Recent Comments

The lesson- tweet something witty at Brian and it doubles the number of followers you have.

I'll probably never come up with anything close to that again (unless I'm once again riding that magical combo of buzzed and angry).

when I have shitty days, or when I'm watching the Tigers. I remember what it was like to just own everyone.

1. It depends on what your definition of "physical skater" is. Rick Nash is a big guy, but he's also a prolific goal scorer on a horrible team. Traditionally, your "checking lines" are your third and fourth lines, with the top six forwards out there to put the puck in the net. I don't think anyone argues that our defense is physical enough, they just can't handle the puck in their own zone sometimes *coughKindlcough*. I don't think they need to seek out a checking forward for the sake of having a checking forward.

2. The names on everyone's short list are Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. With the Devils' (and to a lesser extent, the Preds') deep run in the playoffs, luring those guys away will be harder than we thought. As far as Suter goes, he's apparently in extension talks with Nashville, who really wants to lock him down before the start of free agency. If he doesn't sign an extension before the free agency period, expect the Wings to throw an exorbitant contract offer at him. Parise is more of an enigma, just because his team is still playing. He won't touch on his contract or free agency until the off-season. I will say that he has played good, but not great, hockey for the Devils during the playoffs. Get Rick Nash out of your head, though. He's still under contract, so the Jackets are trying to trade him. In order to pick him up, you'd probably have to ship two or three starting players and a few draft picks, and nobody is worth that much.

3. Suter is your best/flashiest bet to step into the lineup. There is also a young defenseman in L.A. whose name escapes me that might be worth kicking the tires on. Even if you only sign one off-season defenseman (and assuming Stuart leaves like everyone thinks he will), you'll still have Kronwall/Ericsson/Kindl/Quincey/Smith. With Suter in there, that's not a bad blue line at all.

4. He's not going anywhere, and nor should he.

5. Honestly, you're just butthurt. You don't fire a coach when he gets you to the playoffs every season. Look what happened to the Pistons after they fired Larry Brown when he took them to four straight conference finals.

6. Look for one of Hudler, Franzen, Filppula, and Abdelkader to get shipped in a mid-to-high-level trade. If they sign more than one defenseman, you could see Ericsson, Kindl, or  Smith get moved as well. I'd love to see them ship Zetterberg for two or three players, but his contract makes that somewhat prohibitive.

They re-signed Backus about a week ago. Short-term deal, I'm OK with it- gives them time to draft/develop a tackle, since Chris Fox projects to RT.

I get that we look awful, but this doesn't invalidate anything we accomplished during the season.

The game can't see you either, since you're invisible.

You can kick and scream all you want, but... *sigh* it's gonna happen.

This is just what I needed to distract me from studying on my birthday. That, and beer.

21-0, in a game that was not nearly that close.

According to the liveblog, Tacopants' younger brother was standing in for Odoms today. How big is this family?

Goddamn medical school.

that Rivals and Scout generally don't rate committed kids as high as comparable uncommitted kids, for whatever reason. So don't be surprised if our commits are on the lower end of the rankings.if that happens.

That said, I'm overjoyed with how well Hoke and co. have recruited, and I strongly feel that the 2012 class is going to set a strong benchmark for years to come.

Is the first round on TV anywhere?

So I'm reduced to water and a banana.

The flexors in the sole of your foot don't really get used when you're swimming... I swam all four years in high school, then did track right after, never had foot problems. I did get shin splints one year, but that was more a function of taking up long jump than anything else. Swimming is much more punishment on your leg and shoulder muscles than anything else.

In an absolute worst case scenario, you could get a fasciotomy, where they go in and cut away some of the fascia so the pressure is relieved. That's what Hakeem Nicks had done this year. Somehow I doubt you want surgery, though, so just try and rest for a few weeks.

EDIT: I understand you said you tried rest and icing, but you really need to stop doing strenuous work (planting and pushing off) for multiple weeks before it goes down. The constant work of walking around makes it tough to get good, prolonged rest.

Much appreciated.

David Potter was a great lecturer, so was HD Cameron.

I know Tate might have a few priorities out of whack, but it sounds like his dad has a strong feeling for the University and for Tate's place on the team. If he's saying that Tate wants to stay too, then I have a good feeling that they'll be able to work things out with the school.

I don't have to reiterate to everyone how important QB depth is during this transition, but I do want to point out that Tate seemed to get his head on his shoulders after fall practices and as the season went on, he became more involved with the team. I really hope he understands his important role on the team going forward and doesn't let his pride or whatever this nameless "academic struggle" is get in the way.

1 for 12 three-point shooting. Nothing's been contested, we've gotten offensive boards... we just can't hit anything. Thank god they have more offensive fouls than baskets.

33% from the field. The only thing keeping us ahead right now is NCC's terrible play as well.

2nd TV timeout. We are missing open 3s, (and by we I mean Stu) and they are just throwing up prayers every possession they have. Interesting note- for a tired team, they're full-court pressing after makes.

I think they had to re-validate that one old guy's MCard to cover it. You know the guy.

7:02- first reference to Darius Morris as "the butterfly". Tipoff still hasn't happened yet.

In all seriousness, though, it sounds like NCC has been flying all over the country recently and should be pretty tired. I look for M to get off to a pretty fast start. Go Blue!

Oh my god. This is worse than all of those terrible names suggested on ESPN.com. Seriously.

/wrists

Shawshank Redemption (I can't believe it's gotten this far without coming up)

Favorite song? Can I call the entire Dark Side of the Moon album a song? If not, then I'll go with Sympathy for the Devil, by the Rolling Stones.

HT: joeyb

Smotrycz and Hardaway are going to be the next big studs on the team. Both already play like sophomores. Evan can't miss right now and he's supplementing his hot shooting with solid rebounding (solid by our standards, at least).

This wasn't intended to start a flame war (although I guess I should remember that this is the internet). It was to comment on a Michigan player in the pros, express my appreciation for what he did, and give my hopes that he would credit our school in the future. I'm not complaining, I'm not being negative, and I'm not taking out my frustration from Saturday's game. Next time I'll just start some rumor like OMG TERRELLE PRYOR IS TRANSFERRING, it'll be a better use of my eventual negbang.

Misopogon, every Sunday night is better now because I get a second game column (Along with great diary commentary and sometimes the occasional Pink Floyd reference!)

And it's fairly easy to keep Dark Side of the Moon on constant loop through the movie, it cycles through about 3 times and is still fairly accurate after the first playthrough.

Virg almost assuredly has the Lansing vote wrapped up, so Snyder dropping MSU alums or staff in his commercials isn't as pragmatic. He's trying to garner sympathy with the largely liberal Ann Arbor population by using Martin and Lee and marketing himself as the "tough nerd" rather than the prototypical Western Michigan businessman a la Dick DeVos.

Michigan 35, MSU 34. Turnovers and surprising early stops by the defense make the difference.

AP classes pull a lot of weight in the application process. Don't be afraid to list things that seem irrelevant to you on your extra-curricular section. Avoid talking about relationships in your essays. I got in with relatively little volunteer/extracurricular experience, mostly because I smoked my APs and wrote a good essay, and played some one-time volunteer sessions up a little on the application. Most of the time your application gets a cursory look before the first cut-down, this is when it's much more valuable to have 5 3-hour activities than 1 15-hour activity.

Good luck and Go Blue!

And really, only this (sorry MGoBoard, nobody else really disproved or disagreed without flaming) is why I think you're wrong, Joey. Pressure exists in a fourth-quarter situation whether there are two, four, six, even ten minutes left. Great quarterbacks will respond, and Tim has pretty much just laid out how they do (or don't, as the case may be). Either way, five weeks into the season, rating quarterbacks is about as accurate as rating teams. I think Joey owes Tim a beer.

Hey, people gotta try and get those MGoPoints somehow... "OMG this will get me so many upvotes!"

This is ideal, IME. This ensures that the Pistons won't leave the city, and since the Palace comes with the deal, it gives the Wings a place to play while (hopefully) the city builds a state-of-the-art arena downtown for both teams.

Yeah, can't we temporarily raise the threshold to create topics? Most of the "invaders" will probably stop bothering if they need 100 points to start a thread.

She and Drew Carey have something in common.

It's unbelievable how (relatively) calm and intelligent the MGoPosters are, compared to the people that comment on the ESPN forums.

+1 for priorities.

Detroit has never been a media market that demands constant attention. Unlike New York, LA, Boston, and Chicago, the Detroit teams pretty much get ignored unless they're winning (or egregiously losing). So Cabrera's ungodly numbers aren't going to generate much recognition until/unless he starts sniffing either Hamilton's average or Bautista's home run total and becomes a real Triple Crown threat again.

That said, the only major-market player that has a chance at MVP will probably be Cano from New York. Longoria will probably get some consideration, as will A-Rod (as always) and Konerko if the White Sox win the division, but logically if Cabrera keeps up these numbers (puts him on pace for something like 130-140 RBIs and over 40 HRs while batting .340)- that's an MVP season, hands down.

AL up 1-0 on a walk to Longoria, then Mauer hit a chopper to the mound that Kuo airmailed over first, putting runners on 2nd and 3rd. Cano hit a sac fly to left to score the run, then Mauer got erased on a groundout (and bad baserunning). Bell coming in now to face Hunter.

Way to bounce back, JV! Not his fault on the steal, Mauer chucked that ball into right center.

What do you think about Pettite coming in in the 3rd? Girardi plugging his guys in early, or does he deserve to pitch over someone like Lester (maybe), Verlander (probably), or Lee (definitely not)?

Wow, Ichiro tracked that down in overdrive. Nice grab, especially since the sunlight seems to be screwing with tracking early on.

No way Pujols would be playing in the ninth. But I'll take a game-ending strikeout of Joey Votto.

My pick is AL, 5-3. Jose Valverde will pitch a 1-2-3 eighth.

I was just about to say something about how Fox couldn't get anyone better than some Glee cast member to do the anthem, but you're absolutely right. This is exactly what Fox would do- shamelessly plug one of their shows during the game.

I'm pretty sure giant mosquitoes don't bite. So you may be safe.

Hooray for freshman point guards who think that soloing coast to coast is a fantastic idea to end a game. We just couldn't deal with Green down low on either end or hit our free throws. Top 25 was nice while it lasted.

and it sucked for about fifteen minutes watching the game. She's a huge sports fan but thankfully sees a lot more wrong with her team than right with the win. The toughest part was just being on campus for the weekend and taking shit from everyone ELSE I saw.

We got in a lot more fights stemming from things like Glen Winston's continued existence and the Conboy/Tropp assassinations last year.

That is something that was just brought into the section last year (I graduated in 2009). Essentially, the band plays a short, ten second riff (much like the cheer where everyone raises their hands and then launches into "Ohhhh... Let's Go Blue!") and then the student section "punches" forward and wiggles their hands. From what I've seen, it's brought out after a good second-down play that leads to a (key) third down play.

The fact that the Fighting Illini are insulting to Native Americans, but the Fighting Irish are totally cool.

I work with a former closer for the M baseball team. He said in his last year, the football team "took over" the fields with their 7 on 7 drills, which went on during baseball workouts. The grad assistants were most definitely there and most definitely taking attendance and calling people.

That said, he agrees with Brian in terms of the eventual NCAA sanctions- few, if at all.