Unverified Voracity Likes It Draconian

It lives! Tim has assembled and published the first edition of the 2011 recruiting board. Fear him. It's also up on the menu under "Useful Stuff" now.

It's open. Press release:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan men's basketball team will open its practice to the public on Saturday (Oct. 24) from noon to 2 p.m., prior to the Wolverine football team's game against Penn State at 3:30 p.m. at Michigan Stadium.

All Wolverine fans will enter and exit through the Crisler Arena tunnel. The concourse will not be accessible to fans during the practice. Admission is free.

Worth checking out, probably, as long as the noon games are lame. Which is a strong possibility.

Hello Cissoko? Boubacar Cissoko may return to the field this weekend according to Rodriguez:

"If he does what he needs to do (Friday), he’ll be ready to go in action Saturday," Rodriguez said.

He's struggled so far but given the depth at corner even a struggling player is an important addition. If he gets his head right he can contribute this year and possibly even start next year if Warren makes the leap to the NFL everyone expects he will.

And stay out. The NCAA is about to adopt legislation that would significantly relax restrictions on players who happen to play with professionals but aren't professionals themselves. The main thrust is to allow the Robin Benzings of the world to not get screwed over because they practiced with some bearded professionals:

Of the 490 incoming athletes penalized for amateurism violations last year, 434 were foreign students, according to the NCAA. Punishments range from being forced to sit out games to, more rarely, permanent ineligibility.

That might be a slight aid to the Eurobig-friendly basketball program.

Interestingly, NCAA hockey wants no part of this. Puck Daddy highlights an NCAA hockey request for an exemption to the rule relaxation:

The ice hockey community believes that prospects who wish to participate in NCAA hockey would choose to participate in Major Junior A hockey before coming to college, and the recruit could be influenced to take action that could jeopardize his eligibility at the NCAA level (taking more than actual and necessary expenses, signing with an agent or signing a professional contract that provides more than actual and necessary expenses). Additionally, time demands of participation in the Major Junior A hockey league could hurt a recruit's academic performance.

Basically, NCAA hockey doesn't want to give kids the option of heading to major junior with the intent of attending college at a later date. It makes sense: any major junior team that acquires a kid with NCAA aspirations will have a ton of motivation to render him ineligible by hook or by crook. The natural inertia of playing in MJ, plus the lack of academic emphasis there, would see virtually no players actually follow through on the their NCAA plans. All it would do is help MJ recruit against the NCAA.

With the USHL and NTDP in place, college hockey has feeder leagues that feature play essentially equivalent to the CHL and shouldn't be losing anyone because they don't have a good place to play at 16 and 17, so there's no benefit here.

And as long as we're on hockey, a scouting blog checked out one of Lucas Lessio's games. The report is strangely muted for a player called "arguably the top 1993 player in OHL territory" and "probably a top half first rounder in 2011":

On the ice, he’s not the most flashy player, but he’s a very effective one. He’s got good size, and he’s a player that competes extremely hard on the ice. He’ll go to battle for loose pucks in the corner, and he’s not afraid to take a hit to make a play, or dish out a hit when he has the opportunity. His skating is above average, and could use some work, but he does a good job of protecting the puck in stride. Lessio has a pretty good set of hands, but his poise could use some work. Sometimes he overthinks the game when he has the puck, and he doesn’t have the same natural creativity that high end goal scorers have. His niche is definitely driving the puck to the net. He has a very good shot, and he has a knack of finding loose pucks around the goal mouth, which is where he can make a big impact.

The report makes him sound like a version of Brandon Kaleniecki that goes in the first round of the draft, which is a hard player to conceive of.

Also, Ben Winnett missed last night's game against Niagara with a "nagging groin injury."

Etc.: Rivals ranks basketball #14. I thought this was going to be about Corey Tropp for some reason as I'd forgotten about the incident that made some guy swinging a stick at Kampfer's head even scarier than it would otherwise be: former football walk-on and wrestler Mike Milano has been convicted of a misdemeanor assault charge for the incident that put Kampfer in a neck brace. Oddly, the judge in the case complained about the verdict.