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Please do not mention the Star Wars. Results will be unpredictable and depressing. If Star Wars comes up try to change the subject to something like Michigan… uh… baseball? Hockey and basketball recruiting?

Bleargh. Michigan canceled a home and home with UCLA for this:

The University of Michigan Athletic Department announced Thursday (Jan. 30) the addition of the University of Connecticut to the non-conference football schedule in 2022. The Wolverines and Huskies will meet on the gridiron during the third week of the season, Sept. 17, 2022, at Michigan Stadium.

That completes a nonconference schedule of Colorado State, Hawaii, and UConn. The home schedule adds Maryland, PSU, Nebraska, Illinois, and Indiana. I really don't understand why Michigan had to cancel UCLA when they already had 7 home games. Not a great look for Warde Manuel.

Welcome to the revolution. John Gasaway on timeouts:

We already have media timeouts and multiple reviews in crunch time. That’s enough. There should be zero timeouts.

Prepare your team. Let’s see who wins.

— John Gasaway (@JohnGasaway) January 29, 2020

That's even more draconian than my proposal, which would allow timeouts if a coach shears off one of his digits and hands it to a ref. (Or, in more extreme cases, delegates an assistant to do so.) Hopefully he moderates his views slightly going forward.

[After THE JUMP: Kobe King takes are bad]

Having a normal one. Coach K wouldn't last ten seconds in Yost before his head exploded, Scanners-style. Like anyone on the internet I saw K berate a bemused student section…

…long before I had any context. That context is hard to believe given the above. This is the grave sin the Duke student section committed:

The Hall of Fame coach was angered by the Cameron Crazies, who directed a playful "Jeff Capel, sit with us" chant at the Pittsburgh coach -- a former Blue Devils player and assistant coach.

K screamed "he's one of us" at students chanting a thing about how Capel is one of them. He did sort of apologize after.

Maybe he should talk to Eli. TIL from Brendan Quinn that Eli Brooks is a Buddhist:

Brooks, raised as a Christian, was a sophomore at Spring Grove Senior High School when he began dabbling in Buddhism. There was no singular moment of conversion or enlightenment, he says, but a gradual pull toward the teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama. He got deeper and deeper into it over the course of a challenging freshman year at Michigan, when he went from surprise starter to deep reserve over the course of his first season in college basketball. Today, he has a large tattoo of the Buddha splayed on his shoulder.

“‘I’ve just had lots of questions about faith that religion just didn’t answer for me,” Brooks said. “I really wanted to focus on the mental side and being a good person through values. I just really connected with Buddhism and found it calming. It relaxes me. It got me through some dark times.”

Why do we assume a transfer is on the player and not the program? Wisconsin's Kobe King left the Badger program midseason despite starting and being their second-highest usage player. This has caused a lot of sturm und drang about whether King is a quitter, spurred in part by a report in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel after King missed the Iowa game, seemingly by choice:

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Wisconsin was without redshirt sophomore guard Kobe King for its key Big Ten game Monday night at Iowa.

King did not travel from Madison and, according to a source, is frustrated with the direction of the team this season.

Andy Katz had a pretty gross segment on BTN after King's announcement in which he bombed King for his exit after talking with Wisconsin sources:

.@TheAndyKatz had a strong reaction to the news that Kobe King is leaving the @BadgerMBB program: pic.twitter.com/rr5q4Kmro9

— Wisconsin On BTN (@WisconsinOnBTN) January 29, 2020

Katz is literally employed by the NCAA and can be relied upon to take up coach/administrator talking points in every matter but even so… man.

The assumption is that there is something wrong with Kobe King instead of something wrong with Wisconsin basketball. You know, the program currently putting Brad Davison on the court. Maybe Greg Gard is a raging asshole and King doesn't want to put up with it any more. Maybe King is sick of having his warbles smashed in practice. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to leave a basketball program midseason. Asserting that King left because he wasn't getting enough time is complete nonsense: he's getting zero minutes the rest of this year.

Meanwhile Wisconsin just started playing Micah Potter, who left Ohio State two days before their season started! The Badgers complaining about King's probably-justified exit is rich.

Impact thereof. Michigan only gets Wisconsin once this year—no visit to the Trohl Center, thank God. That game just got significantly more tractable:

so the thing about wisconsin's offense without kobe king is it curls up in a ball and dies pic.twitter.com/o5ktTEeznG

— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) January 29, 2020

It also might send Wisconsin tumbling down the conference standings. 12 Big Ten teams aren't going to make it in even if they deserve to, so anyone in the middle pack falling off the ledge is good for Michigan's bubble hopes independent of Michigan wins and losses.

Also in As Wisconsin Turns. Davison has been suspended for cranking an Iowa player in the hoolies:

The Big Ten has suspended Wisconsin's Brad Davison for one game following his actions on Monday against Iowa, per release. Davison will not play Saturday against Michigan State.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) January 30, 2020

Of course it's against Michigan State. Next time Davison wants to perform the grim fandango on an opponent's buppets and nosh could it please be before a game against anyone else?

A famous guy. Josh Christopher is profiled in SI—the bits that are still the real SI. It can be rough having an older sister who plays when you are in the awkward between years:

“It was always just fun for me,” Paris said. “But when you go to college it becomes a job. You’re playing for your tuition. It’s tough, and it’s forced on you. And that’s what’s really different. That’s why I’m always telling Josh, ‘Just have fun now.’ Because eventually it becomes a job.”

Paris is 16 years older than Josh, but as he was coming into his own as a young hooper himself, she said there were times she’d beat him one-on-one and Josh would scream out, “She went to Saint Mary’s!” in front of friends to feel less embarrassed by it.

Recruiting talk is limited to his final list of schools; article does detail the close relationship between Christopher and his brother Caleb, who's currently at Arizona State. If Christopher does end up going to ASU that'll be the reason.

Etc.: Improved graduation rates for college athletes mirror improved graduation rates for everyone. Kenpom takes a look at whether there are teams that perform better on the road than they should and concludes that they probably don't exist. Morgan Trent, TV real estate person. Ayyyy I'm walking here.

Molly Shea on hockey's new top line. Another NHL draft ranking with Brisson and Bordeleau in the late first/early second range. The Athletic's Corey Pronman has Bordeleau #22 ("…so dangerous inside the offensive zone because of his very high skill … I like the consistency in his game and the toolkit even if the size and skating aren’t ideal") and Brisson outside the first round.