will wade

Sponsor note. Richard Hoeg will business you up. He will file documents and draw up contracts and get you right with the government as you attempt to launch your very good business idea.

He will also not talk about Michigan football or talk about Michigan football, as is your preference. If you'd like a small business lawyer who's in the same boat you are, he's the guy to call.

I now own an ascot? In addition to our weekly discussions about the continuing Robert Anderson fallout on WTKA, I made an appearance on Stateside to talk about how it's impacting various parts of the program from the fanbase to former players and where the focus should be.

For the record. Summarizing some things said on these podcasts:

The release of the Wilmer Hale report seems to have induced these many and various press conferences, which seem designed to increase public pressure instead of saying anything that is not already in a university-commissioned document that may not be literally comprehensive but is comprehensive enough to identify a pattern of behavior and damn the culture in the football program around that time. "How much money should survivors get in compensation?" is an unanswerable question and to me it's not an interesting one. The lawyers will posture and there will be a number.

I'd rather talk about the structures in place then and the ones in place now that have brought some much-delayed comeuppance to four different serial sexual harassers.

[After THE JUMP: Power round two?]

3/22/2021 – Michigan 86, LSU 78 – 22-4, 14-3 Big Ten, Sweet 16

With apologies to Chaundee Brown and Eli Brooks, all hail the real MVP: regression to the mean.

Cam Thomas came out in full-on NBA Jam mode, and folks I gotta tell you it felt bad. After Thomas hit a one-footed fadeaway 18-footer around the midway point of the first half it felt like he would never miss anything. It felt like by the second half he would scorpion kick a ball into the basket for his billionth point and then fade into the background like the avatar of a fallen god. "Peace," Thomas would utter mysteriously, "basketball has been solved."

Meanwhile Michigan came out and hit one of six clean looks from three. Visions of Will Wade hunched over a cauldron full of booster cash and other nefarious reagents flooded my vision. This is how LSU gives up three after three and survives. This is occult, man. Why would LSU stop at strong offers or rampant, repeated institutional Title IX dysfunction? Satan! Satan is involved. I feel his presence.

These are the things you think in the first eight minutes of a basketball game when you're happy with almost all the shots both teams take and furious at the results.

None of these feelings show up in the box score. LSU shot 44% from two; Michigan shot 67%. LSU shot 24% from three; Michigan shot 40%. This game was only a single digit affair because LSU turned the ball over all of three times. This sounds weirdly disciplined for a team that frequently didn't bother to even raise a hand in the direction of three-point shooters, but then again only one guy on the team bothers to pass inside the arc. Water finds its level.

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With apologies to regression to the mean, all hail the real MVPs: Eli Brooks and Chaundee Brown.

Both are four-year college players, but other than that they could not be more different. Brooks has been at Michigan almost as long as D'Mitrik Trice has been an undead warlock. Brown is new. Brooks spent much of his career in a state of emotional precarity, one turnover or missed shot from a funk that would last games and games. Brown showed up determined to shoot every last plausible three he could get his hands on, no matter recent results. Brooks is listed at a willowy 6'1" and when he dunks a basketball everyone says "I didn't know he could do that!" even though he just did it a couple games ago. Brown is 6'5" and built like a linebacker. When he dunks I wince in case he does a chin up that destroys the basket.

But here they did the same things, more or less. They checked Cam Thomas, in their varied ways. They buried open threes. They ventured inside the line successfully. They did not stand around with question marks over their head when offensive actions were attempted. They led Michigan to a Sweet 16.

Remarkably, that's their sixth in the last eight tournaments. The two exceptions were years when Caris Levert got injured*. The only team that can match that claim is Gonzaga, which has morphed from a curious team into a dominant program over the last few years. Michigan will seek to match Gonzaga in that, too.

Brooks and Brown feel like the past and future of Michigan basketball. Brooks is a heady overachiever maximizing his talent. Brown is a physical marvel unleashed by newfound structure. This is not to say they are separate. The Venn diagram has some overlap here. As mentioned, Brooks has thrown down some rad dunks, and Brown is the kind of culture guy who might blow up on the sideline at Breslin. Together they spearheaded a second-round tourney win, and point the direction forward. Less a transition than an adaptation.

Right now Michigan needs both of them as they stare down the only chalk left in this bizarre tournament.

*[As is required by law, let us reiterate that LeVert was shooting 53/45 with a big free throw rate, a 33 assist rate, a 13 TO rate, on 26% usage when he was lost for the season. He had one bad game against a high major in there (SMU) but was more or less at that level of production in the other four A-tier games before he was lost.]

[After THE JUMP: heeeeeeeere's Willy!]

Various seasons that may or may not happen. Per Penn State's rivals site, sources detail the hypothetical spring season:

- A pre-set eight-game schedule will begin the week after New Year's Day, likely kicking off on Wednesday, Jan. 7 or Thursday, Jan. 8, and progressing through the weekend.

- The goal will be to not have games overlapping with each other, opening up multiple television windows to various broadcast partners.