Unverified Voracity Wasn't At Full Strength
Surprise. You're probably not surprised.
"MICHIGAN HAMPERED BY STARS' NBA CONTRACTS"
They did show McGary with like two minutes left, so I guess we're even?
Kind of good. Tim Hardaway's assertion about a week-long break is just true.
With yesterday's win, John Beilein now is 14-2 in games for which he has a week to prep since 2008. 10 of those vs. high-major teams.
— Drew Hallett (@DrewCHallett) February 24, 2014 Seeding and location things. Seems like Michigan has a decent shot at Milwaukee. Lunardi's got them there and has for a while; Palm has them relegated to Orlando, but he's got them a #4 seed, not a 3. Lunardi has Creighton in San Antonio instead, which is a bit farther away for them but not immensely so. I'm hoping the committee realizes that Buffalo is just as close for Michigan. Syracuse is locked into one spot there; the other one is up for grabs.
Unfortunately, there's no slam dunk site this year that would be an obvious spot to put Michigan, so they may figure Milwaukee or Orlando is a who cares kind of situation.
Compare and contrast. I might have known this but I forgot it and now spring practice is starting immediately and I am reminded, so here is some possibly-old news. this week's Athletic Department Outrage Of The Century: undeterred by the miserable weather at the last 100 spring games, Michigan has actually moved it up, so that it's on April 5th. Which is also the date of the national semifinals in the NCAA tournament. Is Michigan actively trying to suppress turnout?
Not quite the worst scouting report ever. That is still Aaron Schatz on Mike Martin, but whoever's putting up the anonymous scouting reports for NFL.com is… well… he's definitely not Heiko. Jeremy Gallon's weaknesses:
WEAKNESSES
Short with a limited catching radius.
Okay.
Lacks top-end speed to separate vertically or run away from a crowd (consistently tracked down from behind).
Maybe on an NFL level?
Not a natural hands catcher and will often body the ball.
Okay now you're just making things up.
Lacks dynamic run skills for an undersized receiver.
Much of his production results from schemed bubble screens and lateral tosses.
OH COME ON
Underpowered blocker.
/dies
Hide yo kids. Both Michigan and Michigan State are being investigated by the Feds for not doing enough to deal with sexual assault on campus, with your favorite online and offline crank spearheading the charge:
[Doug] Smith filed a complaint last year with the Office of Civil Rights, saying that U-M refused to investigate the case and that the university’s grievance procedure does not fully comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on gender.
Funny how the suddenly-legitimized Smith is now getting profiled by the News and used as a primary source when everyone was perfectly happy to ignore him this summer. It's terrible that this guy actually has a point about the insular, opaque, CYA way the university does everything. When you are going up against Doug Smith and losing, you are so bad at PR Dave Brandon is interested in hiring you.
Meanwhile in East Lansing, other suits in charge of things are caught lying to make themselves look good:
Near the bottom of the letter was a single sentence stating that the university is “collaborating” with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, to “give members of the campus community an opportunity” to meet with representatives from the department.
But on Monday, Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw told The State News the planned visit to campus is directly related to an official investigation into sexual harassment and violence complaints pending against the university.
Doug Smith might be behind this as well, as Michigan State seniors Keith Appling and Adriean Payne would be on the Island Of Expelled Athletes if MSU was operating with the same standards Michigan is. Seems like a short leap of logic there.
Elsewhere in legal procedures. Suffice it to say that the preliminary hearing in the O'Bannon case did not go well for the NCAA.
One of the NCAA's other justifications is protecting amateurism. Wilken largely skipped past the topic with a dismissive line: "I don't think amateurism is going to be a useful word here."
Dagger. One thing to love about the legal system is cock-eyed judges who blow through decades of smoke and mirrors with one withering sentence.
Nobody knows about soccer. That rumored Manchester United/Real Madrid game slated for Michigan Stadium in one URL:
http://www.mlive.com/sports/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/02/prewrite_dont_publish_michigan.html
The organizers were set to announce their final two sites recently and did announce one: Gopher Stadium in Minneapolis. It would make sense if another Midwestern football venue was the other thing they were waiting on, but still no announcement. A spokesperson for the group organizing this preseason tourney thing confirms that they are in "serious discussions" but can't announce anything.
The hold up may be about the playing field. When Michigan Stadium was being considered for the USA's most recent World Cup bid it became clear that any soccer match at the stadium would have to be on a temporary elevated platform.
Oh good. Michigan and Michigan State will have two games about one-third of the time going forward as the Big Ten adopts the least creative way to jam a 14-team conference into 18 games they can come up with: play five teams twice and eight once. Boooooo.
What they should have done: first 13 games are a round robin. Top seven and bottom seven are then grouped, final 6 games are round-robin within groups. Big Ten title: amazingly important. Conference stretch run: amazing. Downsides: schedule uncertainty and tough on bubble teams. But, man, just think of those three weeks at the end of the year. Would be must see.
Etc.: Five key plays. Zach Helfand on the differences between Izzo and Beilein. Tweeting at players is A FELONY. 300 pound man runs 40 yard dash twice as fast as you would. Then he talks to people about it. He will likely go in the top ten.
Kill 'em with kindness. Lawrence Marshall overcomes tragedy. Not sure if serious dot jpg.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:08 PM ^
The guy who did the Gallon writeup is Nolan Nawrocki, senior editor for Pro Football Weekly.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:36 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 4:37 PM ^
He's also pretty solidly racist, as every critique of a black QB sounds like the kind of stuff that was bandied about in the 80s. And he also has no clue what he's talking about when it comes to the players; Gallon's writeup is pretty much par for the course.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^
When I looked at Gallon's NFL scouting profile I was completely dumbfounded by how off base it truly was. It was as if the person writing it had NEVER seen Gallon play football before....
February 25th, 2014 at 2:16 PM ^
"What they should have done: first 13 games are a round robin. Top seven and bottom seven are then grouped, final 6 games are round-robin within groups. Big Ten title: amazingly important. Conference stretch run: amazing. Downsides: schedule uncertainty and tough on bubble teams. But, man, just think of those three weeks at the end of the year. Would be must see."
This is pretty much what the Scottish Premier League does. (soccer). Creates a tremendous run of important games for both halves of the league.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:32 PM ^
There are some issues with it though, and I'm not sure how it all would work.
Does BBall TV work like football in that as we get closer to games networks can choose which ones to show? What about the bottom half round robin - those games are now TV crap. Does the big games being even bigger negate that enough?
Visiting fans - can't buy tickets to games if you don't know when/if they'll happen
Scheduling - some arenas do host other sports (WBB, hockey, etc) and trying to cram the final 6 games in with the various travel necessities, arenas, etc would be tough. Also, season ticket holders would have all the games, but wouldn't know when they are.
One possible solution would be to schedule all home games and have road games in the final 6 float. For example, we know Michigan plays at home Feb 15, 25 and March 3rd. They'll play 3 road games in there and we're not sure when, or who. Then every arena knows when they'll host, home ticket holders know, and TV crews can decide to pick up games based on the home team and knowing they'll be playing a top conference opponent - even if they don't know which one.
Shoehorning all the road schedules in might be tough, but probably doable.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:34 PM ^
The visiting fan thing is a problem. Even if they can guarantee a home date for Michigan, if you're a guy like Zach Novak coming into town to see Michigan play MSU, it'd suck if it turned out that the game wasn't scheduled for that day and you got, say, PSU instead.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:47 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 7:08 PM ^
NCAA hoops is not premier league soccer. Strength of schedule is critical to getting into the tourney, especially for bubble teams. If you took that model, what do you think it would have done for say Nebraska this year. They might not have enough games against top opponents to make a diffference.
Agree that the radomness of the other option is very bothersome, but not sure the soccer model is much better.
February 25th, 2014 at 5:16 PM ^
for the race to the Big Ten title, I'm guessing coaches might not be that in favor of it due to how it might affect the NCAA tourney. There's a couple ways it could affect a team in the NCAA:
1) I'm assuming that would be 2 games a week for 3 weeks against the top teams in the league. That's a huge gauntlet for the top teams. The last couple of years we've talked about how hard UM has had it going against 3 or 4 of the top teams in a row with only a couple days rest between games. UM has usually shown the wear and tear of that grind towards the end of the 4 game gauntlet. Would these teams then be asked to turnaround and participate in a Big Ten tourney where they might have to play 3 games in 3 days on top of the 6 game gauntlet? Even if there no was no Big Ten tourney anymore, these teams would only have 3-4 days rest before the NCAA tournament begins.
2) How would the NCAA selection committee look at this with regards to who gets into the tourney and how teams are seeded? Looking at UM before the MSU game they were 10-3 and 18-7 overall and looking like a 3 or 4 seed. If they had to play OSU, Iowa, Wisky, MSU and Nebraska home and home, what happens to their seeding if they were to go 3-5 (doubt it would happen, just hypothetical here) and finish 21-12. I doubt they're a Top 4 seed and could drop to what... a 6 or 7 seed??
Does the Big Ten tell the NCAA that any team in the bottom half pod cannot be considered for the tournament? If you're the 7th place team you're going to have a way harder schedule then the 8th place team. If the 7th and 8th place teams are relatively close in conference and overall records (like the 6th and 7th place teams this year were after 13 games, Neb and Minny), the chances are that the 8th place team is going to have a better and possibly way better record after pod play then the team that was 7th after 13 games.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:16 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 2:28 PM ^
There is no Gopher Stadium in Mineapolis. There is TCF Bank stadium, where the Gophers play football and occasionally hockey.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:34 PM ^
It's protest naming.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:28 PM ^
I still don't get how charges weren't brought upon Appling and Payne when one of them admitted that the other continued sexually assaulting her after it was clear she did not want it.
And then to hear the victim say one reason for not going through with charges was the fear of the backlash for accusing two athletes is just saddening.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:35 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
I see... then that is also sad to hear.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:29 PM ^
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
February 25th, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^
honestly, in what universe is some sort of jerry-rigged schedule in which two huge rivals don't get a home-and-home every single year a good idea?
we are getting closer and closer to the point where this isn't even a 'conference' in the normal sense. more like some sort of alliance between semi-geographic independents that get together to determine a phony-baloney championship of some sort. football isn't much better.
February 25th, 2014 at 6:25 PM ^
We play every opponent equally often. It's exactly the same system they have now, just with two more teams. We've already had a season with only one conference game vs MSU and Indiana only meets Purdue once this season. We scheduled an extra non-con game with MSU then and there's no reason we can't do it in the future. This kind of scheduling is the main drawback of large conferences. I find it much worse in football.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^
Gallon had a chance to prove the "Not a natural hands catcher and will often body the ball" critique wrong, unfortunately he tended to prove it correct. Gallon was horrible running the gauntlet dropping many passes he tried to catch near his body.
Don't shoot the messenger, but I watched everything the NFL network showed of the WRs, most didn't drop a single pass running the gauntlet. Those that did usually dropped just one, Gallon dropped three. There are undoubtedly teams that are thinking about drafting him and will overlook a bad day. There are undoubtedly other teams that were on the fence and are no longer.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:18 PM ^
He does a good job picking the ball at a high-point or snatching the ball when it's high, but when the ball gets to the numbers he tends to try to adjust his body to catch with his body instead of reaching out to the football. In a way, luckily he's short because passes tend to get to him higher.
February 25th, 2014 at 2:52 PM ^
Egregious slander, Ohio's secondary should come to Gallons defense.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:01 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
THIS THIS THIS.
Would he prefer to not have them to talk about to begin with? I'm sure. But if they're there...
Actually, no. He does like having them. Because then when he gets beaten straight-up, he's got nothing.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 4:31 PM ^
This is classic coachspeak BS that many NFL coaches use. It's the old, "Announce you're not something and then proceed to talk about how you really are that something."
"I'm not here to talk about injuries, but [talks about injuries for 5 mins].
"I don't think he plays dirty, but [talks about all the ways why one would think he's a dirty player].
"I thought the refs did a great job [subsequently talks about every blown call against them]
"We got beat by the better team today [talks about all the reasons they really aren't the better team].
February 25th, 2014 at 3:02 PM ^
She's a Daily Alum, no? And she's spreading Tom Izzo's stupidity?
For shame, Nicole. For shame.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:04 PM ^
OK, I have seen the "injury excuse" but this one is just too much: "MSU would have won the Big Ten this season if only Dawson had never put his fist into an object during a film session in late January."
Oh, so now it's not just that MSU might have won the game, MSU also would have cruised to the title, huh? Outstanding.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:21 PM ^
"michigan_ol_taylor_lewan_blows"
That's just not a nice thing for mlive to say...
February 25th, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
Oh, if only these cock-eyed judges you spoke of were as prevalent as you imply. My job as an attorney would be much easier. I guess that also means my skills would be in less demand...
Hooray lack of cock-eyed judges!
The fact that the judge will likely not decide this on summary judgment - to the extent that the article's assessment is true - may end up being the only victory the NCAA is after. Putting a complicated matter like this in front of a jury will likely turn this case into a crapshoot, in my estimation. A crapshoot might be the best chance the NCAA could have hoped for.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^
will have a job at ESPN when his playing career is over if he wants to. The guy is just so comfortable behind a mic. He could also go the Dhani Jones route and host his own show. ESPN loves the well-spoken guys coming out of the B1G.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:27 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 3:36 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 3:50 PM ^
I might be misreading what Brian means by "locked", but the statement "Syracuse is locked into one spot" in Buffalo does not seem accurate, to me. Syracuse is not even #1 in the ACC standings and if they lose at Virginia, they definitely will come in 2nd. I find it hard to believe the committee will give a #1 seed to a team that finishes second in a league that has only 5 bids, and that has not exactly lit the world on fire in its last 10 games.
Meanwhile, if we go 3-1/4-0 to win the B1G outright, and then get at least to the finals in the B1G tourney, I can easily see us being seeded even, if not ahead, of Syracuse.
February 25th, 2014 at 3:58 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 4:16 PM ^
Oh, I agree it unlikely we pass Syracuse (unless we go 7-0 down the strech). But my main point is I think Syracuse is far from a lock as #1 seed, as they are 50/50, at best, to win their conference.
February 25th, 2014 at 5:28 PM ^
They don't have to be a 1 seed to stay in Buffalo. Just not have two teams above them on the s-curve have Buffalo as their closest / preferred spot. Other than Villanova, I can't think of another decent team in that neighborhood (other than us, theoretically).
February 25th, 2014 at 3:55 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 4:10 PM ^
I'll agree with you regarding Appling -- he's got NBDL written all over him. Payne, though, is a very good player and at least equal to Mitch.
February 25th, 2014 at 4:33 PM ^
Not only did Dawson choose to punch a table like a dummy, but Appling is a floor-slapper. That can't be too good for the health of his wrist. My momma always says that stupid is as stupid does.
February 25th, 2014 at 4:30 PM ^
Naming Aopling and Payne the way to go here?
February 25th, 2014 at 7:18 PM ^
February 25th, 2014 at 4:38 PM ^
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