Unverified Voracity Would Like To Be In Your Belly

Roster confirmations. For the second straight year reporters descended upon Rich Rodriguez at a basketball game and Rodriguez confirmed that various players had left the team. Last year it was Ryan Mallett and Adrian Arrington. This year it's Butler, Horn, and maybe McGuffie:

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez expects Brandon Graham to return, Carson Butler to enter the NFL draft and Avery Horn to transfer.

Rodriguez did not clear up Sam McGuffie’s future with the team Saturday, but did say the freshman running back is still enrolled in school and coping with family matters in Texas.

I think the writing is on the wall for McGuffie, but as long as Rodriguez isn't saying he's gone there's still a chance for return.

The Graham stuff seems as solid as it can be until January 15th comes and goes:

Junior defensive end Brandon Graham told Rodriguez he would be back. Rodriguez said he didn’t think Graham had even filed paperwork to be evaluated by the NFL to see his draft options. “I think he’s going to have a fabulous senior year,” Rodriguez said.

Bonus confirmation: an emailer says  he saw Graham on campus recently, asked him if he was coming back, and got a direct affirmative answer from him.

I mentioned this in my post on the matter last week, but if the roster attrition is limited to Babb, Chambers, Horn, Butler, and McGuffie and they get Brandon Graham back, that's a net win as far as next year's performance goes.

He's Charlie Weis if Charlie Weis was Charlie Weis. Oh, and not a big jerk. The remarkable thing about John Beilein is how consistently other coaches praise him. It is near-universal, and he's got the track record to back up their praise. Now, a lot of times you'll get generic blah blah about whoever they're talking about because it's TV and everything is positive, but with Beilein it seems genuine. He's not a good coach, he's the best, they say, and though I'm sure their evaluations leave out the most critical part of the job (recruiting) having the bar-none best coach in the country as acclaimed by other coaches is probably a good thing, right?

I mention it because here's Fran Fraschilla's take on M's win over Duke($):

I coached against John Beilein for four years when were in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference at Manhattan and Canisius, respectively, from 1992 to 1996. Usually, I needed two game tapes of an opponent to figure out what they were trying to accomplish on offense. With Canisius, I was watching every tape we could get our hands on.

No coach gave us as much trouble preparing for his team as Beilein did. What started out as an offensive experiment at places such as Erie Community College and LeMoyne College with athletically challenged players became -- slowly -- a work of art at Canisius, Richmond, West Virginia and now Michigan.

If he can recruit at a Michigan State sort of level, the sky is the limit. Even with success it will take time to ramp that sort of thing up—Michigan isn't going to take Huggins-esque shortcuts like hiring the AAU coach of Michael Beasley—but at Michigan he's got a brand name he never had before. If he pulls in Trey Ziegler or Sykes or Morgan Moses or some combination of the three, we're cooking. (Michigan has 3 scholarships to give in 2010 if they want; either Manny Harris will go to the NBA or Anthony Wright will not get a fifth year.)

We've been here before, of course, with countless Amaker recruits and even a guy like Nate Lubick, who looked to be in the bag before he decided on Georgetown. But now Beilein has something to sell.

Like this. Hopefully this quote from DeShawn Sims plays in Detroit:

"Coach Beilein believed in me. He's building a foundation and I'm glad I'm a part of it. He puts the c, the o, the a , the c and the h in coach. And he coaches you on an interpersonal level. It's amazing. I'm a better player than I've ever been and I know more than I've ever known."

And this in, uh, Germany (hey, we almost got Robin Benzing*):

Mike Gansey's e-mail came in from Germany moments after Michigan knocked off Duke yesterday for the Wolverines second win against a Top five team this season.

"Coach Beilein is a genius," wrote Gansey, who starred on Belein's teams at West Virginia a couple years ago.

*(Don't look at these stats unless you want to break something.)

Aw, nuts. Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford has been kind of good the past couple years, and for a brief moment Michigan was going to get involved with his recruitment:

…Michigan’s quarterbacks coach at the time, Scot Loeffler, watched Bradford throw. He, too, promised a scholarship offer the next Monday from Lloyd Carr, the Wolverines’ coach at the time.

But Carr did not call that Monday. On Wednesday, Loeffler called Wilson and explained that Carr did not call because one of his grandchildren had been born over the weekend.

Loeffler told Wilson that Carr would call the next Monday with a scholarship offer. The next day Bradford had his meeting with Stoops and Long. He committed to the Sooners before Michigan made an offer.

“There was no question we would have loved to have him,” Carr said in a telephone interview. “We felt in evaluating him that he was going to be a great player.”

Not like it would have mattered if Carr called, since he committed so quickly. Michigan ended up with the Coner in that class.

Plaxico? Rogers? And This? And, finally:

Did you get to the end? The part where he "earned a football scholarship from Michigan State University?" Probably some walk-on, but this obviously means something. This is important, people. Very important.

Etc.: Basketball wallpaper for you at Nothing Is Illuminated.