Unverified Voracity Lays Down The Bulk Of Jewish Laws

The must-get. I mentioned this on twitter yesterday but in case you don't follow me and my pork-induced time travel, this man exists:

This man exists and is an in-state defensive back who already claims an Iowa offer. I promise to refer to him as LEVITICUS PAYNE, in full, in caps, for the duration of his career if he ends up at Michigan. Unless that is an illegal inducement. Which it totally isn't.

Love expert. So… yeah… this…

…is the best thing ever produced by a university athletic department. Fact. It also produced a sad zinger, if you're a masochist. (Quick masochist test follows. Q: Are you a Michigan fan?)

Pipped. Sticking with hockey, Bryan Hogan is healthy. Unfortunately for him, Shawn Hunwick's been playing as well as he possibly can and Hogan's had nine games over the past year. Result:

Hunwick has been solid since then, and remains the Wolverines' No. 1 goalie. But if necessary, Berenson said Hogan could be inserted into the lineup. Berenson said he never considered making a change in Saturday's 3-0 loss to Miami after Hunwick gave up three goals in the first 40 minutes.

Not sure why he'd pull Hunwick after he gave up some goals where 1) he fell victim to a wraparound because he's short and has to come way out of the net, 2) got sold out on a breakaway, which he stopped, only to get sold out on the guy following up the play, and 3) gave up a 5x3 goal on a cross-ice bomb to one of the nation's best power plays.

Also, Red fired up the line blender and came up with this:

Carl Hagelin          Louie Caporusso  Chris Brown
Scooter Vaughan  Matt Rust             Luke Glendening
David Wohlberg    A.J. Treais            Luke Moffatt
Ben Winnett         Kevin Lynch          Derek DeBlois

Based on recent performance I think AnnArbor.com has the second and third lines flipped there. Will it matter? Eh… maybe. I still think you have to put Lindsey Sparks in just to see what happens when a little guy with some skill gets on the ice.

Basketball follow-up. When I went back to assess NCAA tournament chances it struck me how close this team was to pulling off two or three wins that would have them not on the bubble but solidly in the tourney, and I thought about the 2009 team that got those wins against UCLA and Duke.

So is it good or bad that right now Michigan is the #55 team in Kenpom? Two years ago the Michigan team that made the second round of the tourney finished the year 50th. This team is nearly their equal. Look:

This year's team is slightly worse at both O and D but the differences are small and Michigan is so young you can argue they'd play better down the stretch than older teams closer to the top of the learning curve. That year's team was also so young—289th nationally—and improved at the tail end to squeeze its way in. If this edition of Michigan basketball can do that against a reasonable closing stretch the sole difference between this year and the tourney year will be a few points here and there against UCLA, Duke, Syracuse, OSU, and Kansas.

Possible addition. Chris Pool tweeted something about a Graham Glasgow visiting Michigan this weekend. [update: and as I write this I see Tom's all-seeing eye has confirmed it.] Glasgow is a 2011 OL from Illinois with no ranking anywhere. After reading the stuff available on Rivals it seems he's a preferred walk-on sort. He had an Eastern Michigan offer but Minnesota was talking to him about walking on. Also he just visited Ohio State(!), and I'm pretty sure they're full since OL Chris Carter ended up not getting charged* in his Hand That Rocks The Cradle case. If he's looking for a walk-on spot Michigan can accommodate that, and possibly sell him on the idea he's got a better shot at PT at M.

*[Which seriously people, when you complain about Ohio State being "at it again" you sound ridiculous. Fulmer Cup standings do not lie unless we're talking about Michigan State. Feel free to hammer OSU for its regular scandals involving their players having contact with boosters and Kiffin-esque secondary violation collection, but as far as behavior goes people who live in fairly sturdy brick houses shouldn't throw rocks at others in fairly sturdy brick houses. It's pointless and you look silly.]

Exactly wrong. Excellent The Only Colors post on the effect losing Korey Lucious has had on the Spartan basketball team stands in magnificent contrast to the News's take: "Deflating loss exposes Spartans' lack of grit, heart." This is exactly wrong. MSU is playing an elf who bakes cookies. He is backing up another goofy walk-on. This is the corrected version of that headline:

Deflating loss exposes Spartans' excess of grit, heart

Or:

Deflating loss exposes Spartans' lack of persons to put balls through hoop

Not that this will stop anyone's stupid meme. Some poll found that 81 percent of the state didn't go to either Michigan or Michigan State. A third of these people said they weren't fans of either. A third said they were MSU fans, a third said they were Michigan fans.

Graph. Here's a graph of Michigan's offerees and where they went from Touch The Banner:

It'll be interesting to see how this graph shifts under Hoke. Guessing the overall numbers get smaller and the SEC's share shrinks drastically.

Etc.: Kansas ditched the students who follow players around to make sure they're in class and is now going with senior citizens. About half of I-A has gotten nailed for major violations, but major ain't what it used to be. Michigan gets to be on a list of a dozen schools that got hit twice YAYAYAYAYAY. Bob Wojonowski being Radley Balko back in the day. Previous article about Rodriguez dissing former players disputed by Woodley, Orr, Runyan. Stewart Mandel obliterates Saban's attempt to defend himself from negative PR about oversigning.