demar dorsey crowbar fiasco

New feature. Profile pages now contain a table with the user's most recent comments presented in reverse chronological order. This is mostly useful for mods, but now you can track the progress of your favorite (or "favorite") mgousers. Before you get any funny ideas, the main reason I implemented this was so that we could better judge a poster's body of work when we're considering a banhammer. Applications unrelated to totalitarianism are just a bonus.

Victors. Congratulations to the men's gymnastics team and their shiny national title:  

Michigan beat out usual suspect Stanford by three-tenths of a point for its fourth national title and Michigan's first (varsity) title since 2005. You'll see them at the UConn game, no doubt.

One of these things is extremely similar to the other. Ohio State recruit Jamel Turner just got shot. According to his facebook feed he's as fine as you can be after getting shot, but getting lit up is the latest and scariest development in a tumultuous couple years for the blue-chip defensive end. Turner was kicked off Ursuline's team and was declared academically ineligible as a senior. He headed to Fork Union for a post-grad year and was asked to leave. Eleven Warriors calls him "troubled," which… yeah, seems about right.

I don't even have to tell you the local media's reaction to all this, do I? I don't but here you go anyway:

Suddenly, many of the dozens of schools that had once recruited Turner started getting back in touch. But just as Ohio State never pulled its scholarship offer when he got into trouble, Turner would not be swayed from his original choice.

"(Coach Jim) Tressel is a good man, and he stands by his word," Turner said. "So I'm going to stand by my word, and we're going to get it done."

Not that it should  be any different. If Turner manages to keep himself on the straight and narrow at Ohio State that will be a win for both parties. If Ohio State decided to cut ties with him he'd be headed for a place with far fewer resources at his disposal and would have a much greater chance of hanging around the sorts of places where you get shot.

Turner hasn't gotten into any problems with the law, but it's not like that matters in the media environment Michigan is facing these days. Drew Sharp is running around saying "we don't know" about the trouble that Dorsey obviously got in after he was diverted from serious legal consequences two years ago. If Dorsey doesn't qualify there will be another round of clucking about how Rodriguez shouldn't have "taken a chance" on the kid. If Turner washes out there will be sad panda columns about today's society.

It is in this fashion—pretending it's not about wins—that the media proves it's all about wins.

(Side note: Turner is from Youngstown, as is Fitzgerald Toussaint. Toussaint's dad got locked up for stabbing his mom's new beau… at a football game Toussaint was playing in. I am moving Youngstown below Somalia on my list of potential vacation destinations.)

Everyone's 6'6". Michigan offered 2012 Flint Powers wing Javonte Hawkins over the weekend:

Hawkins was told by the UM staff he is their "#1 sophomore wing recruit". Hawkins definitely has outstanding upside and potential. Baylor, South Carolina, Notre Dame are the newest schools to his recruitment.

Best of the Best also throws some names out for Michigan's assistant coach job: Dan Fife (not Dane, Dan), the head coach at Clarkson, Oakland assistant Saadi Washington, Bakari Alexander, and Oronde Taliaferro.

Update: Maybe it's Dane after all.

By way of podcast explanation. WH posted up a vintage Michigan Replay intro. It is fantastic. As a bonus, it answers the question "why you using that funky music for the podcast?"

God, remember when Michigan Replay was the only way to see highlights of the previous week's game? I remember installing crazy netscape plugins to download the tiny grainy video of Charles Woodson's punt return on CNNSI in '97, thinking that if I didn't get it right then I'd never be able to watch it whenever it occurred to me. Yeah. Not so much.

Programming note. I am out of heeeere, en route to Las Vegas to hang out with my friend who runs around like one of those tiny dogs whose blood is 90% cocaine during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Tim is spending today enjoying Irish culture—I think this means he's going to a museum or eating some cabbage—so the recruitin' post will be Thursday. I have a hockey preview in the can. There might be some other sporadic content, but I'm looking at Thursday, Friday, and possibly Monday as vacation days. Our flight gets in at 5 AM. I will be super excited about that.

Q for people more experienced than me: I'm sure sportsbooks will have the BTN, but does anyone know how likely it is I can get a TV tuned to the Miami-Michigan game and hypothetical championship game? Please advise. Also if you have other advice, I am listening.

Surprise! Oh, actually not a surprise in any way at all. Grad assistant Alex Herron is being dumped overboard:

The graduate assistant accused of lying to NCAA investigators is no longer part of Michigan's football program.

Alex Herron, who was named in a Notice of Allegations the NCAA sent to Michigan last month, does not appear on Michigan's spring list of administrative personnel.

This is an obvious consequence of being personally named in a major violation because you lied to the NCAA.

Walk-ons for water. Michigan has its own version of Paki O'Meara, the Iowa walk-on tailback who was occasionally thrust onto the field because the only petty deity more wroth than Angry Michigan BLANK Hating God is Angry Iowa Tailback Hating God, in the form of freshman O'Neil Swanson. His name fascinates. Now he pitches Vitamin Water to you:

I'm not sure if he's really O'Neil Swanson III, which would make his name worthy to bask in the radiance of Barkevious Mingo, or if he's just screwing around for the Youtubes. Obviously, I hope it's the latter.

Oh, right, and here are five minutes of highlights thanks to poster steviebrownforheisman. What a country!

Okay then. After some initial futzing by Birkett on his twitter, AnnArbor.com posts an apology sort of thing for the crowbar comment. Fine, hatchet buried and all that.

Elsewhere, there are two reactions to that apology from people who are bad at having opinions. Site the first is College Football Talk: "for a website to force its writers to pretend that an athlete wasn't arrested multiple times for burglary is plain ridiculous." The Big Lead: "Even if Dorsey deserves a second chance, he in no way deserves a clean slate or media sheltering."

Yes, Demar Dorsey has been a sheltered little bunny in his little bunny cage. Drew Sharp feeds him a carrot cut into the shape of a heart every day. No one has heard ten thousand things about Michigan recruiting this character when kids with Dorsey's background enter schools across the country without so much as a peep.

Michigan fans have a right to expect a lack of unsolicited cheap shots. Birkett doesn't know anything about this kid except his high school record and what's been in the paper. He posted something that wouldn't be out of place on an Ohio State or Michigan State message board, and it's his job to interact with the kids on the team on a daily basis. That's totally unprofessional and Birkett deserves all the crap he gets for it. It's not about sticking your head in the sand, it's about having the tiniest modicum of respect for the program you're supposed to cover.

Meanwhile, a poster around these parts put together a diary in response that's longer and better written than the initial, pointless Big Lead post, and Duffy responds about the declining standards around here… in the user-generated area of the site. As someone who writes for the Big Lead. Quick, what are Kim Kardishan's boobs looking like today? Are they still enormous and airbrushed? Lawya, please.

Buzz after-effects. I went on a little torrent of hockey recruit googlestalking in the aftermath of the Michigan State series, partially because of general enthusiasm and partially because Michigan picked up its second commit of the 2012 class in Chicago defenseman Connor Carrick. The Wolverine's Bob Miller describes him as a bigger, quicker, better version of Langlais—yes please. I didn't find anything else on him other than a teaser from the perpetually sketchy "Scouting News" that suggested he blew up at a recent tourney and is now being mentioned at the very head of the upcoming OHL draft. In my experience those guys are used car salesmen; I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that.

While searching around I ran across some random guy's late January listing of the top 100 guys for the upcoming OHL draft and found some familiar names:

1. F Matia Marcantuoni (if he chooses college it will apparently be M, but that's a big if)
8. D Jacob Trouba (choosing between M and ND, OHL a possibility)
10. F Boo Nieves (commit)
17. D Connor Carrick (commit)
24. G Dalton Izyk (Nieves's teammate)

Who knows if this guy actually knows anything but when it comes to 15-year old hockey players there's not much else to go on. Not that there necessarily should be, or I should be looking for it.

Also from the potentially dubious depths of the Hockey's Future message boards is this report on Nieves:

I've seen Nieves play numerous times in different tournaments, and he's solidified himself as a top 10 talent, but is not likely to come to the OHL. He's a massive body, that has great acceleration, a pass first centre, and rarely if ever loses faceoffs. Would like to see him use the body more often, as he has a massive frame to grow into. He's a guy I'd keep an eye on, as he'll most likely get drafted in the later rounds, but is a real talent for the next level.

That is all sorts of things I like to hear.

The CHL has your education foremost in its mind. Lethbridge is losing its goalie this year after five years. Let's hear about the rigorous education he received:

"I guess real life is around the corner," [Linden] Rowat said with a smile. "I have to get a job and go to school. You kind of take it for granted playing in the Western League for five years, getting up at 11 o'clock, playing video games, going to practice. Now it's going to be a lifestyle change. A complete 180."

Woo!

Etc.: MVictors has its own version of everyone else's twelve minutes of spring practice. There is a second mgotourney bracket. This one will not have prizes, unfortunately. More on Sheridan and Wright moseying off.