ohio state

Hey: watchalong. We're going to do a watchalong for the hockey semifinal Saturday at 9 PM. Be there.

The culture is 8-24 and Jon Sanderson works for Illinois. An Athletic article from Brendan Quinn and Katie Strang reveals that an outside consulting firm has been brought into assess the culture of the basketball program:

…a makeshift meeting room was assembled inside Michigan Stadium last week. There, officials from Rankin Climate, an external firm specializing in organizational “climate assessments,” convened to conduct a probe into the culture of the men’s basketball program. Rankin officials asked some athletic department employees about their experiences in the program, Howard’s leadership and support offered by the athletic department. Those interviewed were told that participation was voluntary, according to multiple university employees granted anonymity because they are not permitted to speak about the investigation.

There's not a whole lot else that was new except some more details of what Sanderson sent the university via his lawyer; there are some disturbing claims:

Sanderson claims Howard approached his son, Jett, visibly angry during a 2022-23 practice and threatened, “I’ll slap the sh– out of you,” adding the incident “sparked a lot of internal conversation.” Sanderson said one coach on staff said he saw Juwan Howard “manhandle” Jett on the side of the court; that coach expressed that he was upset with how Jett was being treated.

As many have said in the aftermath of this article's release: it's the athletic director's job to know what the culture of his second-most important sport is. Hiring an outside firm to do your job for you is a waste of money and time. If the consulting firm comes back and says "eh this is fine," should Juwan Howard be retained? No. So what are we doing here? It feels like Warde Manuel wants someone else to make the decision for him.

Meanwhile the season is over for most teams that will be axing coaches. There are already 34 open head coaching spots in D-1, and the most attractive candidates will start going off the board soon as Michigan tries to figure out if the culture is bad on the worst Michigan basketball team in living memory.

Decisions made. Vandy—a program with much less recent historical success—just fired Jerry Stackhouse after Stackhouse went 9-23 in year five. The buyout is supposed to be north of 15 million dollars, which is wild. Vandy hired a guy with no head coaching experience who never got to the tournament and is stuck with that buyout after five years… and even that athletic director was able to see the writing on the wall.

[After the JUMP: football stuff! You should click. I promise.]

HR is involved. After the Iowa game news broke that… uh… something happened between Juwan Howard and Jon Sanderson that led to Sanderson not making the trip to Iowa City. Brendan Quinn has the details, such as they are at this point:

Sponsor note. Hey, folks: Tom Brady is on the hunt for the biggest Michigan fan other than Seth. We posted a set of trivia questions from Autograph a few weeks back and we're back for more. First, check out the Leaderboard from round one, which we'll be updating all year.

Then hit up the second set of trivia questions, which we'll be posting weekly through the end of September. Our friends at Autograph and Valiant will offer access to purchase unique rewards and experiences throughout the season based on your performance and participation.

This set of trivia questions closes Friday at 5 PM, so get on it.

I mean, whatever? I suppose I have to dredge up an opinion about Michigan self-imposing a three-game gameday-only suspension on Jim Harbaugh. Here goes: darn it.

The only part of this that matters is that it might piss off Harbaugh to the point where he gets more serious about going to the NFL. You or I could coach Michigan against ECU, UNLV, and… whoever is the last nonconference opponent. Ah. Bowling Green. Anyway: you or I could guide Michigan to three wins in those games. (Mel Tucker, on the other hand…)

So on one level it's smart to get this junk out of the way now because Texas, an actual power conference opponent, is on the schedule next year. On another level it's deeply annoying to cave to an NCAA kangaroo court that is busy violating its own guidelines because of what's clearly a personal vendetta against a coach who can't be bothered to pretend they're relevant anymore. There's a lot of sturm und drang on the message boards about this because of the latter, but… this does not matter. Michigan's chances of success this season have not been altered even 0.01%.

So, whatever. Double whatever.

[After THE JUMP: OSU's got an issue or two]