uniforms

Les and Bo standing around, 1989. I'm just posting this for the shorts, really. Seriously, it's almost entirely guys just standing around. In shorts. From 1989.

This thing I am the foremost practitioner of is banned! Of all people, it fell to Barry Alvarez—he of the cancelled Virginia Tech game nigh on the eve of the season—to reveal that the Big Ten is going to dump I-AA opponents posthaste:

“The nonconference schedule in our league is ridiculous,” Alvarez said on WIBA-AM. “It’s not very appealing…

“So we’ve made an agreement that our future games will all be Division I schools. It will not be FCS schools.”

I… actually, I don't care. It does restrict the availability of cupcake games, thereby driving up the costs to schedule MAC folks and the like, but not significantly. If you want to have a walkover, Eastern Michigan's just as piteous as Northern Iowa—significantly moreso, in fact.

This man either gets it or does not get it depending on whether you get it or do not get it. Indiana's athletic director:

“What they like to do is make opportunities available to wear different kinds of uniforms,” Glass told Inside the Hall, “and we’ve had multiple opportunities to wear alternative uniforms, and we’ve respectfully passed on that. … I would never say never, but I think it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be doing that.”

A number of college and pro teams are trying the new jerseys out. We’ve seen schools such as Michigan State and Ohio State wear alternate uniforms in recent weeks.

So why not Indiana?

“The IU men’s basketball uniform is iconic,” Glass said. “I have a poster on my wall that is kind of like a fake group photo of all the All Americans that we’ve had in basketball, and the jerseys, whether its from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or 2000s, pretty much look the same.”

Indiana fans say "thank God" in the comments, because they either get it or do not get it. Kids hate it and Indiana's program will crater on Wednesday as the Hoosiers mass defect to Bill Walton's new Hypercolor State team.

Even more rules changes, these of the on-field variety. It's February, which means something something flowers and the NCAA's annual set of rules changes. These are just proposals at the moment, so don't write your congressman yet.

The flashiest is jacking up the targeting flag. Now it comes with a free ejection, and if it's after halftime a suspension for next week. Also a free review:

To balance out the incidents where a player is unfairly penalized, officiating crews would be allowed to review the hit through video replay. Said the committee, the replay official "must have conclusive evidence that a player should not be ejected to overturn the call on the field."

Sounds a lot like the interminable and pointless elbowing reviews from basketball, except people do get hit with targeting flags at the moment. This will either lead to those calls disappearing again, or a parade of defensive backs making a split-second decision wrong heading to the locker room.

Others are minor cleanups aimed at giving referees an easier time:

• all blocks below the waist are legal if they're in front of a defender, illegal otherwise
• you can't spike the ball with one or two seconds left (presumably an attempt to prevent games where one coach disposes of his headset instantly and the other stages a hunger strike for his last second on the sideline)
• an extra official for Big 12 conference games
• Lane Kiffin and Boise State can't jerk people around by switching numbers or wearing blue on a blue field.

Nothing in those is going to have an impact on your viewing. I thought we'd hear something about repealing the helmet rule, too—seems like forcing a player without a helmet to stop playing is punishment enough. No dice on that one.

Good lord. Northwestern makes the case that their basketball outfit is cursed with low-effort sketchy photoshops and lots and lots of evidence:

Look, I'd do more unfortunate things for Northwestern basketball, butmore freakish unfortunate things happened to Northwestern basketball than happened to the players in that episode of the Simpsons where all the players get into freakish unfortunate accidents.

The Wildcats are now down JerShonn Cobb, Drew Crawford, Sanjay Lumpkin, Chier Ajou, Aaron Liberman, Alex Olah, and Jared Swopshire. A few of those guys are on redshirts and may be in the lineup if Carmody was inclined to waste their final year of eligibility on a team nowhere near the NCAA tourney; even so, that's Angry Blank Hating God territory and some.

This is Darren Rovell's fault, of course.

Bring on the bee people or whatever. Gerry DiNardo might know something about something. Not football, but moving because of football:

I don't think we'll ever play with a 14 team team conference, I think it'll be 16 (by 2014, when Maryland and Rutgers join). And I don't think they're going to go through all this conversation and all this realignment and do it again for just two more schools. Where are they going to come from? Hard to say, but I would guess the footprint would continue to grow southeast, so that would leave me to believe that would be the ACC. When you look at schools institutionally, they'll be schools similar to Maryland and Rutgers. They'll be an academic fit, which I think is important, and appear to be in areas where there's population, and I think those are the similar things that has driven expansion

The Big Ten Too is totally happening you guys. This is why the league is already talking about a ten-game conference schedule.

Nebraska hockey: not happening. Their athletic director just said "nope":

On his monthly appearance on the Husker Sports Network, Nebraska athletic director Shawn Eichorst threw cold water on the idea of the athletic department starting up a division 1 ice hockey program. The only sport Nebraska has any intention of starting is the new sand volleyball program. That's cold water, not the ice that a hockey program would need. A lot of people had hopes that with Eichorst's background at Wisconsin and the Big Ten's expansion into hockey that the Huskers might join the ranks of the division 1 schools with hockey programs. But that doesn't appear to be in the cards at this time.

The vast deserts of Nebraska have long teemed with moppets who have done nothing but play volleyball, so they should be an instant national power in that. If Nebraska isn't inclined to add hockey, I'm not sure who would. I bet it would be a success at Iowa—triangle of hate, good USHL base—but it's tough to find the money, somehow.

Zone read: not dead yet. Michigan will keep it around next year:

"Are we just getting rid of all the zone-reading? No, we're not," Borges said. "We're going to keep some of that stuff in our offense because we have a mobile quarterback, and as long as we have a quarterback that can threaten the defense as a runner, we're going to have bits and pieces of that that we're going to keep.

"Are we going to run him 25 times? That's over. We're not doing that anymore. That was logical, with what we had (in Denard Robinson). but now we want the quarterback to be more of a passer-runner, than a runner-passer."

I hope the end point is somewhere between 25 times and Gardner's ground efforts last year, where on-purpose runs were limited to some goal line rollouts and the occasional draw. I'd like to see Gardner get 6-8 called runs a game to go with whatever he gets on scrambles.

Etc.: Jeff Bridges has a go-to shirt. I'm fine with Michigan not having a member of Andy Staples's all two-star team this time around. It might be a problem that the Big Ten has eight kids on the team. Brief preview of Michigan's 2013 by me at The Saturday Edge. Goodbye, Matt Painter. Kenpom profiled.

Programming note: The podcast is delayed until tomorrow due to some technical issues.

obvious problem was obvious

File under "through the looking glass." Ah yup:

Michigan kicker Brendan Gibbons among 20 semifinalists for Lou Groza Award

I remember that back in the other universe Gibbons couldn't kick field goals and everyone wore their ties backwards. He's 13 of 15 this year with a 52 yarder! Viva hair. If you are failing at things, stop shaving.

Cease panic. It was noted here and at Uni Watch that longtime M equipment manager Jon Falk said something about sprucing up Michigan's helmets before the Minnesota game. Uni Watch:

Intriguing helmet news from Leo Thompson, who writes: “Jon Falk, the equipment manager over at the University of Michigan, was interviewed on a local Michigan radio station when a question came up asking whether or not Michigan would ever change their helmets. Mr. Falk answered with something along the lines that he wanted to get have ‘shiny helmets like Notre Dame’ but that it was tough to do right now because of the specific colors of Michigan. He then went on to say that we may see something new next year.”

This has caused a severe fainting couch shortage across the state, but Hunter Lochmann—no longer sporting a Lochdog twitter handle—says this is not a true thing:

@TheBlockhams do not believe everything you read. We are not messing with the helmet.

Do not believe everything that Jon Falk says, because Jon Falk is probably joking.

Exhibition #2. Basketball tips off against Saginaw Valley State tonight in their second exhibition game. UMHoops covers the storylines, the most obvious of which is the return of Trey Burke to the lineup after a one-game suspension for the proverbial violation of team rules. The battle to start at point guard starts tonight!

No?

Fine.

With Jon Horford still sidelined with a knee issue we probably won't see much in the way of two-post offenses that might lead to some of those rebound things*:

Michigan recorded 50 rebounds, 19 of them on the offensive end -- the latter being the most impressive part.

When's the last time a John Beilein-coached team recorded 19 offensive rebounds in a game?

"I don't think it was in this century," Beilein joked afterward.

It sounds like McGary is still working his way into game shape:

"Jordan's not as big as he was, I think he's more agile and jumps a little higher and moves a little quicker," Beilein said. "With Mitch, we have to continue to get him in better shape. We were being very cautious with his foot and his calf, it didn't get him in great shape -- through water workouts, pool workouts, bike riding and now he sprints in practice.

"So that'll help."

I wonder how long this nagging injury has been sapping his athleticism—maybe it explains the dropoff in his recruiting rankings.

*[Caveat: Michigan has actually been decent on the defensive—er. Well, they were 99th—considerably above average—in defensive rebounding last year but when you hit the conference-only check box on Kenpom they drop to exactly the NCAA defensive rebounding average and finish ninth in the Big Ten. Caveat withdrawn.]

This is not a decision. Hoke said as much in the recently-completed presser, but you can't believe anything you don't read on the internet, so let me reiterate:

Decision '13: QB or WR?

Wolverines face big decision on where best to utilize Gardner next season

MINNEAPOLIS-- As Michigan transitions from its quasi-spread offense to Brady Hoke's preferred pro-style set for 2013, the Wolverines will be fortunate enough to have a talented wide receiver and quarterback on hand to help power the offense.

Unfortunately for them, it's the same player.

This is not really a decision. Gardner will be one of two QBs on the roster in spring and three in fall, so he'll go into the fall the presumed starter. Shane Morris is unlikely to beat him out. While Michigan has issues at WR, the issues at QB without Gardner are enormous. With Darboh, Funchesss, and Chesson entering their second years and another wave of guys hitting campus, Michigan will muddle through with their leftover RR slots and such.

Do or die with a true freshman who had mono for a big chunk of his senior season sounds a lot less appealing than the above.

Of course. I told you about the malevolence.

@NDatRivals

Upon further review, No. 2 Chris Brown and No. 2 Bennett Jackson were both on the field when Pitt kicker Harper missed the game-winner.

Bargle glarble.

Etc.: Iowa is a noon ESPN/ESPN2 game. Northwestern blogs start sizing up M. If you said uncomplimentary things about Stevie Brown back in the day, Slam is all up in your business.

Yeah! Awwww. Kenpom's formula thing predicts Michigan will be 12th nationally! Sweet! They'll have the seventh-best offense and 25th-best defense!

They'll be undefeated in the nonconference pending matchups against two of Virginia, K-State, and Pitt!

They'll… go 10-8 in the Big Ten?

Whoah. Ah so:

Gonna be a year this year, man. Some other guy's formula has Michigan 44th but he acknowledges that's probably pessimistic. He explains on the new UMHoops podcast.

Yes, Michigan is overrated. Pretty much anyone who's ventured an opinion about the mainstream basketball polls has done so to note that Michigan is overrated at #5, a faction that includes John Gasaway($), Eamonn Brennan, Kenpom above, and myself. As related by Brennan, this is the main reason why I'm with the skeptics:

The first is that, on Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted per-possesion basis, Michigan finished last season ranked No. 29 overall. Their offense ranked No. 22 in the country; their defense No. 60. No other current top-five team ranked outside the top 15. (Louisville, that 15th-ranked team, rode the No. 1 defense in the country to the Final Four. No. 11 Indiana had the nation’s fourth-best offense.)

They were never as good as the teams they split the Big Ten title with and were probably overseeded—if I wasn't a Michigan fan that game against OHIO would have been an easy upset pick in NCAA pools.

Brennan also tacks this on:

The counterpoint to such a crude year-over-year comparison is obvious: Michigan is hardly the same team as last season. Very true. The next question is whether that’s a good thing.

In the offseason, Michigan lost Zack Novak (graduation), Stu Douglass (graduation), and Evan Smotrycz (transfer to Maryland). All three were outside shooting specialists, and a big reason why the Wolverines ranked No. 8 in the country in their rate of 3-pointers to overall field goal attempts. They were also three most efficient offensive players on the team.

I'm not too concerned about that. While we love Zack Novak and have shirts and everything, he was a 6'4" power forward. Smotrycz was only getting about half of available minutes and seemed to have a chemistry issue with the rest of the team; Douglass was a quality on-ball defender and good shooter, but a low-usage guy. Novak and Douglass both find themselves in the "limited roles" section of Kenpom, and while Novak was unbelievably efficient it's not that hard to replace an efficient low-usage player. Between Stauskas, GRIII, McGary, and the return of Horford Michigan should get some combination of rebounding, defense, and shooting to replace Novak.

While Michigan will have to adapt to an offense that isn't spacing you out with four shooters, they've been pick-and-roll heavy the last two years. It won't be a huge leap. They'll improve… but I'm not expecting them to being the thick of a fight for a one seed at the end of the year.

Unless TREY BURKE

The good news. The AP top 25 is pretty good at IDing the right teams.

Yes please. Glenn Robinson's defense is getting talked up, which would be very nice:

"Glenn Robinson has shown some ability several times to really guard people," Michigan coach John Beilein said last week. "He's got instincts and he's really worked hard through the years to be a defender.

"That would be an easy way for him right now (to add to this team)." …

"We've been thinking about that," Beilein said. "You could switch on a ball screen (with the point guard) if his man is a bigger guy.

"I think he could do that."

Neither Burke or Hardaway has been a lockdown defender to this point and Michigan does need someone to go up against opponent's big time perimeter threats. Also you know how I feel about guys who contribute to teams without absorbing possessions. I like them—lots. If GRIII can be a plus player on defense and rebounding at both ends of the floor, he'll improve Michigan more than if he's doing equivalent stuff with the ball in his hands, because Michigan already has a lead ballhandler.

Sometimes uniforms are not crazy enough. 30 years ago, yeah, but whoah:

At least  that one guy has a belt. Also, hey, Art Schlichter!

Oh good. Denard is not aging backwards.

"He should be fine," Hoke reiterated Tuesday on the Big Ten coaches' teleconference. "It's just one of those things that flares up now and then depending on how he gets hit. He's better every day.

"We think he'll be fine."

Good.

It's official. The NCAA's long-awaited penalty system revamp is officially official. There are now four levels of infraction. Level four is "incidental" and roughly equivalent to old secondary violations. What used to be major violations are now binned into three different groups:

• LEVEL 1: Big, big stuff. Violations that "seriously undermine" the NCAA model. Penn State, obviously. Maybe USC's agent stuff. Hopefully UNC's you never go to class thing.
• LEVEL 2: Serious stuff, violations that "provide or are intended to provide more than a minimal but less than a substantial or extensive recruiting, competitive or other advantage." OSU's tatgate. South Carolina's hotel stuff.
• LEVEL 3: "isolated or limited in nature; provide no more than a minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantage; and do not include more than a minimal impermissible benefit." Michigan's practice stuff.

Coaches now can't play see-no-evil and punishments are hypothetically ramped up, but we won't know for a while: anything that's happened before today will get the more lenient, older penalty structure.

Nope not happening. The CHLPA wants CHL players to be NCAA-eligible. This is not happening without significant concessions from the CHL. When the NCAA relaxed its standards for foreign player eligibility, hockey got together and had this inserted into the bylaws:

12.2.3.2.4 Major Junior Ice Hockey. Ice hockey teams in the United States and Canada, classified by the Canadian Hockey Association as major junior teams, are considered professional teams under NCAA legislation.

That was inserted specifically to prevent CHL teams from getting their claws into players who would otherwise be ticketed to junior leagues that position themselves as college feeders. The USHL is now a fine feeder league for the NCAA and there's no reason to give CHL teams a marketing point that won't have any bearing in reality and will in fact encourage CHL teams to make sure their players are not eligible, whether it's for academic or amateurism reasons.

The CHLPA is trying, though, and an extremely long post by Guy Flaming indicates there has been some movement on the whole amateurism front—the CHL has gone from specifically defining itself as professional to specifically defining itself as amateur. The fact that signed NHL players can still participate is an issue that has not been resolved—and it's hard to see it getting resolved. A large part of the CHL's appeal is having a bunch of first round picks around. They've built that into the NHL CBA by prohibiting junior kids from playing in the AHL until they're 20.

Meanwhile, the CHL can call itself whatever it wants and the NCAA can still reject players from that league. Unless the NCAA sees a benefit, they will not change their stance. The only way I could see something happening is if the CHL gives significantly and agrees to not poach players signed to LOIs, or poach guys mid-year, etc.

The only reason they'd do that is to stop this ramshackle insurrection they have on their hands. Right now it's just bad PR and erratic Georges Laraque appearances. We're a long way from what would be a seismic shift in college hockey.

Etc.: Oregon's using double stacks, too. More Michael Ferns tribute. Bring kleenex. Why does the NCAA want basketball coaches to explode? Hockey series against Miami recap. Don't be mean to Russell Bellomy or Lewan will eat you. Wolverine Historian puts up 2007 Minnesota.

New Yost. Looks nice…

…but is set to further erode the atmosphere in the stadium as the first three rows of the student section have been excised for additional handicap seating. I guess it's inevitable that would eat out a chunk of the students because money is the primary motivator for the department, but that continues a long tradition of crapping on the student section without offering anything in return that started with the terribly-designed (and perpetually half-empty) club seat overhang that eliminated the last four rows on that side of the arena and made a further four or five partially obstructed when you stand, as students do. With every renovation the capacity gets smaller and the prices go up.

Meanwhile, this is not a good idea:

On the bright side, it appears that opposing parents are sitting next to us this year. [insert evil laugh here]

Maybe the student section has mellowed enough in the past five years to make this workable but the last time this happened, hockey parents moving into the students to find who was talking about their boy were an annual occurrence. Michigan's asking for it.

Descent into Captain Queeg-dom: 75% complete. Mark Dantonio's presided over two mass player brawls, picked multiple players up from jail to drive them to practice, seen William Gholston treat Denard Robinson's head like a beer with a twist-off cap and punch Taylor Lewan without lifting a finger (the Big Ten levied the suspension, remember), had a public hissy fit after last week's EMU game, and he's just getting started.

As I was checking out the Brayfriend Experience in Athens, Michigan State was playing Ohio State in East Lansing. A film kerfuffle and eye-gouging incident have obscured the true WTF moment from that game:

via cjzero

Will Gholston laid motionless on top of Braxton Miller for a good 30 seconds after that hit, wobbled off the field, and then returned. The sideline reporter dutifully related that Gholston "had the wind knocked out of him."

That's appalling. Anyone who hits the video above can see the ref tapping Gholston in the back to get up; he does not get up. He's just taken a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit and lays there for 30 seconds. Does it matter if he's actually unconscious or just incapable of moving for 30 seconds? No. That guy is done for the day, unless you're Dantonio. The blatant lie about what happened to him is just the cherry on top.

I guess it's nice that Dantonio has the same disregard for the safety of his own players as he does for his opponents, though. (Remember who was Robert Reynolds's DC: Dantonio.) He's got that going for him.

I assume this will once and for all end the bible-thumping, square-jawed discipline dean media meme, right?

BONUS: hey, guess what everyone who said words to the effect of "good" in the thread on this on the board got? Banned.

In other MSU news. Their OL took another hit when starting center Travis Jackson went out for the year against OSU. They inserted journeyman senior Ethan Ruhland at center after the injury and are rolling with a redshirt freshman at LG; Blake Treadwell has been bouncing in and out of the lineup with injury. If Michigan had suffered the injuries they have already we'd be sitting here in sackcloth and ashes—okay, more sackcloth and ashes—gibbering.

OSU's Jordan Hall tore his PCL and is doubtful for next week but apparently will be "evaluated on a week to week basis."

Uniforms. No Z. We'll see how the motion shortz go with these things but these actually look pretty slick from the rear:

This will all be ruined by Muff the Magic Block M on the front, I know.

UPDATE: front. I like 'em.

Why are we stopping this again? Michigan-ND kills, man:

That was an NBC record. Surely NBC is pissed off that Stanford for some reason is taking the place of M-ND and that Purdue and Duke and Wake Forest are hitting up Irish schedules now.

Maisel also points out that this is all Texas's fault.

If only anyone had paid any attention last year. Gholston a draft faller:

William Gholston*/DE/Michigan State: Gholston failed to impress during the Spartans' devastating conference defeat at the hands of Ohio State. Though he continued to play despite being injured in the first half, Gholston provided no impact and was minimally productive. In five games this season, he has posted just a single sack.

I thought they were nice. I may have been wrong.

Yeah, but have they had two people on Survivor? Georgia has. I saw it on their jumbotron.

Etc.: Google docs spreadsheet with Michigan hockey TV appearances from the HSR. Things that should have been at the estate sale that wasn't.

Scheduling note. I sat down to start UFRing last night and found that I'd actually re-converted the UMass game and hadn't downloaded ND at all. My subconscious is protecting me as best it can, but I now have the thing. UFR will be a day late, which it traditionally is during a bye week anyway.

Denard's night went better than at least one person's. Mmmm Northern Indiana style:

The man on the ground had severe facial and upper body wounds. According to police, both men said they were hit by a car, but police have not confirmed that. Investigators say it's possible that is a story to cover-up a fight.

While police were talking to the men, a woman approached officers and said she'd been hit in the face with a case of Natural Light Beer. The woman had very visible wounds, most profound, her entire bottom row of teeth were missing.

This was at 9 PM, so I assume all of this arose from an argument about whether Borges or Denard was the worst.

The pants! They are motion pants. That's not a Sufjan Stevens song title yet, but I bet it's on his next album. No, it's a reference to some digging done by UMHoops that unearths a piece of basketball's uniforms for next year:

THEY'RE TUBES FOR YOUR LEGS!

The way this works is you put one leg in one tube and the other leg in the other tube and then pull up until you feel resistance. Once you feel resistance, STOP. You will now be wearing your legtubes. You will kind of look like a 12-year-old from 1993. If you did not stop when you felt resistance you will also be in severe pain, but that's your problem. That's what you get for not following instructions.

Nobody at commenting at UMHoops likes these, but they do like Glenn Robinson III.

Uniforms are supposed to be, you know, what's that word… the same. Adidas is still not executing this task, apparently:

Piping: it's just all over the place man. Also, Washington's missing his block M. If you sent this to me, thanks, but I forget who did.

Bye week activity. WTKA is replaying Ufer's call of the 1979 Michigan State game at noon on Saturday. 1050 on your dial, or on the internets. Here's Keith Jackson doing the same:

Band noise solution? They amplified the band a couple years back to mixed reviews. If you couldn't hear them before it's great. If you could, it sounds horrible as the slightly delayed noise coming out of the speakers conflicts with the band itself. I'm in an area where it sounds horrible.

I thought about this on Saturday at some point in the third quarter when I noticed I could hear the ND band loud and clear despite being about as far away from them as possible, but couldn't hear the Michigan band that was just below our section. I was going to mention this in the game column as depressing commentary on how quiet the MMB, but MVictors pointed out the speaker setup they had on the sideline:

Audio people: does this make a difference, having the speakers in the same place the band is? Or am I grasping at straws?

Idiots in charge of stuff. Replacement refs screw up Monday Night Football and the NFL burns its credibility all for a pathetically tiny slice of their enormous revenue pool. In the NHL, Edmonton's ownership laughably threatens to move the Oilers to Seattle; the NHL is bunkered down for another strike less than a decade after an entire season failed to happen.

At some point, it has to be about something other than the pursuit of as much money as you can get right damn now, doesn't it? Maybe, maybe not. They'll have to start to see some erosion before they act, just like college football teams are starting to now that the terrible scheduling practices of the last 20 years are finally resulting in empty seats.

In other news, someone is paying bowtied twit Gordon Gee an exorbitant amount of money and allowing the guy to spend 7.7 million in expenses(!), including $64,000 on bowties(!!!). How's that going?

At the University of Michigan, President Mary Sue Coleman’s travel and entertainment expenses from 2007 through 2010 totaled $410,235. Upkeep and utilities at the university-owned house runs an additional $100,000 a year and if Coleman takes someone to lunch or dinner, she pays the tab out of her own pocket, according to University of Michigan spokesman Rick Fitzgerald.

Coleman’s compensation package is $860,782 a year and includes housing and a car. Her employment contract does not call for first class airline tickets or private jets, as Gee’s does. In Michigan’s last endowment campaign she helped raise $3.2 billion — the most ever by a public university at that time.

There are signs that OSU isn’t keeping pace nationally on the size of its endowment. OSU slipped from 27th in the four years preceding Gee’s return to Columbus to 31st in 2010-11, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute. The Big 10 universities Northwestern, Minnesota, and Michigan all ranked above Ohio State for the size of their endowment.

Jim Tressel, fire this man.

Come on Tim. Baumgardner on Tim Hardaway entering his junior year:

"I've watched and probably had more interaction with Tim this summer (than ever before)," Beilein said recently. "With him just coming in, sitting in my office, hanging out and feeling very comfortable as a Michigan man.

"Him being more comfortable with everything has allowed him to have a lot of confidence in the intangible area (off the court). And there's a strong correlation between that and how he'll perform on the court."

I hope that's true. Hardaway's three point shooting should bounce back just because 27% is incredibly low, but if Michigan is going to live up to some extremely hefty preseason expectations he'll have to either be more effective creating his own shots or go from terrible to elite from behind the line.

wat. Mac Bennett on the twitter:

The @BeatsPointZero "Deblois is a Bag of Milk" EP will be out later today. Excited about it

I don't know. I've notified Jon Bois about this, though.

A fast one. The Michigan-ND series opened up in South Bend, and if it's ending semi-permanently in 2014, it'll end in South Bend. Not a smooth move to not build an even number of home/away games into the contract, Michigan. This is probably Bill Martin's fault, FWIW.

Chalk. Via Jamie, Michigan's… performance type thing against Notre Dame has finally provided a leader in Big Ten betting whatnot:

MSU now "clear" betting chalk to win Big 10: MSU +220, Braska +250, Wisco +300, UM +400, PU +700. Odds lot less muddled than a week ago

Purdue's down from 20-1 recently. I TOLD YOU JAMIE /ignores Wisconsin

Also, Michigan lines are frightening. Michigan's favored by less than a field goal at Purdue and about a touchdown at Nebraska and Ohio State. This is all an overreaction to something that won't happen again, right guys? Right?

I'm a little surprised things are shaking out like this after last weekend. I mean, MSU-EMU couldn't have moved the needle in favor of the Spartans, could it?

Here's your statistical nutshell. Michigan State snapped the ball 72 times on Saturday with the intention of advancing the ball.

On 46 of those plays, the ball ended up, or was targeted to end up, in the hands of Le'Veon Bell or Dion Sims. The average gain on those plays was 7.8 yards.

On the remaining the 26 plays, the ball was intended to end up in someone else's hands. The average gain on those plays was 2.8 yards.

Yipes.

Etc.: Hockey starts off ranked third. Seems high. Bois fake mailbag about those refs with mini-Packers TWIS. This is not Ace holding his head, but both Ace and I had to check. Kirk Ferentz is unfireable. Which person is Borges and which is me in this XKCD?

"but the kids love 'em"