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Everyone yells “BET” around…

Everyone yells “BET” around here so I would think not, ya filthy hypocrites

Not mine. I’m Spartacus.

Not mine. I’m Spartacus.

why aren't any of the…

why aren't any of the coaches — current or recently-departed — saying so?

Crissakes.

Have you ever worked a job?  Like, a real job?

Have you ever been in a job interview?

Do you have even the slightest idea how the world works?

You don't bitch about the boss in public, let alone the media, and other bosses are less likely to hire you if you're known for bitching about your prior boss(es).

Anyone who wants to stay employed or even thinks they might want a job in the future, doesn't bitch about bosses anywhere it might reach their ears.  That's not a sports thing.  That's a basic fact of life thing.

The refs were pretty loose…

The refs were pretty loose with KSU's frippery, and I was impressed with how FAU kept their composure.  Very Harbaugh-esque.

I cracked a smile when even the refs got tired of it and no-called the obvious flop that resulted in a Goldin one-handed thunderdunk.  Jackass would've been in position to contest it if he hadn't decided to lie on the floor like a dead fish.

Huh???  I think Warde should…

Huh???  I think Warde should be fired into the Sun and even I'll concede the one thing he has going for him is he's extremely likeable.  He's one of those guys with the warm smile, the firm handshake, the kind words, and charismatic demeanor.  He's a big teddy bear.

The problem is the moment you need someone to stand up for you (hockey team, Harbaugh, Sanderson) he's also the guy with the shitstained pants, whiny excuses, and Combine-breaking 40 time.

Pearson scandal:  "..."

Pearson scandal:  "..."

Harbaugh "scandal":  "WE TAKE THESE ALLEGATIONS VERY SERIOUSLY AND WILL FULLY COOPERATE WITH THE B1G AND NCAA"

He’ll go in the 6th round to…

He’ll go in the 6th round to the Patriots.

That it’s a back injury and…

That it’s a back injury and they only benched him when it was clear he’s still not healthy — due to his performance.

A back injury, especially a lingering one, isn’t a gorram boo-boo you rub dirt on.

Alabama was the sports…

Alabama was the sports equivalent of the 2008 financial crisis.

It's an oversimplification, but the real estate bubble was propped up by mortgage-based securities that continually got AAA's slapped on them by the credit rating agencies.  The agencies weren't actually checking what they were grading; they were just lazily and greedily cashing in their decades of built-up reputation to sell fool's gold, and big investors like AIG never questioned it or even looked into it, because getting nosy is how you lose friends when everyone's crooked.  There's a reason the SEC never has a scandal until the Feds literally get involved -- yes, that SEC, and the other SEC as well.

In this allegory, the bubble is NIL, the mortgages are the HS players, the credit rating agencies are the scouting services, and the big investors are the Alabamas and TAMUs of college football.  The scouting services had almost completely stopped doing their diligence, relying instead on greedy families sending their sons to expensive camps chasing dreams of NIL money that comes with those coveted 5-star ratings.  Now, I don't think the camps underrated the 5-stars they got -- unlike banking, it's kind of hard to fake a public workout -- but they certainly didn't look elsewhere, like Idaho or Hawaii or Massachusetts.  And Saban, whose illegal pay-for-play system was heavily reliant on nobody involved asking questions, didn't ask questions himself.  He kept trusting the system he helped create, until Michigan exposed him -- and he promptly retired.  He may be a jackass but he knows football well enough to see his 5-stars got dominated, and realized he was sold a bill of goods.

This is how you get an Alabama team loaded with 5-stars, led by a center who couldn't even snap the damn ball.

I'd really rather May just…

I'd really rather May recruit HSers and start over than try to do something with the portal.  He'll have to hit the portal just to field a team, but I'd rather give minutes to freshmen so they could develop than try to make the bubble in an obvious Year Zero.

That said, this bothers me:

"We can't afford to let him play through it," Gard said of Essegian in mid-December. "The stakes are too high in terms of what this team wants to accomplish."

Your stakes were a priority; his long-term health wasn't.  Duly noted, Wisconsin.

Can he still play?  Not even Beilein held onto Spike Albrecht when his hips gave out.  I've no doubt Beilein had great respect for Spike, but it's not like staying on the roster got him any workman's comp.  I wouldn't reach out to Essegian if the best thing for him is to retire.

Well, track record heals…

Well, track record heals wounds.  Manuel will have more opportunities in the future to show he's turned things around.

But I don't worship him like a god, so I'm being shoved into the "irrational nihilistic Warde-hater" bucket.

I haven't read the book…

I haven't read the book itself but I was closely following baseball during Oakland's heyday and read many articles on Beane's approach.  Take that for what you will.  Anyway, I don't know if I'd call it advanced statistical analysis so much as just a well-disciplined, open-minded, scientific approach.  The things Oakland hit on weren't difficult to find.  Simple things like, getting on base (OBP) is more important than how you get on base (batting average).  Just, don't be an out.  Pitchers who induced groundouts were as good as those who racked up strikeouts, and were considerably cheaper -- just, don't let them get on base.  An amateur could easily figure out these things, if the sport wasn't blinded by generations of conventional thinking reinforcing its own dudebro takes by coaches who were retired athletes.  You know, jocks who treated nerds with derision.

I have no idea about May but basketball has been applying data analysis for a while now.  From what I heard, it's why they migrated from midrange jumpers to dunks and 3-pointers; the data showed midrange 2-pointers were the least efficient shots in the game.  Beilein may have been a data freak or just figured it out intuitively, I don't know, but I don't think the NBA was purely emulating him when they started hunting for "3-and-D" players.

Avatar checks out.

I…

Avatar checks out.

I watched the FAU-KSU game; I put my observations in a diary.  I don't know basketball from basket-weaving but I liked FAU's decision-making, ball movement, and rotation.  Things just moved more, even as they knew KSU was a constant threat to pick off their passes, and it was KSU that leaned on heroball to generate points.

I don't expect Michigan to accomplish much next season, because whoever we get is going to hit the books as much as the hardwood.  Beilein's players were also notorious for being late bloomers, so hopefully folks haven't forgotten that.

I was oversimplifying a bit…

I was oversimplifying a bit.  But yeah, basically there was a culture problem in the hockey program, Warde was informed, and -- true to his style -- did nothing.  Except this was a situation where you really, really, really shouldn't do nothing.

For me, the truly unacceptable thing was that, while Pearson was no Paterno in terms of what actually happened, how Manuel handled it -- or rather, didn't -- was exactly how such a thing could've happened.  An AD who responds to serious allegations like that, I don't merely want fired -- I want them fired into the Sun.

I'm not a hockey guy but the…

I'm not a hockey guy but the Pearson thing wasn't a hockey thing so much as a "this coach is a VERY bad person and the administration knew and did nothing to stop it and in fact did everything to protect the program for as long as possible" that should always get ADs fired.

Actually you know what, I…

Actually you know what, I think I do.  Sorry mate!

We have to apologize for and…

We have to apologize for and appreciate someone doing their job now.  That's where the bar's at, I guess.

He did a good job with this hire, by all indications.  And it's always genuinely encouraging when someone stops digging and actually puts a few shovelfuls of dirt in the hole they've made.  Let's be fair:  a LOT of idiots just keep digging until they're fired (see:  Dave Brandon).  So, he got the memo.  But he's working his way from pretty far back, so I'm not throwing caution to the wind and trusting he has a spine the next time the B1G or NCAA goes on a stupid witch hunt, just yet.

You have VERY strong…

You are not "puzzled"; you have VERY strong feelings about the Manuel hate.  Much stronger than any feelings about the man himself.  You claim to be tired of it but you reliably show up everywhere and bring it up, sometimes before it's even there.

The reason this bothers me, FWIW, is that I find you a decent contributor whenever you're not constantly bitching about the bitching.  It's not the only thing you're doing, but you're always doing it.  Feels like a waste.

Yeah everyone except Goldin…

Yeah everyone except Goldin looked smol.  The encouraging thing was FAU didn't lose composure or have a superstar go nuts or rely on Wisconsinball crap; in fact KSU was visibly more inclined (but I'll reiterate: not excessively) to do those things despite their clear physical advantage.

As mentioned in the podcast, May mostly recruited his team, but to your point, I don't think they emphasized enough that his job was to recruit players to FAU.  There's no evidence he eschewed athletic wings so much as he was never going to get one to play there.  Goldin himself looked like a throwback big of the sort premier programs wouldn't be interested in.  May probably won't reel in one-and-dones to Michigan, but the growing consensus is they're of limited value in college anyway, and I don't see any reason to assume he can't find some decent wings and sell Michigan in a way he never could at FAU.

Michigan had plenty of 5…

Michigan had plenty of 5-stars in terms of talent.  They weren't plucky underdogs.  This isn't a "lunch-pail kids outworked their opponents in an unheated gym" Disney story.  They were a formidable yet criminally underrated team that earned every win because Michigan figured out that everyone else is overpaying for camp stars.

The takeaway should be that Michigan exposed the hollowing-out of scouting services by using their in-house resources to Moneyball the recruiting system.

I wouldn't retain anyone on…

I wouldn't retain anyone on staff for the sake of "continuity", no.  But as someone who's worked in his share of toxic environments, sometimes it comes from the boss, so all you can do is just grind it out and hope for change.  To cut them all loose for issues they had no control over strikes me as unnecessarily shortsighted and cruel.  You can at least interview everyone still there and see who's worth keeping around.

Every fanbase has crazies. …

Every fanbase has crazies.  The question is whether they grumble on a blog or succeed in running your starters out of town.

I mean, I kind of believe it…

I mean, I kind of believe it.  As if a rabid, toxic, win-at-all-costs, irrational fanbase is a good thing?

Louisville is unironically a great job if you're Rick Pitino.  I see no indications we hired a Rick Pitino, and I wouldn't want one anyway.

At this stage, anyone decent…

At this stage, anyone decent at their job is worth keeping, simply so there's one less person to hire.

Hiring sucks.  It's really time-intensive (if you do it right) because you spend hours on each candidate, and you want to interview as many as possible, even though for every opening only one person's getting the job.

Sure, you can fast-track it by dipping into a good-ol'-boys club but that's like the complete opposite of a meritocracy so I dearly hope (and it doesn't sound like it anyway) that May won't resort to that.

The Cards' program says all…

The Cards' program says all manner of very bad things about the Cards' program.

The Louisville job is a whole 'nother level of rebuild from Michigan or FAU.  Michigan was mismanaged and the roster is a complete rebuild, but it has resources few other programs can match.  FAU, May started from basically nothing at all.  No resources, but no expectations either.

Louisville has a culture, and that culture is, win at all costs.  That's not something the HC can rebuild; it's something he'd have to deal with.  I don't think a high-character guy who develops who-dats wants that kind of bullshit in his life.

The assistant to keep would…

The assistant to keep would've been Sanderson.  Alas.

Everyone's wondering how we…

I'll reiterate what Brian was saying.  Everyone's wondering how we lured May from Louisville, but if all I hear about May being a high-character guy is true, then him coming to Michigan may have had more to do with Louisville than anything Manuel or Beilein did.

There's also been a lot of speculation in the threads about, why would a hot name like May want to go to Michigan instead of a "basketball school" like Louisville?

Let's remember that Louisville had its Finals "victory" over Michigan vacated for throwing hookers at high schoolers.  Now, it's fun to laugh at the NCAA for being hypocritical and toothless, but put that in perspective when you consider this is the only vacated men's basketball championship in NCAA history.  Louisville was so astonishingly dirty that the NCAA actually had to do something about a high-profile, non-Michigan program.  So they also had a postseason ban, reduced scholarships, and even got the Feds involved in a pay-for-play corruption scandal.  Pitino ran a dirty, dirty program, and was fired for it but you know damn well Louisville would've kept him if he'd managed to keep it all under wraps.  He's been gone for a while but that level of stink don't go away with a few years and a can of Febreze.

That's what being a "basketball school" means, and if May is indeed a good person -- I don't know, but if he is -- then he just might not want anything to do with a "basketball school".

No, that's Roger.

No, that's Roger.

There are some who call him…

There are some who call him. . . Tim?

Did we hire Martin Freeman…

Did we hire Martin Freeman by mistake?

May the Final Fourth be with…

May the Final Fourth be with you.

May contract into what? A…

May contract into what? A singularity?

/ what?

I hope people who will say…

I hope people who will say be patient now are indeed patient when actual games happen as next year

May’s won exactly zero games for us since he arrived! This is a dogshit hire. Fire May and Warde!

Ended with a wet fart but…

Ended with a wet fart but the season still had its moments. The wins over OSU and Indiana were sweet.

Thanks for the coverage, jplwhite

You wouldn't see the SEC…

You wouldn't see the SEC actively go after one of its members if they robbed a children's hospital.

You're watching the wrong…

Michigan is in the tournament.

You're watching the wrong basketball.

No, sorry, you done goofed. …

No, sorry, you done goofed.  Coach suspended, yes, but we've escalated to Michigan being forced to vacate their wins and the entire program collapsing under scandal.

Well "hirikiri" isn't a word…

Well "hirikiri" isn't a word, so I don't think so.

Long-term outlooks are going…

Long-term outlooks are going extinct.  Not sexy enough for short-term returns.

The interest among the owner class isn't long-term stability so much as full-scale, full-throttle looting.

There will be an inevitable collapse.  They know.  They don't care.  The mindset there is "I'll be dead by then".

These kinds of takes aren't…

These kinds of takes aren't wrong so much as hilariously projective.

It is true that Japanese culture is very big on protecting their superiors, but to bother pointing this out. . . as if American culture is any different.  Crissakes the men's basketball team was forced to play out their season under a coach they loathed for the sole stated purpose of Manuel wanting to spare Howard some dignity.  More generally, from corporate golden parachutes to coach buyouts to rampant cult of personality to the abuse scandal coverups of Anderson and Sandusky (to protect Schembechler and Paterno), how is America even slightly less bad?  It's not.  That's not to say America is worse, but we just notice it when the Japanese do it, because the way we do it is our "normal" so the way they do it looks different.

So, yes and no.  It's not really problematic because it's an accurate portrayal, but it's problematic because the portrayal is really about making American culture look superior, when it's basically just how scumbags run things everywhere.

It's not happening.  Only…

It's not happening.  Only one defensive player ever won (you may have heard of him), and he had to play meaningful snaps on offense and special teams.

Heisman voters are drooling, blithering idiots, almost entirely oblivious to 90% of football.

I was wondering why our men…

I was wondering why our men’s basketball team was doing so poorly.

True greed is setting $10…

True greed is setting $10 billion on fire because it’s split five ways when you’d be happier if the pile was only $1 billion but you get all of it.

That’s basically how these people think.

Yeah, you'd think there are…

Yeah, you'd think there are a brazilian coaches out there capable of staying out of trouble, but I'm starting to have my doubts.

How about just be a fucking…

How about just be a fucking responsible grown-up human being.  If you can't drink responsibly, don't drink at all.

Why is this such a radical idea around here?

There's always the ol' hoop …

There's always the ol' hoop & stick.

(No subject)

/ those who know me, know this to be the most hypocritical thing ever

Um, any coach good enough to…

Um, any coach good enough to coach their team to the tournament kind of has the actual tournament itself to deal with right now.

My regard for bronxblue and…

My regard for bronxblue and SRJK isn’t nothing to me. I suppose my concern is unwelcome, but I’m sincerely a tad worried they’re losing perspective. It doesn’t strike me as healthy.

I get that you’re trying to make a cute “gotcha ha ha” but you’re the only one shitposting here.

I'm basically here, too.

I'm basically here, too.

Indeed you are.

Here's the thing:  Warde Manuel is an unpopular public figure.  So, he's going to get shit on.  It's unfortunate but inevitable.  I find it a little annoying in principle, but in the end I move on.  The regular head-asplodey response makes the Warde-hater-hate train look at least as crazy as the haters they hate.

I guess my question is:  Why this guy?  How you spend your time is your business, but FWIW I know folks getting threatened with violence for existing so getting set off by "Warde Manuel pissed in my corn flakes" level stuff strikes me as an enviously cushy state of mind.  Like, I wish things were so easy that I could get worked up about ultra-tame shitposting of a mediocre, comfortable, well-paid administrator I don't even personally know.  Unfortunately I got WAY bigger fish to fry.

I get that we're all here to escape but that's precisely why I find the Warde Manuel Defense Brigade so baffling.  I'm all for curating the Internet but I have real misinformation campaigns I need to save my energy for.  I ain't wasting an ounce of my energy on Warde effin' Manuel.  Dude's doing fine.