nonrevenue

Editor's note: bonus podcast-type object from FA, who had the opportunity to interview volleyball coach Mark Rosen, who has Michigan in the top ten.

For those of you who might have missed the volleyball team's recent climb to #6 in the nation, you're missing out. Michigan has already defeated one major perennial power in Nebraska (think basketball's victory over Duke last year). They opened up the home slate last weekend, emerging unbeaten in 4 games, not even dropping a set.

This week ups the ante. Michigan hosts 9-2 Marquette (Friday 1p), unbeaten #27 Dayton (Friday 7:30pm), and 7-2 Oregon State (Saturday 3:30pm). The Oregon State game is going to be huge. The athletic department has moved the game to Crisler Arena to accommodate the big crowds they are expecting.

Coach Rosen joined me in an interview to preview the Michigan team. Over the course of the interview, we covered everything from Brazilian food, Michigan's strategy, beating Penn State, and reasons you should come out (including girls in spandex!). Take a listen and more importantly, after football destroys Eastern Michigan, head next door and see the volleyball team take on Oregon State.

For those interested in breaking records, Nebraska had 13,780 fans show up to its game against UCLA last week. Crisler Arena's official capacity is 13,751. I think we can pack in a few extras and shock the volleyball world again this season.

[Saturday @ 3:30: volleyball in Crisler.]

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Editor's note: we're still trying to figure out how much real estate to give non-revenue sports during football season. We're leaning towards front-paging the stuff with a quick jump, as you see below.

Michigan had a pretty successful weekend in places other than football. Team sports went 6-1, with a potential win coming up with the men's soccer team still in progress. For a full recap of the weekend, take the jump.

For the last few years, Michigan has been building a name for themselves in volleyball. It wasn't too long ago that Michigan was always a bottom wrung team. Under the tutelage of Coach Mark Rosen, Michigan has scraped its way to respectful. Today, it took the next step. Today, Michigan made a statement.

In front of a packed house of 5,772 in Omaha, NE, just an hour away from the University of Nebraska campus in Lincoln, the Wolverines took on the #3 Cornhuskers in the Runza/AVCA Challenge, the top tournament in the college volleyball regular season. This game was going to be tough; Nebraska has dominated Michigan in 3 games, sweeping Michigan in 3 games each time. The Cornhuskers have only lost once ever in the Qwest Center. Nebraska was coming off yet another Final Four appearance, knocking Michigan out in the same stadium during the Sweet 16 round.

But Michigan came out looking to match the effort of the 2007 season opener against Hawaii in Hawaii. They wanted to take out the crowd early. They wanted to get into the heads of the younger Husker lineup. They did just that. Michigan came out strong early. Juliana Paz and Alex Hunt were putting tremendous pressure on the Huskers front line. Megan Bower and Courtney Fletcher, who wasn't even slated to start until the last minute, were strong on the front, affording Michigan plenty of opportunities for easy passes. Everything clicked.

Alex Hunt was the true hero though. When Paz was getting stuffed with blockers, Alex Hunt ripped the ball with no mercy. Her left handed shots seemed to confuse the Nebraksa blockers who sent her shots wide if they were able to stop it at all. Hunt finished with 14 kills, twice the total of any other player on either team. At one point, just when Nebraska showed signs of gaining momentum, Hunt's shot to end the first set went right into the face of the Nebraska libero. It bounced all the way into the stands, which at the Qwest center, aren't very close. That point put the nail in the coffin.

Michigan was in the driver's seat, leading or tied for the lead on 73 of the next 78 rallies. Nebraska became lost – "bewildered" was repeated over and over again by the announcers. By the third set, Michigan jumped out to such a big lead, the Cornhuskers all but threw in the towel. Michigan was the well oiled machine. Nebraska was making the small errors that had cost Michigan several games over the last few years. There was a total role reversal from last year.

Michigan would win 3-0, with scores of 25-23, 25-21, and 25-17. It was their first win over a top 5 team in program history. So while this young Nebraska team is probably a little overrated, Michigan made the statement tonight that it plans on taking it to the competition, and that's something to be excited about.

Nebraska coach John Cook summed it up thus:

We got a good old butt kicking tonight. Michigan brought it and played great tonight. They put a lot of pressure on us and we did not do a very good job of handling it. This will be a great learning match for us. Michigan was a scary team for us to play. They went on a foreign tour, they got a lot of players back and they were much more organized and played much better as a team tonight than we did.

He also compared us to the Stanford team that did this and later won the national championship. That's probably too far of a stretch, even for the biggest Michigan volleyball homer, but it's encouraging nonetheless. But I mean hey, last year, three of the four teams invited to the AVCA tournament made the Final Four. Michigan probably won't be aiming for this, but we definitely have a shot of at least putting pressure on Penn State.

As for my other thoughts:

• I thought Paz was getting set pretty deep to start the game. Some of the sets from Zimmerman were almost to the 10 ft line. The blockers for Nebraska were able to get a better read on the ball and react accordingly.
• Alex Hunt had a terrific kill from the back row to save a possession. I missed who made the great pass while falling away from the court, but it came right to Alex who, being left handed was left wide open to wail on it. She knocked it perfectly into the open near corner.
• Lexi Zimmerman had the only solo block of the game. She turned around to see a hit coming on a 2 (instead of pass, set, spike, you hit instead of set), and she made an amazing effort to throw the ball back down.
• Our middles seemed quiet the first two sets. Nebraska was able to exploit the inside of the block by waiting on the middle to commit, then shooting behind them. That was concerning to start the game. Looking back at the box score, I was really surprised to see that Rood and Fletcher combined for 11 kills. I can't remember too many 0 or 1 sets to the middle.
• Sloane Donhoff redeemed herself for the NCAA tournament game against Nebraska. She looked solid in the libero role and comfortable receiving serve, a vast improvement over last year's finale.
• Michigan didn't make any substitutions outside of using the libero. This seemed somewhat strange, but at the same time, each of our hitters plays the back row really well and are normally consistent servers.

Coming Up Next

Michigan takes on #22 Kansas State on Saturday. K-State is fresh off a 5 set loss to Minnesota, but the Wildcats looked very good through much of the game. Their two outside hitters, Ludwig and Chisholm, definitely looked strong and will most likely be a tougher test than what we saw from Nebraska. What does bode well for Michigan is their ball handling. During the 1st, 2nd, and 5th sets, K-State was having a lot of problems passing and setting the ball. Their unforced errors really are the main reason Minnesota won the first two sets. During 3rd and 4th sets, however, K-State played solid and really turned the game around. If the Wildcats play consistently at that level, it will be rough.

The first serve is slated for 7:00p ET on CBS College Sports. There will be another CiL liveblog on mgoblue.com. The liveblog curse seems not to affect mgoblue.

Note: A big thanks to Paul for getting an interview with Coach Ryan and Captain Kylie Neschke to supplement this preview. While he isn't posting much yet, his work behind the scenes is invaluable.

While soccer is no new subject on mgoblog, women's soccer and more importantly, Michigan soccer are new to this realm. As the official first sporting match of the season (men's soccer plays an exhibition first), the women's team will be spotlighted in our first season preview of the year. I'll be trying to preview each non-revenue team over the next 4-5 weeks, following those up with roundup posts during the actual year.

Brief History

Our women's soccer team has actually been rather successful in the 15 seasons of its existence. Their overall record is 164-118-42, with 2 Big Ten Tournament Championships and 9 NCAA appearances. Each of those championships and post season appearances were under coach Debbie Rademacher, who stepped down following the 2007 season to be spend more time with her two young children. During her tenure, Michigan saw talents such as Big Ten POY in 2002 Abby Crumpton who still holds the record for points in a career (116) at Michigan.

The team was most successful from '97-'99 when the team was at the start of its NCAA streak of 8 seasons in a row. The team went 49-17-3 in that three year stretch lead by all time goal leader Kacy Beitel and all time saves leader Carissa Stewart. The team would see the next few years each have double digit win totals and NCAA appearances until 2005 when the team would finish with a sub-.500 record. The 2006 season saw a return to the post season, but it would Michigan's last to date. The 2007 season was a sour one, seeing Michigan go the dreaded 3-9 with 6 ties.

Following that season, Greg Ryan stepped in.

Coach Ryan

Greg Ryan was a big of a hire as Rich Rodriguez. There, I said it. Ryan not only ranks among the winningest coaches in NCAA women's soccer, but he also had just finished a three year tenure as a coach with the US National team, compiling a 49-1-9 record with a bronze medal in the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup. He was also an assistant on the 2004 Olympic team that won the gold medal.

At the college level, Ryan has lead four different teams to a 189-91-23 combined record. He began his career with Wisconsin, taking them so far as the NCAA championship game. He also led his alma mater SMU (where he was an All-American) and lead a rebuilding job at Colorado College.

His philosophy to bring Michigan back to a winner is skill, smarts, and scoring:

We’ve really made a major shift in philosophy from just athletic, big, players to just recruiting soccer players and they may be big, they are athletic, but our number one goal is that they are very, very skillful,they are very smart and they are just very passionate about playing the game of soccer. So what the outcome in the field will be is that we will be able to possess the ball much better than we ever have, we will be able to attack better than we ever have and most of the players that I’m recruiting now, whether they are backs or whether they are forwards or midfielders, can score goals. That has been a huge problem for this team -- they just don’t score enough goals. They can defend well, but don’t score enough goals. So as I am looking at players, even the defenders, I'm recruiting goal scorers.

Woo! Fewer 0-0 ties! While I've yet to find any recruiting class rankings for this upcoming class, Ryan's 2008 class was ranked #16 by Soccer Buzz magazine. Coach Ryan has already targeted 5-6 commits in the class of 2010, all "high level attacking players."

[The team, the outlook, and the swanky new stadium en route after the jump.]

Sports start next week.  Women's soccer starts next Friday with a home game versus Arkansas. Get, uh… excited?  I'll be trying to get a small preview out next weekend to give a brief overview of the soccer teams.  If you consider yourself a Michigan soccer fan and would like to give me a general overview or insight on where to start with the team, drop a line at formerlyanonymous (at the) gmail.com type emails.

Downloadables: For those of you interested in an electronic calendar for Michigan Athletics, I've made them available for each of the sports who have announced their schedules thus far. As more schedules become available, I'll look to release those as well. These are "ical" files, which can be used in MS Outlook, google calendar, and many other calendar programs including those that can sync with your phone. I'll also update these throughout the season as game times are either changed or announced.

There are more schedules that haven't been released yet (x-country, golf, etc), but I'll have those available a little later down the road. Also, remember some game times haven't been announced yet. I plan to update those as the season goes along, but that will require you to update your file(s).

Watchables: The BigTenNetwork has announced their TV schedule for most of the 6 sports listed above.  Michigan is slated for 9 non-football broadcast on the BTN with an opportunity to gain a 10th.  The breakdown is as follows:

Michigan also has a good shot of landing the November 28th game at Penn State on the BTN as that date has been listed as a "wild card" to be announced later.  The home match versus PSU is already reserved for ESPN (although taped delayed by 2 days), so I wouldn't be surprised if the BTN shows the road game.  Penn State is a powerhouse that held on to the #1 ranking in American since October 29, 2007.  The one thing that may keep it from being on BTN is Penn State already having more televised games than any other volleyball team.  They also have a pair of ESPN matches as well.  I could see the BTN trying to keep fair coverage of other teams available.

Volleyball is also going to be on CBS College Sports for the Runza/AVCA Tournament to start the year.  The tournament is being held in Omaha, NE and is more or less hosted by volleyball juggernaut Nebraska.  We face the Huskers in the first game and Kansas State, another team that is consistently ranked, in the second game. 

Our BTN games:

As far as BTN coverage as a whole, I'm perpetually disappointed by how little is shown.  If you can stream half of the women's basketball games, I think you could potentially stream a lot else.  The streaming page for the BTN has been temporarily disabled as they plan for the upcoming school year.  The only shreds of hope for a sports channel actually showing more sports comes from the BTN.com FAQ:

OLYMPIC SPORTS:

Other sports such as baseball, field hockey, soccer, softball, volleyball and wrestling have enjoyed major upgrades in television coverage. All of these sports had previously received little to no television coverage. During the first year of the Big Ten Network, more than 170 Olympic sport events and 17 Big Ten Championships were televised to a national audience. Nearly every event was produced in high definition. The network has future plans to augment that level of coverage by streaming hundreds of additional events in the future that would not have previously received television coverage.

Emphasis is mine.  They go on to mention games like baseball, wrestling, and softball being streamed.  It seems that they're still not quite ready to stream fall events.

Alumni

• Clayton Richard was traded from the White Sox to the Padres in the Jake Peavy deal (sorry to hear about that Tigers fans).  Richard had just come off back-to-back 8 inning gems (again, sorry Tiger fans) with the White Sox allowing just one run in each game.  Now with the Padres, he's started 2 games, going 1-0 with a 3.18 ERA.  He also collected his first RBI as a batter this week.
• Also related to that trade, recent graduate Chris Fetter of the Padres minor league system was moved back down from Single A Fort Wayne TinCaps back to the Short Season A-Ball Eugene Emeralds to make room for another one of the pitching prospects from the trade.  Fetter is 2-1 in 8 starts and one long relief appearance (a 4-inning save?) with a 2.57 ERA.  His 47 Ks in 42 innings is impressive, but his numbers at Eugene definitely weighted the totals down.
• Bobby Korecky of the Diamondback's Reno Rattlers Triple A team had been dominating this year as their closer (13 saves by the all star break), but his season was ended due to Tommy John surgery this last week.  The injury caused him to miss the Triple A All Star game.
• Rich Hill also is out for the season with shoulder surgery on his labram. He's expected back for spring training.
• Mike Cervenak (pictured to the right by Joe Gill of Express-Times Photo) continues to do great in Triple A for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs of the Phillies.  Cervenak is hitting .294 with 57 RBIs and a .765 OPS.  I'm still surprised he hasn't been traded by the Phillies. He's getting to the age where the Phillies probably won't be able to use him, especially behind Ryan Howard and Pedro Feliz in the depth chart.  He's a two time Triple A All Star as it is, some other team could use him.

Recruiting

• No new updates on the drafted recruits (previous update here).  The last I've heard on each recruit is that they plan on being enrolled at Michigan in the fall.  Supposedly, not even batting practice with Evan Longoria could sway Dennis from his commitment.  The recruits could leave at any time until the season starts, much like Derek Jeter did back in the day.  I'll keep my eye on transaction lists until the season starts.

Current Team/Player News

• Tyler Burgoon is also listed as the 18th best player this summer by Church Of Baseball.
• Michigan backstop Chris Berset has been named a finalist for the Great Britain baseball world cup team.  What the hell this means?  I have no idea, but it sounds awesome.  I'll be investigating this further if he makes the 25 man roster which seems unlikely given the other catchers on the 40-man roster includes minor league guys for the most part.
• Yahoo! college baseball writer Kendall Rogers wrote this last week a report card for the BigTen teams last season.  Perhaps it was his opening statement's stupidity (he seems to think the BigTen hasn't had very good success the last five or so years), but his grade of Michigan seemed a little off base. 
  

  Michigan

  Grade: D+

  Season analysis: The Wolverines entered the season with high hopes, but had much trouble establishing consistency in conference play. Michigan compiled a 9-15 conference record and actually still finished the season with an overall record of 30-25. If not for winning overall record, the Wolverines would’ve finished the season with an F. It was a season to forget for coach Rich Maloney and his players.

  Michigan lost its top pitcher, top two hitters, and its entire infield over the off season. It lost it's closer and catcher for nearly half of the season. We didn't get our every day right fielder back until a month into the season. We lost our second baseman and on field leader for the last 2 weeks of the season. It's no surprise Michigan wasn't competing for the conference crown.  I'm not saying we deserved higher than a C+, but to say the .500 record saved us from an F is a bit over the top.

Summer ball updates after the jump due to length