Unverified Voracity Inflicts Tattoo Comment Count

Brian

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our very own MarktheNomad leads the way

Well done. The EDSBS charity challenge has completed, with Michigan once again lapping the field several times over:

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By collectively cracking 30k, the commentariat has forced Spencer into getting a Michigan-themed tattoo. He reports being interested in some sort of wolverine-in-profile wearing a top hat. I am taking submissions, both good and bad. Load up the photoshop and do your best. Or worst! Either way.

Jeff Goodman's on the bandwagon. Hopefully this edition of the Big Ten can be as entertainingly proficient as the 2012-13 version that Indiana won (and Michigan did not win by a micron) with their Zeller/Oladipo outfit:

Not sure I'm seeing it with Purdue but otherwise, yeah. How Wisconsin transitions away from the Dekker/Kaminsky teams is uncertain—they have Hayes and Koenig back but lose the kPOY, a lottery pick, Josh f-ing Gasser, and Traevon Jackson. That latter might be their secret weapon.

I assume they'll be good, because when have they not been good under Bo Ryan, but they should be taking a significant step back. I don't know who their 6'10" guy who shoots threes and looks like the perfect player for Beilein is going to be.

I am mildly surprised at this. Max Bielfeldt is transferring and getting interest from schools that are a bit bigger than hometown Bradley:

Bielfeldt confirmed to MLive on Saturday that he made his first visit on Friday, traveling to Ames, Iowa to tour Iowa State and that he's in the process of setting up more visits.

The current list of schools that have contacted Bielfeldt and are under consideration includes Boston College, Kansas State, Iowa State, Bradley, Stanford and DePaul.

Obviously Iowa State's Hoiberg Home For Lost Big Ten Boys was going to get involved here. Due to a bizarre footnote in NCAA regulations the city of Ames will be expelled from the surface of the earth if they do not have a basketball player who used to call a Big Ten school home.

The half-dozen other power conference schools are more than I thought would knock on Bielfeldt's door. He must fit better on teams that aren't averse to running out two posts at the same time—he's a lot more plausible as an old-timey power forward than a center.

And it is possible we are doing Johnny Dawkins a solid for keeping his kid stashed in witness protection long enough for Michigan to swoop in on him.

Could this be related to last year's injuries? Michigan is looking for a new basketball athletic trainer. People move on to new jobs all the time, etc., but the timing there suggests that maybe Beilein wasn't particularly pleased with the way Walton's injury was handled. Add Spike's hips, LeVert's twice-broken foot, and Mitch McGary's general unavailability and that's a lot of injuries for a basketball team comprised of 18-20 year olds.

Your parents must be very interesting. Remember Equanimeous St. Brown, the California wide receiver who speaks several languages and ended up at Notre Dame? There is another.

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There is apparently a third St. Brown pass-catching brother who goes unnamed in that article. The possibilities are endless. Sahara? Odin? Vladivostok? Benzene? The mind boggles.

I'm just here on name patrol but FWIW, St. Brown says he's headed to Sound Mind, Sound Body and will visit Michigan as part of that trip.

UPDATE: Ace points out the younger brother is Amon-Ra!

Scouting Austin Davis. Scout's Brian Snow took a look at Michigan's latest commitment and came back reporting something in line($) with what everyone else is saying:

When on the floor in terms of actual skill, Davis is very good on the low block. He has pretty good footwork around the rim, soft hands, and a nice touch. Most of his damage comes close to the bucket, and he is able to overwhelm opponents with size and has the skill to go with it.

He's not a jumping jack of an athlete and has to compete at the 5 with Teske since neither has the ability to guard anyone on the perimeter. There's been some chatter that Davis might take a prep year and come in in 2017 if that is mutually agreeable, FWIW. That would somewhat ease the coming logjam at center and give a developmental big some more time to develop.

Rutgers: the team that gravity remembers constantly. Land-Grand Holy Land checks in with Rutgers first season of Big Ten competition. How'd they do? Fourth in women's soccer. Not so good in almost everything else:

So to recap, not only did Rutgers fail to capture a single league title in their first season,they haven't even come close, only cracking the top four in two sports. Rutgers finished (or is currently ranked) last or second to last in an astonishing eight sports. Their football program was their best male team sport, and they didn't crack the top six of the conference. Rutgers has been uniformly terrible at nearly every level.

Plus, not only has Rutgers been awful on the field, those mid-week flights from places like Nebraska and Iowa to New Jersey are probably just awesome for student athletes, right Delany?

But hey, TV sets. Location. National brand. Enjoy those hypothetical Nielsen ratings the next time you have to watch a terrible Rutgers sporting event in the near future.

Maryland is vaguely defensible. Rutgers is just an anchor.

Sounds good. Freshmen ineligibility isn't going anywhere. There are a thousand reasons for that. Here's one: even the NCAA's president, our nation's most skilled double-talk practitioner, is pretty much like nah.

"It's a really interesting notion that's worthy of debate," Emmert said. "It has all kinds of problems. It is highly controversial."

"It has all kinds of problems." This is a person who publicly states that the NCAA itself has no problems. DOA.

They're all over on satellite camps, BTW. They'll be banned by next year.

Etc.: Lax misses Big Ten tourney. Many Big Ten fanbases have no life balance. Robert Washington's weekend commitment was… interesting. Sling TV reviewed. Brian Kelly is "the worst coach Notre Dame has ever allowed to oversee its football team for at least 65 games." Nebraska adds satellite camp. Gasaway on early entries.

Jim Harbaugh is Jim Harbaugh and will remain being Jim Harbaugh. The parable of the donut shop.

Comments

pjandy

April 28th, 2015 at 9:53 AM ^

unfortunatily for me there doesn't seem to be a good option for reworking my Hoke tat to look more like Harbaugh (although changing it from the orignial Rich Rod to Hoke was painless enough at the time)

Perkis-Size Me

April 27th, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^

Painful reality in college athletics these days when new conference moves are all about money, not about product quality. I think with time, Maryland will prove to be a good, or at least a decent addition to the Big Ten. Rutgers was a horrible move and a pure money grab for the NYC market. Their athletic product sucks across the board, and it dilutes the conference brand.

Not to mention their recent basketball scandal and the rather strong dislike most people have for their current AD. But hey, money, right?

TrppWlbrnID

April 27th, 2015 at 12:35 PM ^

so the ncaa and coaches are all about early signing for kids and trying to limit some kids exposure to as many schools as possible? wouldn't want the coaches to work too hard for their giant stacks of cash, now, would we?

now if the ncaa wanted to say "hey, lets treat it like an official visit and limit coaches to 5 appearances" i get it, but its likely an all or nothing affair.

hesazig

April 27th, 2015 at 12:55 PM ^

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MichGoBlue858

April 27th, 2015 at 1:11 PM ^

It will be interesting to see what Notre Dame does if Brian Kelly goes 8-5/9-4 again. If you take out the fluky national championship year, you have 8-5, 8-5, 9-4, 8-5. If he does that again you pretty much have Bo Pelini at Nebraska except Notre Dame recruits a lot better. I think Notre Dame fans expect better.

Julius 1977

April 27th, 2015 at 1:14 PM ^

The example assumes there is no price elasticity between one and two dollars for a donut.  Not likely.  You would only know for certain if the donut maker did what all rational capitalists do:  increase production until the marginal profit of producing a donut equals zero.  But the donut guy doesn't do that.  He only makes 10 more donuts to give to the dishonest cop.  Right.  Ridiculous.  Whatever they are pitching at the bottom of the page I probably won't click on it.

Wolverine 73

April 27th, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^

Interesting study that guy did, but he didn't assess (1) which coaches played for the tie instead of the win in big games more often (expected leader: Ara) and (2) which coaches apparent lack of concern for student safety resulted in deaths (expected leader: Brian).

ST3

April 27th, 2015 at 1:30 PM ^

Wisconsin also loses Duje Dukan. I'm pointing that out merely so I can write, "Duje Dukan."

I can see Bielfeldt going to a Power-5 school, getting minutes as the designated screen-setter. He's not a screen and roll threat, but he could be a screen and pop threat, a la Bill Laimbeer. Neither guy can jump, both rebound well for their size/jumping ability or lack thereof, and both have a nice shooting touch.

BursleysFinest

April 27th, 2015 at 3:21 PM ^

Agree with your overall point, but I think you might be selling Bill Laimbeer a little short here.  If Bielfiedt was expected to give the Wolverines the 13 pts, 10 boards that NBA Laimbeer gave the Pistons then Max would definitely be back next year.

ST3

April 27th, 2015 at 5:57 PM ^

does not equal "equal". Would it have been better if I had said a "poor man's Laimbeer?" I'm a huge Laimbeer fan. Bielfeldt isn't giving M a 13/10 the way Beilein uses him (to be fair, we should multiply by 40/48 to account for the difference in the NBA and college game time), but I don't see why another school can't run the pick and pop game with him. Down the stretch, he had these games (pts. reb):

Neb 12/9

MSU 7/9

ILL 12/7

OSU 7/7

Rutgers 14/11

Ill 10/4

Granted, I'm cherry-picking, but he was better than his 5.1/3.6 averages down the stretch, and give him another year of development, in a different system, and he can be a contributor. Perhaps another team plays him closer to the basket and he's actually able to improve his RPG. We tend to overrate height, or think that every frontline goes 6'9" and above across except ours. That's not the case for most of the 300+ division 1 teams. It's probably not even true for the majority of Power 5 schools.

jmblue

April 27th, 2015 at 4:04 PM ^

I like Max, but comparing a 6'6" guy who averaged 5 a game in college with a 6'11" player who had a long NBA career (including multiple All-Star appearances) might be just a tad of a stretch.

 

funkywolve

April 27th, 2015 at 2:08 PM ^

While Rutgers was a pretty bad addition, Maryland isn't all that bad.  Obviously, football is the main sport and Maryland isn't that great right now with the pigskin.  However, Maryland is actually pretty good in a lot of the non-revenue sports.  Their women's basketball team made the Final Four.  Both the men's and women's lacrosse teams are usually quite good. Their women's field hockey is usually solid.   

Lanknows

April 27th, 2015 at 2:15 PM ^

If you're a basketball fan, they're a huge addition to the conference. As the 'other' major revenue generating sport this gets lost sometimes by people with football-induced myopia.

Rutgers is a tragedy though...

gwkrlghl

April 27th, 2015 at 2:29 PM ^

Good basketball school, sometimes decent football school, and great lax school - as lax is really growing right now. Actual decently large fanbase in a state that actually cares about them.

No one cares about Rutgers

wile_e8

April 27th, 2015 at 4:40 PM ^

If Maryland was the 12th team added to the B1G, I think they would have had a much warmer reception. Two factors worked against them:

  1. Being part of the expansion to 14 teams. Going to 12 teams didn't disrupt the conference much and adds a tangible benefit for fans: the football conference championship game. There were some football scheduling issues, but that had more to do with goofy divisions priorizing an UM/OSU championship game over sane geographic rivalries. And basketball had two more single plays, but teams still had home-and-homes with the majority of the conference.



    Going to 14 teams didn't add anything tangible for fans like the championship game, just the promise of future improvement due to increased revenue. In them mean time, now the football schedule will miss teams from the other division more often then they play them, and the basketball schedule has more single-plays than home-and-homes.
  2. The team they brought along with them was Rutgers.

rob f

April 27th, 2015 at 4:19 PM ^

Saw that link and was soooo looking forward to an update on one of my all-time favorite Detroit Tigers, '68 World Series hero Mickey Lolich.

Don

April 27th, 2015 at 4:11 PM ^

Which makes me laugh every time I think of all the sneering "But Missouri and Pitt don't expand the footprint!" comments.