outrage!

Charles Matthews
You forget someone? [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

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THE QUESTION:

This is PART II of our annual All-Big Ten Roundtable, because Part I (the All-Big Ten team) went really long. Here's where we do the all-defensive team, all-frosh, etc.

ALL DEFENSE

Ace: Not Josh Reaves!

Seth: I haven't seen the list so I'm going to guess Davison made it.

Ace: Michigan (very) arguably had the best defender in the country at three positions. One made the coaches team. Let’s start here: it’s either Zavier Simpson or Jon Teske for DPOY for me. I could be talked into… Charles Matthews.

Alex: Rank X, Matthews, Teske:

Seth: Simpson had some nights but Teske was every center's nightmare against THIS league of centers.

Brian: X is obvious, Matthews is obvious, I thought Teske had some competition in Fernando and Tillman.

Ace: Teske did have the tougher task than Simpson. Considering my ranking of those guys is splitting hairs, it’s probably a positional thing, and that may actually favor Matthews given the variety of players he defended.

Brian: Tillman annihilated us.

Alex: Is it insane for me to pick X last among those three? Behind Matthews and Teske?

Ace: I don’t think any order is insane, I’ve talked myself into all of them in the last two minutes.

Seth: The knock on X is he had two nights against a Real PG(TM) and had, uh, 20 minutes of lockdown?

Ace: What’s insane is LEAVING TWO OF THE THREE off the list entirely.

image

Reaves?!!? [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

Brian: Non-Michigan folk?

Ace: Nojel Eastern. It’s the only reason he plays unless you really dig offensive rebounds.

Alex: Matt McQuaid?

Brian: I want to put in a shout for Nate Reuvers.

Alex: Fernando is probably the best rim protector but he’s not mobile.

Ace: Happ is super disruptive but the mention of Reuvers (and how he was used) says something about his pick and roll defense. Teske was the most complete defensive center in the league. Tillman maybe could’ve entered the conversation.

Alex: Reuvers and Happ are both quite good. I’m pretty surprised they passed Michigan for the best defense in Big Ten play. But they are a great defensive team.

Brian: Obliterating Iowa was the spur. I did not watch that game and so can't tell you why they had 0.65 PPP. But Reuvers is very mobile, spent most of the year guarding fours, and has a top 50 block rate.

Seth: Reuvers joins Dosunmu on the list of players who are going to be really good next year.

Brian: He's a bit of a flopperson but aren't they all.

Ace: I think my tiebreaker for bigs here is the lasting mental image of Fernando slamming his head into Teske’s torso to no discernible effect. X is the obvious choice among point guards, Matthews gets a wing spot, and then you have two spots for Reaves-Eastern-McQuaid. Or Fernando if you want two bigs, but I like the selection of wings better.

Brian: You could go X, Eastern, Matthews, Reuvers, Teske

Alex: Reaves’s body of work over his career makes me inclined to think he’s one of the five best defenders in the conference.

Brian: Since Reuvers did check 4s and there were a lot of dual posts in the league.

Ace: I think we get into the issue here of putting together a team that fits instead of picking the guys who were the best individual defensive performers. Wisconsin’s use of Reuvers against us stuck out but he was also playing with Happ and they had a great gameplan in that one.

Seth: My argument for Teske is he stays on the floor so much that our major coaching complaint is when he's pulled off it unnecessarily. Also he looks very Sherriff-y.

image

Alex: Reaves is in that Matthews mold of sleeper who could stick for a bit because he has the defensive upside to be a no-offense stopper. He’s been top 15 in the country in steal rate in each of the last three seasons. I’m not saying “he’s better than X” or “he deserved to be the defensive player of the year” but

Brian:

Ace: There are some—I’m guessing people with Synergy access—who’ve said Reaves’ play slipped a bit this year.

Brian: It felt like he'd start gambling for steals a lot.

Ace: I wish I still had a login so I could check McQuaid. That actually may have swung me to X-Eastern-Matthews-Reuvers-Teske though.

Brian: Alright make a pick and let's move on

Ace: It swung me. Along with Wisconsin’s team stats.

[AFTER THE JUMP: All-Breakout Next Year, and other stuff]

Michigan goalie Shawn Hunwick tries to keep Alaska Fairbank's Chad Gehon, right, from scoring during second period action of Saturday, Janaury 22nd's clash between the two teams at UM's Yost Ice Arena.<br />
Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com5822[1]

I'm sorry to descend on you with this but this makes me utterly livid. They are the all-CCHA teams:

First Team
Position Name, Year, School First Totals

F - Reilly Smith (JR, Miami) 10 50
F - Tyler Gron (SR, No. Michigan) 7 42
F - T.J. Tynan (SO, Notre Dame) 5 40
D - Torey Krug (JR, Michigan State) 10 50
D - Chad Billins (SR,, Ferris State) 9 48
G - Taylor Nelson (SR, Ferris State) 6 34

Second Team
F- Justin Florek (SR, No. Michigan) 4 34
F- Cody Kunyk (SO, Alaska) 2 23
F- Jordie Johnston (SR, Ferris State) 3 22
D- Dan DeKeyser (SO, W. Michigan) 2 20
D- Matt Tennyson (JR, W. Michigan) -- 20
G- Shawn Hunwick (SR, Michigan) 2 24

Hunwick got two first place votes at goalie and lost out to Taylor Nelson of Ferris State. In CCHA play Hunwick had a .937 save percentage to Nelson's .927, had a 1.93 GAA to Nelson's 2.08, and played about 430 additional minutes.

You know what they say about the Gong Show and the CCHA: one is an unfunny joke begging to be put out of its misery, and the other was a syndicated 1970s amateur night featuring absurd prizes. It's no wonder that the competent teams all fled as soon as they could find a way to.

.jim-tressel-run-from-cops

apropos image via MNB Nation

The media explosion in the aftermath of Tressel's folly has been nigh overwhelming. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who writes about college football who hasn't put finger to keyboard in the aftermath. Even Inside The Hall, an Indiana basketball blog, decided to transcribe Bob Knight's clueless defense of Tressel so they could shake their heads at it. It's kind of a big deal.

File under…

Future Maize 'n' Brew writer. A kid at the Lantern, OSU's student newspaper, calls for Tressel's firing. (HT: Maize N Blue Nation.)

Well played, douchebag. Mark Schablach manages to piss off both OSU and Michigan fans in the same piece by laying into Tressel ("might be even worse than other coaches corrupting college athletics") in a fashion irrational even to this Michigan fan at the same time he conflates Michigan's stretching-and-confusion with what seems like a serious, games-will-be-vacated offense (At least Michigan "had fired their cheating coach").

And now… THE COMFY CHAIR! SBN OSU blog Along The Oletangy headlines a two game suspension against MAC teams "Jim Tressel Forced To Take Tough Medicine." Michigan suffered more concrete penalties for the Jihad—at least they lost some practice time. Of course, the NCAA probably isn't going to say "good job, here's an extra year of probation" when they get around to their own discipline.

Only in Ohio. The blacked-out name of the lawyer who tipped Tressel off in April has been revealed: Chris Cicero, a former OSU walk-on. I wonder if he's going to get hammered for trying to help the program. Also:

In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court suspended his law license for one year because of misconduct. The lawyer led others to believe he was having sex with then-Judge Deborah P. O'Neill, who had appointed Cicero to defend a client in a criminal case.

Our old friend. Remember Michael Buckner, the Florida lawyer who seemed to show up in every piece about Michigan's misappropriate stretching and GA sketch? He's back:

"Just looking at it, it may seem a little light, especially in light of the fact Tressel didn't report it to the university within a reasonable period of time," said Michael Buckner, who heads a law firm that helps schools deal with the NCAA.

OUTRAGE. "Disingenuous Tressel Is Wizard At Spinning Empty Words"—a Yahoo piece from something called "The Postgame." They're right about the spinning empty words bit.

OUTRAGE. "Armor of integrity falls from Ohio State coach Jim Tressel"

OUTRAGE. "No trouble spotting hypocrisy in college sports"—this one is just awful:

And now, our latest offering from a septic tank of a system that's unlikely to be flushed out in our lifetime.

/wanking motion

OUT—NEVERMIND, MILQUETOAST. "Tressel report appears damaging"

OUT—ACTUALLY, A REASONABLE QUESTION "Tressel docked, but what does it take for a coach to get fired?"

OUT—YES, OUTRAGE. "OSU's Tressel piles lies on top of lies," from the Akron Beacon-Journal. Also calls for firing. Via pdgoblue25.

Retrospective reaffirmation. Mets Maize has one Michigan-related takeaway from Michigan's recent turn under the lights:

Dave Brandon, like any good athletic director should do, showed tremendous leadership by taking the reins and guiding Michigan through a 6-month investigative gauntlet. He answered questions like a political ninja, hired a third-party independent firm to couple with an internal investigation, and reported back to the committee of infractions with a comprehensive review and self-imposed penalties in line with the violations and precedent. This was for stretching. The NCAA ended up adding 1 measly probation year and agreed to take away some of the most damaging charges--something unheard of in terms of appeal.

People complaining that Michigan's approach to their NCAA violations invited more bad press and ended up resulting in stiffer penalties than pretending there was nothing to see here are going to get empiricism in their face over the next six months. I've given Brandon a lot of stick for The Process and the results therein but the whole Identity is a Ceiling thing isn't all downside; he was still pimp throughout the whole process and saved Michigan the OUTRAGE you see above.

Can you imagine anyone associated with the Michigan athletic department saying "I hope he doesn't fire me" when talking about a football coach, joking or not? Bo could have been sitting there* and that wouldn't have happened.

This all banks on the NCAA crafting a punishment that fits the crime here, but I think that's likely given the existence of paper, both the emails sent to Tressel and the forms he signed and the transcripts of the December investigation. The NCAA has way more linking Tressel to a serious offense than they ever had on USC—though that was a more serious offense still—and OSU's pathetic wrist-slap will not help them avoid the penalties they have coming.

*[In a hypothetical world where Bo wouldn't have immediately suspended and possibly killed all six players.]

MORE OUTRAGE. "Lame defense affirms winning is the only thing that matters for Jim Tressel, Ohio State." I mean, right?

SEXY OUTRAGE. "Ohio State mess latest example of college athletics gone wild"

cats-gone-wild

PROTIP: do NOT start looking for humorous "gone wild" pictures by typing in "bears gone wild."

ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE OUTRAGE. Doyel. /wanking motion

OUTRAGE WITH SURPRISING VERBIAGE. Never thought I'd see this word in an H1 on AnnArbor.com: "Ohio State coach Jim Tressel: A fraud, manipulator and image whore." That's actually from the Drew Sharp of Central PA, David Jones, but dang.

OUTR—"Ohio State doesn't much give a damn about your outrage"

!!!

METAOUTRAGE. That's Ray Ratto writing a column about the columns that are outraged about Ohio State and their handling of this.

The Free Press Jihad ended with Bruce Feldman quoting people saying it's a "joke," Kirk Herbstreit declaring it a "joke," and the final NCAA word declaring the original lurid descriptions were overblown. The OSU reaction was such that people were writing columns about said reaction the day of. Boring, honest, NCAA-is-serious-business press conferences are so obviously the way to go.

Let's win this NCAA violation contest. "Document" on three.