Unverified Voracity Welcomes Other Sports

Hello Vogrich. One bit of good news from the weekend: the basketball team picked up a commitment from IL SG Matt Vogrich, the #100 recruit in the country to Scout and #131 to Rivals. If this offer sheet is anywhere near accurate, he's more impressive than his rankings:

Vogrich said he's picked up offers from Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Northwestern, Baylor, Minnesota, Bucknell, Saint Louis, William & Mary, Valparaiso, Colorado, Iowa and Providence. Notre Dame, Michigan, UCLA, Stanford and Virginia are also in the picture.

Vogrich claimed he was down to Michigan and Stanford just before he committed, but that course of events leads me to believe Stanford told him they didn't have room. UMHoops has plenty more; he's supposed to be a bomber who's a power-mushroom version of Stu Douglass.

Michigan has one slot left in the class of '09 and is looking for a forward. Two names for you: unranked Will Barrett, who's deciding between Michigan and the Ivy League, and Aussie C Angus Brandt, a sleeper sort who's an AAU teammate of Vogrich and sounds like the better option. BONUS: as an Australian he has no conception of which teams are any good.

Old guys. Alumni cheerleaders rock:

ITYSO. After the Auburn trip I mentioned that Tommy Tuberville was Lloyd Carr and he was trying to turn Tony Franklin into Mike DeBord, but I had no idea how right that was. The always-illuminating Smart Football:

Every coach I speak to says the same thing: I don't know what they are doing at Auburn, but it ain't the Airraid. So what's going on? I'm not an insider, but my best sense is that the other coaches on the staff (including Tuberville) never bought into the system - maybe because Franklin did a poor job selling it internally, or maybe he thought he didn't have to - and now their offense is simply a muddle, a grab-bag of pseudo-spread garbage. This seems to be general sentiment among the smart money in football.

Relevance to Michigan: low, I guess.

Hockey! I missed the announcement that the game against Waterloo was moved up an hour, so I only saw half of the Sunday game, but I did take in the entirety of the USNTDP game.

Approximate forward lines:

Summers-Rust-Palushaj
Hagelin-Caporusso-Turnbull
Miller-Czarnik-Naurato
Random Grab Bag (Lebler, Fardig, Ciraulo, Winnett, Wohlberg, Glendening)

Impressions:

• My main concern with this year's edition of Michigan hockey is the potential lack of a no-holds-barred superstar, something that hasn't happened in the ten years I've been following the team. Pacioretty would have been that guy if he had stayed; in his stead there doesn't seem to be that one guy you have to key on if you're an opponent.
• That said, if they can assemble a good third line this team will roll the lines and just depth-charge opponents into submission.
• One guy I'm keeping an eye on to see if he develops is Ben Winnett. He was a big scorer in junior and a fourth round draft pick, but had a meh freshman season with a 6-5-11. The initial returns were not good, with Winnett stuck on a non-scoring line and not doing much of note.
• If I had to bet I'd say the winners in the massive free-for-all to decide the bottom four forwards (I assume Miller and Czarnik are safely in) will be Winnett, Fardig, Naurato, and Wohlberg with Lebler and Glendening scratching out games here and there.
• Freshman defenseman Greg Pateryn got smoked on the Waterloo goal, allowing his man to drag the puck across his face and get to the net.
• To that point: I bet Pateryn gets the least the playing time this year amongst the seven blueliners. He looked far less composed than Burlon.
• Scooter was pretty rough against the USA team, coughing the puck up several times.
• None of the freshmen made much of an impression on me; a friend was impressed with Burlon and thought Glendening could be a find for a guy who's not getting much scholarship money.
• Bork!

This team is likely to be successful but it might be a team that wins a lot of games 3-1 instead of 5-3.

Etc.: Corn Nation has an excellent three-parter on the spread.