nc state

The saddest legend. Is Toys R Us headquartered in North Carolina?

Why stop there, NC State? You've honored a gentleman you chased off your campus for playing baseball who finished his Wolfpack career with 7.2 yards per attempt. Once you've broken down the walls between that gentleman and a legends patch there are no barriers left.

Who's wearing 23 for you? He's now the Michael Jordan memorial (probably) tailback. He played somewhat near your school, after all. Jordan Spieth—certainly a carbon-based lifeform—does not have a number, so you can put a patch for him on all your jerseys. Dr. Manhattan may be fictional, but that doesn't have to stop you, NC State. Six words: NC State legend Dr. Manhattan cosplay.

Boom. You just got wow experienced. That will be one million dollars for consulting. Make the check out to Boom Wow Experienced Dot Org Net Inc.

On Samuelson's exit. Dan Samuelson was extremely candid with Nick Baumgardner in the aftermath:

"It had been a tough two years, not seeing the field and really not ever hitting the two-deep spot," Samuelson said Saturday. "I just realized, this is my third season, my chances of playing still aren't very good. I decided it was time to make a change and head somewhere where my chances were a little better.

"I just felt like it wasn't the best fit for me anymore."

Samuelson says he was third string throughout the spring and summer, and was told to focus on gaining more weight this offseason by Michigan's coaching staff -- something he says he accomplished after wrapping spring ball at 6-foot-5, 289 pounds.

But once camp began, Samuelson says he began to realize he wasn't making any progress when it came to Michigan's depth chart.

These days it's tough to play at less than 300, and Samuelson struggling to get up to 290 in his third year means the writing's on the wall. Samuelson made no bones about it.

Injury scares. While it seems Bryan Mone is going to be laid up for a long time with the broken ankle everyone says he's got, rumors that two more players were down for the count seem overblown.

The way this generally goes is several sites report the same thing without names, but with each one using a different set of parameters to indicate who it is (offensive freshman expected to contribute, etc.) people can deduce who the players in question were. Then the sites are like "right, those two guys" in follow-ups. It's a quality system. I enjoy it.

Anyway, in this case the two injured gents were TJ Wheatley and Wyatt Shallman. Steve Lorenz reported that Wheatley had a knee thing that was just a strain, not torn ligaments; Sam Webb reported that Shallman has a strained calf. Both are missing practice time and may miss a game or two but should be back early in the season.

This is a bad article. There are many bad articles. I don't often point them out these days, but this one is special. It is a column in Psychology Today titled "Obesely Speaking" about something something Harbaugh intermittent reinforcement SCIENCE:

We are also drawn to Harbaugh because we are a social species, and instinctually we know that we are only as strong as our weakest, as healthy as our sickest, as wealthy as our poorest – though we’ve lost sight of that. Hence, his many humanitarian deeds add yet another level of appeal.  I asked several Internet social media groups, such as Michigan Football HQ, The University of Michigan M Club, Michigan Proud and True, Big Ten Talk etc. why they liked Jim Harbaugh. U of M alumnus, Bruce Laing, encapsulates the majority opinion: He will instill toughness and accountability in the athletes, posted Laing in the University of Michigan M Club.  Our children's futures are vital, so we embrace the importance of education, accountability and toughness because they galvanize that future; yet  another reason Americans are drawn to Harbaugh.

Woof. The saddest part of this article is that it has 80(!) references to scientific papers at the end of it. Hopefully the guy just writes his columns such that all those papers are always at the end and he just C&Ps it. As good an explanation as any.

Well done. EDSBS commentariat member Tim Hodgson undertook an experiment:

Undertake your experiment today!

No union for (just) you. The National Labor Relations Board turned down Northwestern's attempt to unionize yesterday with a ruling reminiscent of Kirk Ferentz facing fourth and two in the opponent's territory:

"In the decision, the Board held that asserting jurisdiction would not promote labor stability due to the nature and structure of NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)," the NLRB wrote in its decision. "By statute the Board does not have jurisdiction over state-run colleges and universities, which constitute 108 of the roughly 125 FBS teams.

"In addition, every school in the Big Ten, except Northwestern, is a state-run institution. As the NCAA and conference maintain substantial control over individual teams, the Board held that asserting jurisdiction over a single team would not promote stability in labor relations across the league.

"This decision is narrowly focused to apply only to the players in this case and does not preclude reconsideration of this issue in the future."

They punted. That's disappointing and a bit nonsensical. Matt Hinton points out that this is a federal agency explicitly concerned with a "level playing field" that does not exist and never will. By shooting down this case, the NRLB forces any unionization effort to be held over at least all private schools and probably something even wider than that.

There is short term relief here for the NCAA; in the longer term this is going down in court.

Etc.: Wheatley profiled. 1981 SI piece on Bo is gold. The first-ever sports team at Michigan. Do not read, Gary Danielsn. Also do not read, Gary Danielson. Here is a week old piece on Kevin Tolbert I meant to link earlier.

Ace pointed out a basketball coaching site yesterday that had a bunch of Beilein stuff and one thing led to another and this happened, because apparently this is just what I do.

Trying to see stuff in a basketball game was an interesting change of pace, since even with my Analytical Goggles on there's a lot of stuff that just seems to happen because players are good or not good. This aspect of football is obscured somewhat. A lot of coaches say The Expectation Is For The Position with a straight face—I don't think you've ever ever heard a basketball coach drop that.

Anyway.

The initial post Ace pointed out was a couple sections of Michigan's offense called "chin" and "shuffle" in which the center moves out to the free throw line and acts as a low-pressure fulcrum connecting two halves of the floor.

What struck me about chin/shuffle is how they use the center as a conduit, opening up space without putting undue pressure on what's usually the least skilled offensive player on the floor. Meanwhile, the other four positions rotate through a variety of spots, eventually becoming interchangeable parts looking for the half-step they need to attack or shoot instead of reset.

Michigan runs a variety of looks off of this, each of which probes the defense for an easy bucket before reverting to a high ball screen on which the guy receiving the screen has three options.

I set to watching the NC State game again to find examples of how this works, and came across an example of the two-post offense getting Morgan open underneath for two (eventually).

Setting The Offense

This is a bit of an oddity since it's a two-post lineup but the principles are the same; here the offense will work around the lack of a three-point threat from one of the wings thanks to a busted NC State defensive assignment.

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The above is the on-court equivalent of this:

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For reasons unexplained the document consistently calls the two-guard in this offense a "trailor" instead of a "trailer" or I guess a "tailor". Supposition: he is a trailer who is suppose to tailor some offense. YEAH

So here the post has "flashed" but McGary just kind of set up at the line as Burke brought the ball up the court. The things in the document are an idealized version of the real world, I find. For instance, in one of the ways the offense starts is by dumping the ball to the center and then having the point and "trailor" cut to the basket.

The document:

Once 5 catches the pass, 1 and 4 [ed: the "trailor" yes I will eventually have to either fix that or drop the quote marks] SPRINT backdoor to the block. 5 looks for either 1 or 4.

Real life is dang perfunctory relative to an all-caps exhortation to SPRINT. The document does admit a bit later that "It is not common for either player to be open of [sic] this cut" and asks the 2—Morgan in this play—not to be "robotic". On this play the initial movements of Burke and Hardaway are soft jogs to their spot.

On this play Michigan is running "shuffle" instead of chin. Shuffle looks like chin when they start the play, but starts like this:

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dotted line is a pass

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Once Morgan receives the pass, Burke and Hardaway jog to the spots they're supposed to get to…

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…and McGary extends to the top of the key to receive a rote pass from Morgan. No one has made a decision yet.

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Meanwhile, a conveniently-timed graphic notes that eight minutes into the game Hardaway has more points than the rest of Michigan combined. Naturally he is going to receive lots of defensive attention. The guy checking Hardaway is CHECKING HARDAWAY in his brain.

McGary now has a rote pass to make of his own, this one a swing to Stauskas.

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"5 pops high, 3 reverses through the 5 to 2," sayeth document

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Hardaway sets a "shuffle screen" on Morgan's man; Hardaway's man is looking at that graphic and going "oh man I better check Hardaway"; Morgan gets hand-wavingly wide open underneath the basket.

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Stauskas dumps it down; Morgan misses, gets his own rebound, and finishes.

Meanwhile, Michigan has already executed the next part of the play with McGary screening whoever shows up on Hardaway.

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If NC State had covered Morgan appropriately this was likely to be a quality three-point look for Hardaway.

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"5 [McGary] sets the down screen for the 4 [Hardaway],
4 comes off the screen looking to shoot or curl it for a mid-range jumper.
2 [Stauskas] looks for 4.
After the screen 5 can look to slip to the basket or straight cut the FT line. 2 looks either for the lob[!] or at the elbow."

As it is, it's a layup for Morgan, eventually.

Things And Stuff

There aren't really many player takeaways on a short open layup that Morgan misses, gets back, and puts back. If we're trying to figure out some things about how Michigan runs offense, a lot of these broad early strokes are going to be off, as well. But…

A lot of the early movement in the offense is the process of getting into a play. On this play Michigan makes three passes and sends four players in motion before anyone has a decision to make. When Michigan dumps it to the center and then runs around and whatnot they're not really expecting to get a shot out of that, they're just moving into a variant of one of their standard looks.

Whoever is open is open. In half-court sets the guy who gets the ball is just going to be the guy who is open until nothing works and Burke has to create or die off a pick and roll.

Probe, reset, probe, reset. This is not a good example because Michigan just gets a quick easy bucket, but the document suggests the rhythm you can pick up watching Michigan play sometimes as situations happen over and over on the same possession as Michigan searches for the edge.