trey burke

did his part [both photos: Bryan Fuller]

I saved this mailbag question because it required some digging, though little did I realize just how much. The query is simple enough:

Michigan had a couple athletic point guards in the John Beilein era and tallied many glorious, dunk-filled blowouts. This should be easy. I'll still go year-by-year just in case something comes up; my shortcut is to use Bart Torvik's play-by-play data to check the number of dunks by the starting point guard(s), then investigate further if necessary.



all for naught [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

2020-21: The starting point guard is Mike Smith, who records zero dunks.

2019-20: Zavier Simpson records his first career dunk in a loss to Wisconsin; the only other Wolverine to throw it down in that game is Franz Wagner. C'mon, guys.

2018-19: Simpson doesn't dunk.

2017-18: Ditto, same goes for Jaaron Simmons and a pre-"Thunder" Eli Brooks.

2016-17: Derrick Walton does many incredible things. Dunking is not one of them.

2015-16: The mortal version of Walton also doesn't dunk.

2014-15: A cursed year in which a dunkless Walton gets hurt and his replacements are Spike Albrecht and Andrew Dakich.

2013-14: A young, spry Walton attempts a slam at the Breslin Center. He misses it. Michigan wins, so it's cool, and he's also the only starter to even try to throw it down, so it doesn't really matter for this exercise. Anyway, that's the only dunk attempt of the year for him.

[Hit THE JUMP for the 2013 team getting remarkably close multiple times, but do they make it?]

merry Burkemas [Bryan Fuller]

End of the road for amateurism? Blasting the NCAA has been one of the rare bipartisan activities over the past few years, and judging from the things said at the Supreme Court's hearing for the Alston case it sounds like they're about to drop a bomb on the organization:

Justice Amy Coney Barrett later questioned why the NCAA should get to decide how to define what it means for an athlete to be paid.

Several justices also expressed skepticism about the NCAA's "high-minded" claims about the importance of preserving amateurism.

Justice Elena Kagan asked why the court shouldn't see the NCAA as an organization that has undisputed power over its market and uses the idea of amateurism to fix the price of labor. Kagan said that while amateurism may have been created more than a century ago to protect an institution that provides social value, that doesn't mean that is its function today.

The above might not capture the spirit of the hearing, which is being unanimously described as a bloodbath for the NCAA.

Hard to disagree with that when even the court's most conservative members are saying stuff like this:

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said that “the antitrust laws should not be a cover for exploitation of the student-athletes,” adding that he doubted that college sports fans understood amateurism to require it.

“To pay no salaries to the workers who are making the schools billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing,” he said, seems “entirely circular and even somewhat disturbing.”

Justice Clarence Thomas noted that other participants in college sports are paid enormous sums. “It just strikes me as odd that the coaches’ salaries have ballooned,” he said, “and they’re in the amateur ranks, as are the players.”

I'm not entirely clear on what the court could do in this instance. This is the case where the previous judge said the NCAA had violated antitrust and proposed some disappointing half-measures as a remedy. I don't know if the Supreme Court can expand that to a generalized free-for-all.

[After THE JUMP: pants are featured]

[JD Scott]

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image

They're open until 8 now and provide free delivery. They're also family-owned by locals; Drew is a Michigan alum. Also: 10% off if you mention MGoBlog. I suggest mentioning MGoBlog by sidling up to someone there and whispering it at almost sub-vocal levels. Let's make it weird. This is a good way to keep a sponsor.

POY/COY. Congratulations to Naz Hillmon, the Big Ten's women's basketball player of the year. Hillmon averaged 25 and 11 while shooting 65% from the floor. That'll do. Congratulations are also in order for Juwan Howard, the Sporting News MBB coach of the year.

Yes I will link a retrospective of Trey Burke stealing the ball from Keith Appling. This is a thing I will do:

“As soon as we turned the ball over, I started thinking of ways to get the ball back, like, ‘we’ve gotta get the ball back, or they’re gonna hold for the last shot,’ ” Burke told the Daily in a phone interview this week. “My mind automatically went to getting the steal.”

Matched up against Keith Appling, the Spartans’ star guard, Burke knew what to look for. Appling dribbled the ball up past half-court and turned his head towards Michigan State coach Tom Izzo. As Appling asked for a play call, his right hand was exposed. Despite the Spartans being in the double-bonus, Burke went for the steal.

“I had gotten it on a few other guards that year, but Keith Appling usually wouldn’t leave the ball there,” Burke said. “He usually would spin with the ball in the right hand, with his outside hand, so you can’t get it.”

It's Duncan Robinson content Tuesday. First, a preview of his interview with one half of Men In Blazers cites one DFW:

I was initially surprised by this and then created a mental list of athletes most likely to cite David Foster Wallace. "Guy who went to Williams" for a year topped it.

Second, how Robinson went from the G-League to an NBA record-setter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tOjr9OJxQI

He also tops the most unlikely pro star list.

[After THE JUMP: in which the common sense of the hockey committee is relied upon]

my life is that episode where Frank is inexplicably nude and trapped in a playground device 

burke back

the shot.

we've come a long way from manny harris leading the team in pick-and-roll plays with 45.

no, not in a game. in a season.

There's a world in which nobody thought bringing back the guy who was in charge of the guy who killed a kid was a good idea. This is not our world.