penn state
It's over. Mark Dantonio has retired, which is a bit of a bummer since I really could have used another couple years of beating the brakes off him while he brought in recruits snatched away from colleges I'm pretty sure aren't real. The timing of the latest salvos in the Curtis Blackwell lawsuit kind of look like the cause:
Blackwell's lawyers allege:
►Dantonio orchestrated employment for the parents of two MSU football players, with mega-donor Bob Skandalaris, whose name is on the football facility.
►Dantonio had Blackwell accompany him on a Metro Detroit home visit of an unnamed five-star recruit, when Blackwell, in his role as director of college advancement and performance, wasn't authorized to conduct off-campus visits.
Dantonio said in his Jan. 10 deposition that Blackwell never did any home visits because it would've been an NCAA violation. He did recall Blackwell once traveling with him to see a recruit, but that Blackwell remained in the car.
In his filing, Paterson said Blackwell "is prepared to provide the court with an affidavit attesting" to the visit of the five-star recruit, which can be "verified by the former five-star recruit and his parents, who were also present during the recruiting visit."
Paterson and Blackwell declined to provide the recruit's name to The Detroit News.
As for the first claim, Dantonio, in his Jan. 10 deposition, said he never directed Blackwell to talk to Skandalaris about employment for family members of "high profile recruits," but he acknowledged that family members were hired — and all were approved by MSU's compliance department, Dantonio said.
Although this might have been in the works for a while but Dantonio wanted to hang on so he could cash in a 4.3 million dollar bonus he was due a month ago. Just a couple month ago he was blathering on about "completing the circle", so I think Blackwell did it.
If not, well… tomorrow is signing day. If so that's the way Dantonio really should have gone out: collecting a reward by being disingenuous.
My dude just tweeted the typical statement about how he'll always be a part of the program, the program he loves so dearly, the program he just charged a cool $4.3 million to resign the day before Signing Day
— Jerry Hinnen (@JerryHinnen) February 4, 2020
lol https://t.co/WoMJrjiwXJ
Dantonio was a good football coach. He also had absolutely no scruples. It didn't matter if you pulled a gun on someone, broke a guy's jaw with a sucker punch, had a disturbing pattern of sexual assault, drove a car while "super drunk," or literally got out of jail two days before a game. Y'all were playing. A square jaw, a little public faith, and some wins over Michigan meant it didn't matter.
It was rough justice that Dantonio's breakthrough recruiting class would be his undoing when Auston Robertson, the guy with the pattern of sexual assault, reported three of his classmates for rape. It's really sad that MSU football had to dole out that much damage to innocent bystanders for anything to happen, and then it seems like the only reason it did happen is because football recruits finally refused to go there if they had any other options. MSU, the institution, continues to not give a shit about anything other than winning games and cover the administration's ass.
At least in this case the comeuppance was righteous.
[After the JUMP: money talks]
I have proxy regrets. Michigan did not pursue instate DE Bryce Mostella much. As a person who generates internet content I now declare this a disaster of epic proportions.
Decision announcement coming Friday 2:47 p.m. you might be thinking "that's a random time" well you'll soon find out im a random young man
— Bryce Mostella (@BryceMostella) July 4, 2019
— Bryce Mostella (@BryceMostella) July 5, 2019
This is now his twitter avi:
Congratulations, Penn State internet. May you ask Bryce Mostella to rip your fingernails out with your Hello Kitty pliers or whatever it is that you're doing out there with your vape pens.
[After THE JUMP: Metellus can play, Franz can guard, college baseball can't have nice things]
2/28/2019 – Michigan 82, Nebraska 53 – 25-4, 14-4
Even this year, Charles Matthews gets referred to as The Kentucky Transfer from time to time. This is a little off-putting since there are few players that have embodied the Beilein era better than Matthews, personality-wise. On the court, Matthews has a smile that doubles as trash talk.
Off the court, he could say "we had subs, it was crazy" and you wouldn't blink twice. After he hit an improbable game-winner against Minnesota his post-game interview was almost apologetic—yeah the ball fell to me and I got a shot off but it could have been any one of my teammates and I'll take turkey on Italian please. He asked after Ace this year.
That dichotomy has come to define Michigan basketball, so when you call him the Kentucky transfer that places him outside a program he is in the dead center of.
But it still does make some sense. The Kentucky Transfer does immediately communicate several things about Matthews. He can jump, and long after you, a practiced observer of people jumping, expect that he will start to descend he continues going up. That's the Kentucky part. The transfer part is that his offensive game is a rickety thing. He hovers around 30% from three; he's worked hard to get his FT percentage north of 60; he still does a few things in every game that make you clap in frustration.
Also Kentucky is a program built around having various dinosaur-sized people lock you down defensively until the point in the season where all the freshmen turn into something resembling a team. Matthews entering the program at the same instant Beilein hired a defensive coordinator, and his first game also being Luke Yaklich's first game, are serendipitous events. The program was ready for him.
So the individual transferred to the whole. Michigan, the program, has been The Kentucky Transfer for the last two years. Sometimes it feels like someone entirely different wearing the program as a second skin, but the results are undeniable: a Big Ten Tourney title, a three seed, an appearance in the final, a pending two seed and the possibilities that unfold from there.
There's no better emblem of this mini-era than the kind of guy Michigan never gets coming over as somewhat damaged goods and making it work anyway. Matthews leaves the program better than he found it.
bench functionality projects to be improved [Campredon]
A preview of next year. DDJ and Castleton got a fair amount of run in a game without Charles Matthews in which Livers started and played 33 minutes. With Poole and Iggy currently tracking towards returns, about which more later, the minutes distribution in this game is probably pretty close to what we'll see next year except for the absence of a backup on the wing. Presumably one of Johns/Nunez/Wilson/Bajema will be able to emerge into a 10-15 minute player.
You may have noticed that things went pretty well. Livers was up to the task of checking James Palmer, who finished 3/15 from the floor and was one of the Nebraska starters to get yanked for the first eight minutes of the second half. That's not far off Palmer's usual level of performance this year—he entered the game shooting 34% from two in league play—and should probably not be taken as a sign that Livers is going to be able to match Matthews stop-for-stop on the defensive end.
But he's not bad there, and he was able to collect 12 points on 20% usage here. Ideally Livers is able to add a few more points of usage next year to keep an undue burden from falling on folks around him.
not pictured: the chastened version [Campredon]
A chastened Poole. Jordan Poole's halftime shooting stats: 0/0. He put up four in the second half, but the numbers that pop off the box score: 5 assists, one turnover. Most of those assists were dumping it down against post mismatches after switches, huzzah. So was the turnover, which is fine. At no point did he take a stepback three against a big.
Poole drew Thomas Allen as his primary defensive matchup and held a pretty decent player to 1/5 from the floor. This was a reserved, in control version of Poole. But even then some of the swag pops out:
the initial view and replay didn't *quite* splice together perfectly but think of it like you're watching from my perspective and briefly blacked out from excitement pic.twitter.com/kjxqRpzFmT
— Ace Anbender, fan of basketball, the only sport (@AceAnbender) March 1, 2019
Poole just needs to tamp down the wild swings. He's got it in there.
[After THE JUMP: Castletons of fun]
The Big Ten's middle looks to be better than it was last year - but it couldn't be worse.
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