought in from the Big Ten's shared bowl revenue plan, which splits all Big Ten bowl revenue among the conference's 12 teams.

So, not in the red. Just slightly over the Big Ten's travel allotment.

Etc. Don't click this box score unless you want to be reminded of last year. Stop taking pictures of yourself, twits. I BLAME YOU ELLEN.  Don't use a null hypothesis when that's not sensible. Contains subtweet shade thrown at David Berri (the "salaries don't predict wins" bit). Nussmeier talks with Bruce Feldman.

Ohio State ticket prices are high, at least on the secondary market.

Barwis TV Barwis TV. Why you should root for O'Bannon.