Bilas on Free Press stuff
Well look what Bilas decided to say about Michigan Tuesday
There is an amazing lack of proportionality and perspective with regard to NCAA rules. If the allegations concerning Michigan are true, which would assume that the players making the allegations had a full understanding of what constituted countable and non-countable hours and what constituted voluntary and mandatory workouts, then Michigan is guilty of working too hard on football.Did Bilas just write this? Another one of our antagonists comes out in our favor. Maybe Bilas is feeling guilty after the vitriol he spewed our way the last couple of years. The article can be found here
September 9th, 2009 at 3:58 AM ^
This is clearly a Bilas trick. And, if it isn't, then I am really worried.
September 9th, 2009 at 5:24 AM ^
He inadvertently outlines the most important point in all of this: The Freep only published the opinion of several (mostly gone) players... no factual basis, no schedules, no hard information that these unnamed sources gave them (probably because they didnt)....
That is what made this clearly an obvious witch hunt...and it was reprehensible on the Freeps behalf to accuse a major program of violations, without any substance behind the accusations other than "he said, she said" shit.
The freep fucked up...and anyone with a brain can recognize it...even Bilas.
September 9th, 2009 at 8:43 AM ^
It's not like he is defending the basketball program. Bilas has no personal emnity toward the football team. We can probably rest assured that Bilas will continue to rag on the basketball team and make sure we all know that TA could have done it better, thus allaying any fears anyone may have that the apocalypse is, indeed, upon us.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:50 AM ^
FWIW about three-quarters the way through last season, when it became clear that the team Beilein was putting forward was better than anything Amaker produced in his 6 years in Ann Arbor, Bilas did a complete 180 on his opinion of Michigan basketball. I specifically remember him picking Michigan as most likely to play their way into the tournament on the set of Gameday when it was at West Virginia before they proceeded to win @Minnesota, and then tout that as the biggest win of the day that night. Another example: this. I don't know if he got sick of Michigan fans calling him on his conflict of interests or what, but the ragging has already stopped.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:38 PM ^
Yeah, either someone told him to get over it or he just got over it, because after the Manny elbow he was fine. I've always liked Bilas when he was talking about anything other than Tommy Amaker.
September 9th, 2009 at 3:21 PM ^
He's an excellent analyst overall. That made his obsessive defense of Amaker (and hatred of Michigan after Amaker's firing) all the more annoying.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:26 AM ^
Is he saying breaking the rules doesn't matter if it is just working too hard on football, compared to having someone else take your SAT? Is he saying the Free Press went gonzo for somehting that is not as serious as having someone else take your SAT? Or is he just pointing out the flaws in the Freep story we have been discussing all week.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:49 AM ^
He has been pretty supportive towards michigan since this allegation was released. He was one of the first on espn to blow off the allegations and continued to do so. He would rather see the ncaa spend its time investigating schools that pay their players to be there (I am looking at you mr. reggie bush.)
September 9th, 2009 at 10:53 AM ^
I'm surprise Bilas didn't blame Beilein for working the football player too hard. He could have snuck into Schembechler Hall to bestow his "wisdom" on them.
September 9th, 2009 at 2:42 PM ^
"How can we possibly legislate 'voluntary'? The truth is, we cannot. So let's not criminalize by accusation what we cannot possibly police fairly."