kate upton

Bump… Set…

The National Championship game was a bitter-sweet affair, but there was one part of the game that was sweet amazing un-flipping-believable: Spike Motherf***ing Albrecht. the guy came in averaging 2.2 points per game, and he scored 17 points in an 11-minute stretch in the title game. I mean…

Spike Albrecht was on the front page of CNN. Spike Albrecht was trending on Twitter. Spike Albrecht made thousands of curly fries, and those curly fries each went on to shoot lights-out from the outside.

Now, imagine for a second that you are this guy. The world has been awed by your meteoric rise. Today you are a god, but you know that, like Gangnam Style and the Harlem Shake, your run can end at any moment. What do you do? Yeah, you’d probably do this:

This, as Adam Jacobi pointed out, has all the hallmarks of a “heat check.” And while some of you probably think Kate might be out of his range, he’s shown this week that his range is a lot broader than you might have expected.

Moral High Ground: Crumbly, But Extant

As we discussed on an earlier installment, a Michigan Man is gracious in victory and stoic in defeat. Unlike our younger brethren in East Lansing, we can deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with an unflinching gaze. So despite the glorious nature of the win on Saturday and the heartbreaking nature of loss on Monday, we know that these fine Michigan Men would not resort to the kind of childish tomfoolery as those Neanderthals in green and white.

Well, balls. Reports differ, but what is known that several fires were spotted on Michigan’s campus after both the Syracuse game and the Louisville game. Most of these fires involved couches. This induced groans from Michigan fans and glee from Michigan State fans. As a result of this dumb-ass display, I received two types of comments from the many Sparty fans I interact with on a regular basis.*

1) “LOL, looks like scUM isn’t as morally superior as they think. Get off your high horse, scUM”

I hate to say it, but I think they’re right. For as much crap as we talk every time Michigan State burns a couch, we torched them sons-o'-b*tches at the first chance we got… and then after the VERY NEXT chance we got two days later. It’ll take some serious myopia to be all “hurr, go burn some more couches, couch-burners” after this. This was an immature, brah-tastic display by Michigan students. Anyone who thinks this is a Sparty-specific thing is wrong, and anyone who supports this kind of thing makes us all look bad. And is someone who sucks. If we're gonna claim to be above this sort of thing, we have to either be above this sort of thing or we should STFU.

2) “LOL, looks like that ‘Michigan State riots and burns couches’ meme is gonna have to die now!”

Whoooooa there, fella. Not so fast.

First, sure, Michigan burned a few couches, but if we’re gonna call this a riot, then Michigan sucks so very much at rioting. Let’s compare the videos:

One of these is a riot. One of these is a s'more roast gone bad. I'll let you decide which is which.

Second, it isn’t like this is some little thing that Michigan fans conjured up out of nothing. The good people at The Google will back us up on this:

(h/t @cgaerig)

(h/t @Bry_Mac) (Hey… dat’s a me!)

(h/t @AceAnbender)

When the Internet thinks of riots and burning couches, it thinks East Lansing. When it thinks East Lansing, it thinks of riots. QED. Besides, since when do rivalry memes live and die with “facts”? A couple of years ago polling data came out that completely destroyed the entire factual basis for the “Walmart Wolverine” meme. Have you noticed a decline in “Walvie” references? No? Okay, then go back you your couch-burning, you couch-burners.

And finally, the meme also won’t die because this week Sparty proved the seventh-oldest adage in the book: never bring a burning couch to a bomb fight.

[*Full Disclosure: I am the son of two Spartans. I married a Spartan. My sister was a double-Spartan. I’ve lived in the Lansing area for almost six years of my life. I speak fluent Brah. I am not one of them, but I am of them.]

Mark May is Terrible at Everything

What if your entire life was about the dumbest things you ever bothered to write down? Well… you’d be Mark May.

May is not good at not being wrong. He also has a running battle with Ohio State dating back to the Tatgate thing. It is not unlike the Michigan/Mike Rosenberg relationship. They hate this dude, and he seems to dislike them just about as much.

Fortunately, Ramzy (@ramzy) at Eleven Warriors has a handy database of other wise calls May has made over the years:

The terrible thing about the Internet is that nothing is ever forgotten. The fabulous thing about the Internet is that nothing stupid ever said by annoying professional trolls is ever forgotten. I suggest keeping an eye on Ramzy’s feed for future troll trolling.

(Also, I’m not sure if your aware, but May also dislikes spelling and grammar. But that is neither hear nor their.

)
 

[UPDATE: Oh, Internet. You never let me down. Looks like overnight @mgoblog, @AceAnbender, @BrianMFloyd, @edsbs, and others jumped on the "look at the amazing things Mark May has said" bandwagon. And it is glorious. I recommend taking 10 minutes of your day to soak in the wisdom.]

[DEFINITIVE UPDATE: Jason Kirk summarizes the Tao of Mark May. All the points]

What Have You Done For Me Lately? Yeah? DON’T CARE YOU STILL SUCK

Losses bring out the trolls in the best of us. In defeat, people freak out and blame the blameless things. They say heat-of-the-moment crap that they know at the time to be stupid, but they can’t help themselves. “Trey Burke is terrible.” “Denard doesn’t seem to care.” “Navarre AAAAAAAHHH NAVARRE.”  That is why I largely discount the stupid stuff that happens after losses. The 504 errors on the MGoBoard after a particularly bad loss are usually a blessing in disguise.

But after Saturday’s win (again, I emphasize after Michigan’s FINAL FOUR VICTORY), Ace engaged in this conversation, and it made my jaw drop, melt, and re-form as a giant cartoon mallet that bashed me into the ground like a tent peg:

 

Substantively, he is almost certainly wrong. The problem down the stretch against Syracuse was free throw shooting, and while Beilein is admittedly a poor free throw shooter, I don’t know if we can blame him for those misses. And as Ace pointed out, the epic return of Jordan Morgan was 100% JB. He used his subs. It was crazy.

Beyond that, the object lesson here is that some people will never, ever be happy. Your team just won a gigantic game. They’re going to the freeking National Championship. Your impulse should be “OMG THIS COUCH MUST DIE,” [Note: resist the impulse. Save the couches] not “I HAZ CONCERNS”. It saddens me that there are Michigan fans who couldn’t enjoy the run Michigan just made, because dollars to donuts you will never have a run that is more fun than this one. And at the highest point of that run, there were people honestly and legitimately complaining about various stuff. And it wasn’t just this guy; after I read this, I poked around to see if other people were seriously upset after the game. And there were. But I stopped reading them because I had some g*ddamn celebrating to do.

That’s Better

After a poor showing last week, Jose is back in fine form.

And I am happy… but then…

We have a complicated relationship, my bash brother.

Everywhere else has reposted already so I might as well throw this up top. 'Pre-gaming with' Pat Stansik posted this ode to a valentine of untied laces, performed by a band called Mind's Eyes. The lyrics you will recognize, since you made them.

Sorry to be a bit of a wet towel on this but if you've played guitar for longer than 9 months a I-V-ii-vi progression in G is something you only do if you're an Oasis knockoff for ironic effect, or as a secret track filled with dick jokes at the end of your album. Then again I thought Donkey Punch was overrated, that Tally Hall just plain sucked, and if anyone of that generation was going to "make it" it oughtta be Six Clips, so what do I know?

I know Six Clips rocked.

What I don't know is how to play lacrosse, except in that it seems to be like hockey. But hey the Canadian sports haven't missed with me yet so let's learn this. Let's see, where would we find…oh hey look it's Brooks with the beginner's guide to the rules of lacrosse. [Read read read]. Sweet, I'm now familiar enough with the regs to criticize the refs and ready for some L-A-X. Let's see, where would we find a game…oh hey look it's MaizeAndBlueWahoo with the details for M's first televised lacrosse game (plus a long recap of the first game as varsity, a 13-9 loss to Detroit-Mercy in Pontiac). Surely it's some weekday when I can't...oh hey look it's right after the Spring Game in the Big House, and versus Ohio State. And there's to be a cup between the three Big Ten teams (PSU is the other). Now this is how you launch a new varsity sport!

In a Race to Pasadena, I'll Take the Beamer Bimmer^HT. Your diarist of the week Eye of the Tiger has made 2012 Big Ten Football programs comparable to 2012 model automobiles #OnlyInMichigan. Each team gets a 2011 grade, a 2012 recruiting grade, and a predicted average wins for the next three years that doesn't seem to take into account some of the vast differences in schedule strengths. It also highlights the bitter unfairness of Ohio State's players only getting free Nissans this year when they're valued at Ferrari FFs. Michigan Team 133 is a controversial 2012 BMW M5. Controversial because people in the comments are enraged that he said the metaphorically Rich-Rod model was a naturally aspirated V10 but the V10 is really traditional so he must be saying Lloyd and Mo and Bo ran spread offenses, and Hoke isn't a safe V8 and...wow guys we really just found a way to drag performance engines into an RR argument. Seriously: #OnlyInMichigan!

Picture-Paging Brilliance. On TV the Treais goal when he put back his own rebound looked downright Datsyukian, but I was afraid it might seem less so when screen capped. Silly thing to fear:

All hail CenterIce for picture paging every goal against MSU last weekend.

Sugar Bowl Every Snap. Sugar Bowl Every Snap. He also surveys readers to ask who wants Brian to stop what he's doing and sacrifice two days of his life to thoroughly picking apart a game from six weeks ago that is only marginally related to this year's team. To this you respond "hell yes!" because Brian Cook is our personal UFR monkey.

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Best of the Board

WHAT IS THE AIRSPEED VELOCITY OF A BE-DREADED SPREAD QUARTERBACK CARRYING AN OBLONG COCONUT?

The board this week awoke to a new self-consciousness. In order to cross the Bridge of MGoDeath you must answer me these questions three:

• WHO is your favorite new MGoBoard poster (hint: it's the Bama guy)?
• WHICH old-tyme blogger do you miss the most?
• WHAT made you come to MGoBlog in the first place?

That last is the most interesting, from the guy who found the blogspot site left open on a fishbowl computer to the old guy who finally asked his kid "how do you know so much about the recruits?"

SOFTBALL UPDATE

Starting pitcher Sara Driesenga was freshman of the week. Line? Line!

SEASON	ERA	W-L	GS	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
2012	0.64	2-0	2	1	0	0	11	5	3	1	6	2

Line!!!! Sara, who by reports was born crying "Hail to the Victors," is also batting .500 so far (2 for 4). This is slightly worse than her high school career, when she had an ERA of 0.40, and a .504 career batting average. Let's pick it up Sara; this is MICHIGAN fergodsakes. Softball also picked up a touted southpaw recruit this week.

GET TO THE PART WITH KATE UPTON!

Etc. Discussing blooms from Brian's post on the Mattison clinic on whether this using the SAM on the wide side always is perhaps a bit unsound—from recollection teams that tried that last year were Illinois and Nebraska and it very didn't work. College Game Day is free FYI; in return for this information the OP let us know Denard liked his valentine song from up top. Sigh: Kate Upton. The countdown begins.

I think this means we win. Kate Upton is a Michigan fan. She is also a moderately attractive young lady!

 
hours spent finding SFW photo: six

High fives for everyone!

[Pay no attention to the following SEO-oriented paragraph:

So I heard you like Kate Upton in your Upton so I put Kate in your Upton and Uptoned your Kate so you can Kate while you Kate and Upton while you Upton. Sex tape.

]

The Ten Year War ends. WH compiles the 1978 Michigan-OSU game:

A few weeks later Woody Hayes would bonk a Clemson linebacker and that was that.

Ref bump noted. Kyle Kalis's epic ref bump…

…is something OL coach Darrell Funk also picked up on:

"He just wants to tear your head off," Funk said. "He plays like that all the time and practices like that all the time, and we need that. You can Xs and Os all you want, and that’s important, but at the end of the day, it starts up front." …

Funk laughed when he described one sequence of film in which Kalis knocks over an umpire “when he was throwing someone around” and couldn’t decide whether to help the guy up or find someone else to hit.

The ref was shaken but not badly hurt. This is because Kalis was hurting someone else.

Funk also notes that none of the four guys currently in the class projects to center; that will be a priority in 2013.

The old mean guy. Meanwhile, David Molk adds to his Scrooge-McDuck level quote vault:

“The awards were never anything that I strived to get,” Molk said, before correcting himself.

“I take that back,” he said, laughing. “The only award I wanted was the Rimington mostly because a guy who worked with us, (Michigan assistant strength coach) Dan Mozes, was a Rimington winner at West Virginia. I’d say something, and he’d say, ‘Hey, Molk, shut up. I’ve got an 80-pound trophy and you don’t.’"

He's being told he could go anywhere from the bottom of the first(!) to the third round.

Three point defense: random. This Kenpom post at ESPN($) caught my eye after I previewed a Nebraska team that is thoroughly awful at all basketball activities except opponent three-point shooting. Here are the year-to-year correlations between various defensive stats:

Opponents' 3-point percentage: .204
Opponents' free throw percentage: .266
Opponents' 2-point percentage: .558
Opponents' 3-point attempt percentage: .575

There are just four numbers here, but they provide a very powerful context. What stands out is that opponents' free throw percentage correlates more strongly from season to season than opponents' 3-point percentage. In other words, we can predict a team's "free throw defense" in the future based on current stats better than we could predict its 3-point defense. And I think everyone understands that a team has little control over its opponents' free throw percentage.

IE, the percentage of threes your opponents hit is not a particularly useful thing to look at, but the number of threes they get off is. Wisconsin is a particularly excellent example of this phenomenon. Last year their opponents hit 37% of their threes, good for only 299th nationally. This year that's dipped 10 percentage points and they skyrocket to first.

What does this mean for Michigan? Not a whole lot. Their three-point D is a little below average; so is their ability to prevent opponents from launching. It will be interesting to watch how that latter number changes next year as Michigan adds a ton of height.

No elite teams, continued. Following up on Monday's assertion that there don't seem to be many elite teams in college hockey this year: KRACH provides strong evidence of that. KRACH is a ranking system that's more pleasant to statistically minded folk for reasons I won't get into in case some of you are operating heavy machinery. For purposes of this argument it's useful because it not only provides a ranking but also has a strength rating.

KRACH tends to get enthusiastic about strong leagues and teams; it has a tendency to proclaim certain teams nigh invulnerable. Here's last year's version:

Note the huge jumps in rating as you climb. There's a pretty tight bunch until you hit BC and North Dakota; there's also a cliff after #7. This year there is no such gap:

Rk	Team	Rating	RRWP	W-L-T	Rk
1	Boston University	357.8	0.7546	17-8-1	3T
2	Boston College	337.6	0.7445	17-10-1	11
3	Michigan	336.4	0.7439	17-9-4	9
4	Mass.-Lowell	314.8	0.7322	18-7-0	1
5	Ferris State	314.4	0.732	18-8-4	7
6	Minnesota-Duluth	294.3	0.72	18-6-4	2
7	Maine	287.6	0.7158	16-8-3	8
8	Notre Dame	270.5	0.7044	16-11-3	19
9	Merrimack	261.7	0.6982	15-6-5	3T
10	Michigan State	260	0.6969	15-11-4	21T

KRACH ratings add to the same number every year and so provide a baseline: this year's most dominant team would be… eh… fourth last year, and the gaps between the top teams and the bottom of the top ten are significantly smaller than they usually are.

This promises to be the most wide open NCAA tournament since… well, not very long ago. Single-elimination playoff hockey remains an exercise in blind terror and weird bounces. A couple years ago three of the four one seeds crashed and burned before the Frozen Four. But if you like your barely-weighted plinko to be really hardly weighted at all this is your year. Anyone who makes it in will be eyeing the Frozen Four.

Hockey draft bits. NHL draft rankings multiply like rabbits. Hockey Prospectus has Jacob Trouba #7, Boo Nieves #30, and Phil Di Giuseppe #43. TSN has Trouba sixth…

Strengths: A mobile defenceman with length, strength and range. Plays a physical game and not afraid to take a run at an opponent. Has some offensive skills, is a good passer with vision and a hard point shot. Weaknesses: there are some questions about his overall hockey sense, needs to learn to rein in the physical play at times and play with composure.

…PDG 27th…

Strengths: Very quick skater with soft hands, a sneaky release and he competes. Good offensive instincts, good size, tough to contain along the boards on the cycle. Weaknesses: Needs to keep working on his defensive duties and could play with a bit more edge more consistently. He will likely require more time in college to round out his game but has been rumoured to be leaning towards playing all four seasons in Michigan. His production has waned in second half of season.

…and does not rank Nieves in their top 45.

Bad incentives. The United States of Hockey takes on UND coach Dave Hakstol's assertion that playing in the CHL shouldn't hurt your NCAA eligibility:

First off, allowing CHL players to retain college eligibility could have a gigantic impact on the USHL. More top-end players would go to the CHL fully knowing that they’ll have a fall-back plan. So they can go up and get added exposure, get in front of more scouts on a nightly basis. The top end in the USHL could be significantly diminished in such a scenario.

While this move would help the NCAA’s depth, it would most likely eliminate many of the top-end players from ever making it to the NCAA. By the time a player’s Junior career is over at age 20, most would go to the NHL or AHL. Only the guys that would have otherwise played lower-level minor-league hockey would end up in college. The quality of play gets dragged down in the college ranks. While the NCAA would remain a developmental option, it also becomes a safety net for CHL players similar to what the Canadian Interuniversity Sport is right now. That’s an ugly scenario for American college hockey, which has produced NHL talent as long as it’s been in existence.

The USHL is a hugely important part of the route to college hockey and should be protected at all costs. Allowing players to go to the CHL and maintain collegiate eligibility cuts the decade-long rise of the league off at the knees. It's a nonstarter.

The only way I could see this happening is if the NCAA restricted post-CHL eligibility to just Canadians. That wouldn't hurt the USHL. Because of the double standard in place between USA Hockey and their Canadian counterpart Canadians wanting to play college hockey have to cool their heels in Junior A leagues far inferior to the USHL. If the NCAA opened the door for Canadians coming over immediately after high school, I could see it working…

…except the CHL would immediately make it not work by finding sufficient NCAA regulations to violate so that any kid in junior would never make it to campus without an inquisition. Saban teaches that it is not a good idea to give people in charge of high school/college kids incentive to not have their charges graduate. So nevermind.

Etc.: GLI outdoors officially. Seniors on next year's team will have played outdoors all four years.. Michigan gets three million for renting out Michigan Stadium. Boo Nieves will make a move to the USHL after his prep season ends.

I talk with Lake the Posts about the Mattison transition and why Northwestern shouldn't expect the same miracle with a new coordinator. The Bylaw Blog on revamping transfer restrictions. Mock Rock recap. Ace on the GBMW podcast.