egrfree2rhyme

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Date	Title	Body
2 weeks 4 days ago	People will hate this...	People will hate this, but I always really respected Troy Smith's game when he was OSU's starter.  Before that, I really respected Craig Krenzel as well, not so much because he was a great player but because he did a lot without having a ton of physical talent and came up with big plays for them to win some really memorable games. Those were the days when I actually usually rooted for OSU to win all their games before they played us because, since they had basically never beaten us in my lifetime up until 2001, I was still assuming every year that we'd beat them every year regardless of our record or theirs.  Since then I've learned my lesson and I basically never want them to beat anyone.
2 weeks 4 days ago	I swear I've never...	I swear I've never seen a guy that got away with more fouling on the perimeter on defense.  Don't get me wrong, the guy played with a lot of passion, but it was almost like a self-fulfiling prophecy where everyone said he was a great defender, so the refs let him get away with murder, thus making him a great defender. On offense, he didn't have much game.  He was efficient because he always was surrounded by great talent but Spike, for example, was a way better offensive player.  I guess I never have understood why Craft got so much hype and credit in the press. With all that said, I am very, very glad that Craft went to OSU if it had anything to do with them not offering Trey.
2 weeks 5 days ago	Yeah but...	Yeah but renting a tux costs like $200 anyway.  I've been in 3 weddings and had to rent a $180 or $200 tuxedos each time, and a $200 tuxedo rental doesn't even look especially good.  I would have way rather bought a suit that I could keep for that price.
4 weeks 6 days ago	Great comment.	Great comment.  I'm with you that it's hilarious anyone would base this decision solely on which guy was in at the end of one game.  Michigan went to Moe in the clutch much more than DJ in the previous two games, which were also the biggest games of the season.
6 weeks 7 hours ago	What...	What a joke.  At least now I know why he was so desperate to add Rutgers and Maryland even though they're terrible for student athletes, fans, and the long-term strength of the conference.
6 weeks 1 day ago	My list:	Derrick Walton Caris LeVert Zack Novak Zack Irvin Jordan Morgan   Morgan should be on the list, and you kind of need 4 guys who are real 3 point threats to make our offense work if you go with a center like Morgan who's not a threat at all from outside.  I also think that whether his stats impress you or not, Novak makes just about any team better when he's on the floor.
6 weeks 1 day ago	Not a huge fan of the Jevohn Shepherd line...	This was a great and fun read!  I'm not a fan of the Jevohn Shepherd line, though. First off, I don't see the harm in including a second five even if you acknowledge that there were extremely slim pickings.  Jevohn and any of Bielfeldt, Horford, Gibson, etc, could work. On top of that, not picking two more guys "to avoid picking Jevohn Shepherd" seems like a really unneccesary slap in the face of a guy who 1) put a lot of effort into his Michigan career and became a solid rotation guy (and started on occasion) even if he wasn't a fantastic talent and 2) could be reading this artice.
6 weeks 1 day ago	You gotta...	You gotta pick between Morgan and Peedi because there's no question that Novak should be a starter on this team.  Especially considering that Irvin could also defend the 4.   With respect to their play, Novak is a no brainer over Peedi, JMo, and probably Irvin.  On top of that, this lineup would play better with 4 guys that are real threats from deep, and that means replacing either Peedi or JMo with Novak.
7 weeks 4 hours ago	Yeah...	Yeah it was the worst officiating imagineable.  After 4 years of not even watching highlights of the game, I finally got myself to watch the first half on youtube a couple of weeks ago and the officiating was absolutely as bad as I remembered (which was surprising considering how worked up I was at the time compared to watching it years later in a calm state).
7 weeks 4 hours ago	Great thread!!!!!	What a great thread!  I couldn’t choose just 10, so here are my top ten in the tourney and my top ten in the regular season.  Definitely a tough job weighing the importance of each win, how good of a game it was, plus how thrilling/gratifying it was for me at the time.   Top Ten NCAA Tournament wins   1. 2013 - Kansas Trey Burke 2. 2013 – Florida Expected a really tough game against a really tough team to make the Final Four, and instead we just destroyed them. 3. 2013 – Syracuse Amazing, tight win to make it to the Final. 4. 2017 – Louisville Seemingly the worst matchup imaginable for an incredible team that looked like it could make a deep run if we could just get by Louisville.  It turned out to be an amazing win overcoming a lot of nearly impossible breaks. 5. 2014 – VCU It looked like we got the toughest 5 seed imaginable but we wiped the floor with them.  It was the moment that it started looking like we could make a run after a tough end to the regular season. 6. 2011 – Tennessee The biggest blowout in an 8v9 matchup in history.  A fantastic exclamation point capping the greatest season turnaround I’d ever seen at the time. 7. 2014 – Tennessee A nail-biting win to make it to the Elite Eight.  Maybe Jordan Morgan’s greatest moment. 8. 2009 – Clemson Our first NCAA tourney win under Beilein!  It was the first one in 11 years at the time. 9. 2009 – Oklahoma State An amazing performance by Michigan to get a heart-pounding win. 10. 2014 – Texas A great performance against a solid second-round opponent.   Top Ten Regular Season wins 1. 2014 at MSU An amazing road win at #3 MSU when they had their strongest team in years.  It was an unbelievable performance in spite of criminally uneven officiating that eventually led to us winning the Big Ten outright in a really tough year.  It might’ve been the best we’ve ever played under Beilein, considering the circumstances.  “Win the game” + Stauskas blowing kisses to the crowd. 2. 2017 vs. Wisconsin (BTT final) An amazing group led by Derrick Walton won a well-deserved championship trophy.  We beat up pretty bad on a borderline elite Wisconsin team that seemed like a favorite after they won their semi by 20+.  For Derrick Walton, the trophy and tournament MVP honor was a just reward for one of the greatest Big Ten seasons by any individual in program history. 3. 2011 at MSU I’d never been less excited going into a Michigan-MSU bball game, but instead of getting humiliated again, we won at the Breslin for the first time since I was a little kid.  That game was really the catalyst for an unbelievable turnaround that eventually took Beilein from the hotseat to the NCAA Final.  Years later, that still might have been the most important win of Beilein’s tenure here. 4. 2014 vs. MSU Most of the way through the most thrilling regular season of my lifetime, Michigan had already accomplished so much and yet if we didn’t beat a really tough State team at home, it felt like we were likely to end up with nothing at year’s end.  Instead, even though State played great, the boys were just at another level and dismantled State in the second half.  At the time, it was our 6th win out of 8 against MSU.  5. 2011 vs. MSU After an amazing turnaround and a number of really memorable wins, we still had to beat State at home just to make the tourney and to avoid them evening the season series.  The boys played fantastic and got it down.  Darius Morris to MSU: “Get the fuck off my court!” 6. 2008 vs. Duke Manny and Peedi and the guys were just unbelievable in what, at the time, was probably our best win since the 90s.  The atmosphere was also the best it had been since the 90s.  That win really got Beilein’s program going.  What a day. 7. 2012 vs. OSU An amazing, tense home win that helped us win the B1G for the first time in 25 years.  It really felt like we legitimately outplayed a top 10 team that day.  8. 2014 at Wisconsin A road win over the #3 team in the country at a venue where we always lose.  I assumed we’d lose.  Instead, we played absolutely amazing, we won, and all of a sudden we were *maybe*a contender in a loaded Big Ten (and we did end up winning the title!). 9. 2009 at Minnesota An amazing double-digit comeback on the road that got us into the tournament for the first time since the 90s. 10. 2008 vs. UCLA (pre-season NIT) A neutral-court win over a top 5 opponent when we had been picked to finish last (!!!) in the Big Ten.  It was kind of our first real show of life under Beilein, and amazingly that momentum probably played a big part in us going on to beat Duke and eventually make the tourney.
7 weeks 5 days ago	Mine...	Mine may not be obvious.  It's of Coolio parachuting in an Amani Toomer jersey.  Great 90s rap video ("1,2,3,4") where he wears a ton of Michigan gear.
8 weeks 5 days ago	Fantastic post!	Fantastic post! Thanks!
8 weeks 5 days ago	Great thread!	My favorite fishing is the fall salmon run on the Betsie River where my family has a cabin (one of a number of great, or once great) salmon rivers in Michigan.  Unfortunately, the chinook salmon population is starting to dwindle, but the rivers used to be just overrun with monster chinook salmon.  You can still catch some huge ones, there are just a lot less now than there were 5-10 years ago.  My ideal fall weekend probably combines time spent on the river with Saturday afternoon spent at the Big House. Aside from that, I love pike and bass fishing on inland lakes in the summer, and going out to the Grand Haven pier to try to catch steelhead although for me, the catching has always been incredibly slow on the pier.   Big one that got away?  I guess the biggest bummer was on a lake where we go pike fishing all the time and catch a ton of 20-27 inch pike, but very rarely anything bigger than that.  I hooked and basically landed a 38 inch pike (a monster by my standards).  Unfortunately, the fish didn't completely fit in the net we were using, so my dad was able to scoop the pike up, but then he was afraid to put the net in the boat because he thought the pike might squirm out of the net and bite him I guess.  So, instead, the pike squirmed out of the net and back into the water (unhooking itself from my lure in the process).  Honest mistake, but needless to say I was beside myself as I've never seen a pike close to that size before or since.  Definitely the one that got away. Here's a picture of one of the bigger salmon that I've caught (edit: picture seems to be extremely distorted... oh well):
12 weeks 3 days ago	I actually...	I actually really like how statistics driven the analysis at UMhoops is.  MGoBlog has great hoops analysis as well; I like that the analysis at the two sites is different because UMhoops pays such close attention to the statistical side of things.  I'm really interested in all the stats that they provide and I don't know where I could find them throughout the season without UMhoops.   When the team is good, I read all the content on UMhoops and MGoBlog and I rarely feel like the coverage provided by both sites was redundant.
17 weeks 4 days ago	Yeah...	Yeah, it would be awesome to host State at night! Side note: I've never understood why a night game HAS to be against a big opponent.  I mean, I'd rather play State at night than play Indiana at night, but I also don't really see the harm in spicing up a Michigan - Indiana matchup by having it at night.   The only thing I wouldn't be a fan of is having Michigan - OSU at night.  It's just feels like part of the tradition of that match-up is playing it in the day.
18 weeks 3 hours ago	Love the idea...	I love the idea of soccer thread, and it'd be great if you want to list the day's MLS games as well.  I follow the EPL, UEFA CL, etc, as well as MLS.  Plus, MLS is on in a totally different time slot.
18 weeks 5 days ago	Logged in...	Logged in just to upvote this comment!
22 weeks 4 days ago	Thanks...	Great, informative and insightful article! Thanks.  This is so depressing, though.  I think everyone was hoping that bringing in a "defensive coordinator" would make a huge difference but after we showed a lot of promise on defense during the early season wins in New York, we've really fallen apart.
22 weeks 4 days ago	John McAfee...	John McAfee might be able to put you in touch with some people.
29 weeks 4 days ago	I had..	I had a signed Braylon Edwards jersey and just kept wearing it.  The signature did eventually fade, but I got a lot of great use out of it and I've got tons of pictures of me in the signed jersey with the signature legible (including a picture of when I got the jersey signed after the Michigan game at Northwestern - I was there with my cousins when we were all in high school.  Great memory).   Overall, I'm satisfied with the decision to keep using that jersey and wear it to a bunch of Michigan games and other events where people could see it.
29 weeks 4 days ago	Right...	Right 4 games will be greater (slightly) than 30% of the season, so he must have competed in no more than 4 games.  So he's good.
29 weeks 4 days ago	Great letter...	Great letter!  Please let us know if he responds!
30 weeks 4 days ago	Great...	Great job! Go Blue!
34 weeks 4 hours ago	Great..	Great article!
35 weeks 23 hours ago	When..	When you and Harbaugh are quoting the same movie, you're doing something right.
35 weeks 23 hours ago	Hey Phil...	Hey Phil, I don't think that's a very good attitude.  You can't talk about hurting other players. You don't think?!
35 weeks 3 days ago	Excellent point...	Excellent point, but I think a lot of that should be blamed on poor coaching.   Hoke and Borges should've absolutely encouraged Denard to scramble a ton more considering that 1) he was an amazing runner 2) he wasn't a particularly efficient passer in their offense and 3) if he'd scrambled a lot more it would've done a ton to help keep defenses honest.  When he dropped back to pass they were hoping he wouldn't take off running, and yet, he very rarely did scramble even when it was there. But, instead of Hoke and Borges teaching Denard to scramble when it's there, all I can remember are a bunch of quotes for Borges along the lines of "you can scramble for yards, but you can pass for miles if you keep your eyes downfield."  Even though he was coaching a guy whose specialty was taking off on 80 yard runs whever he had space.   At least we have Harbaugh now.  That would be worthy of throwing another jarty.
35 weeks 3 days ago	Yes, but...	Yes, but in 2011 they had almost everyone back on offense from 2010.  Even if they improved from 2010 to 2011m they probably would've improved a lot more with everyone playing another year in the same system. Also, if we're going to cherry-pick stats, Michigan's FEI went from #8 in 2010 to #14 in 2011 even though in 2011 they had basically everyone back from 2010 with an extra year of experience.
35 weeks 3 days ago	Actually...	Actually, I'm pretty sure that he had an absurdly low scramble rate considering what an amazing runner he was.  Once Hoke was here, they'd probably have been well served to encourage him to scramble a lot more.   When Denard drops back to pass and you're the defense, is your worst nightmare that he throws it or that he takes off running?  And yet, he hardly ever scrambled.   It seems like if we had said, "every time the defense gives him room to scramble, we're going to make them pay," it would've done a lot to help open up our receivers in the pass game.  Instead, we basically only ever used Denard on designed runs. :/
35 weeks 3 days ago	Doubt it, but he'd probably have won the Heisman...	He'd probably have won the Heisman if he played for Urban Meyer, Chip Kelly, or for Rich Rod for another year.  Hell, I think that Harbaugh would've found a way to play to his strengths as well and that he would've been an absolute terror for defenses with Harbaugh coaching him.  His "regression" after 2010 was 100% the result of terrible coaching.  Hoke and Borges were incompetent offensive coaches.   Also, since you mentioned OSU specifically, just imagine what Denard would've looked like playing behind a better line, with a great scheme, and with Carlos Hyde occupying the defense's front 7.  I mean Braxton Miller was a pretty bad passer, much worse than Denard IMO, and yet he put up big numbers passing for OSU since all he ever had to do was run through gaping holes and throw to wide open guys.  Denard would've killed it there, but luckily he's a true Michigan man and would never have chose to play for them. I'm not sure if Denard would be an NFL quarterback today if he'd had different coaching, he probably wouldn't be, but he definitely would've continued progressing from the already lofty heights he reached in 2010 rather than being misused and seeing his effectiveness suffer significantly his last two years (although he sure did what he could to make the best of a crappy situation under that staff).  In two years, with Rich Rod, he went from being a borderline incompetent passer to a pretty darn good one (before regressing under the next staff).  Just imagine how much more he would've progressed with 2 more years in the same system and with a better supporting cast each year as the rest of that offense matured and gained experience.

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