Unverified Voracity Avoids Rake, Steps On Rake Comment Count

Brian

Yes please. Google is going to turn some city into the future by hooking them up with crazy gigabit fiber lines. That is one gigabit per second. That is 100 times faster than current high speed lines. You want this. The city and university have put together a fiber site that you can hit up and take action if you'd like to download wholesome educational programs at incredible speeds. Join the facebook page, submit your desperate plea to Google—if you're an orphan this is mandatory—and maybe hold a prayer session.

I will mention this again.

Delegation and goodbyes. So Tim is out of town this week and I think it's more productive to look up every last word written about Ray Vinopal than preview a Minnesota game that may make or break Michigan's NIT chances. UMHoops has its typically excellent preview if you are hankering. [ED: Ha ha! Tim just told me he's put up a preview. What part of vacation he doesn't understand, hat hat hat.]

It is senior night, and a word on DeShawn Sims: last year I thought Sims would escape the Lavell Blanchard limbo. Blanchard was a pretty good player on a series of lousy teams in the midst of Michigan's long period of raketastic basketball.

sideshowbobrake

RAKE! I SAID RAKE!

He did and he didn't. He was singlehandedly responsible for burying Iowa in the Big Ten Tournament game that was Michigan's last chance to blow its first tourney bid since the Pyramids were built, and for that we thank him. He could not do enough to turn this season away from its head-on course with more rakes, and for that we feel sorry for him. He'll have a long professional career (probably in Europe) and come back in a while to a standing ovation he'll deserve.

As for Anthony Wright, who will not return for a fifth year: thanks for keeping us in that Oklahoma game. There are worse things than being remembered as the guy who inexplicably exploded in a second-round NCAA game. Zack Gibson: I thought they should have played him more, except when they did.

Emo Cold War details. Big Chill details have dropped. Bullets of interest:

  • Hockey season ticket holders get the first crack at primo seats.
  • Football season ticket holders get the rest of the primo seats.
  • MSU's section is sizeable and pretty decent.
  • Students are where students go.
  • Sideline seats are $25, endzone seats $15. Seems a bit more expensive than I would have gone with.

Chart? Chart.

big-chill-seating-chart

If they put the MSU students… nevermind. MSU students don't go to hockey games. If, hypothetically, there were going to be any MSU students at the game and they got put in that overhang in sections 3 and 2 they will stand up and there will be crankiness similar to the first Cold War. Suggestion: don't do this.

More Graham. Brandon Graham tweaked his hamstring at the combine but put up an impressive bench and a 4.69 40, further solidifying his status as a first-round pick. He may be a high, high first-rounder:

Graham often gets knocked for his lack of height, but I saw him standing next to TCU’s Jerry Hughes, a very similar player, and Graham’s shoulders were visibly higher and wider than Hughes’. Graham also had better 10 second splits than Hughes, who is universally lauded for his explosiveness. If Graham had a neck he’d be at least an inch and a half taller, and then nobody would question his top 10 draft status. I know the Seahawks, who pick at #6, were paying real close attention.

There's also an approving mention from a Buccaneers site.

Brabbs update. Cancer-striken Husky slayer Phil Brabbs is done with chemo and now preparing for a bone marrow transplant from one of his many sisters. AnnArbor.com catches up and gets the latest.

Etc.: Interesting News article on the divergent financial situations at Michigan and Michigan State. M is one of the few elite school still hiring and is thus getting their top picks just about everywhere; State is cutting almost a sixth of their undergraduate programs. Donations, endowments, and Michigan's high percentage of out-of-state undergrads are the difference. Will Leitch writes on Roger Ebert. Every time this happens it is a reminder of why Deadspin used to be something better than TMZSports. Rutgers fans know how we're feeling about the media.

Comments

GoBlueScott

March 2nd, 2010 at 3:55 PM ^

to read that Lietch piece.

Just as Ebert did, Lietch really seems to encapsulate more in the article than just his relationship with his mentor, the movie critic. It also has a beautiful narrative of the awkward post-college youth we all must navigate upon the realization of life.

helloheisman.com

March 2nd, 2010 at 4:01 PM ^

Can this game really sell 100,000 tickets? Maybe UofM can try to get ESPN on board with this instead of BTN, TV loves these outdoor games. Otherwise, you've got a spectacle of an event gone largely unnoticed.

zlionsfan

March 2nd, 2010 at 5:43 PM ^

Obviously not the NHL, not since Bettman drove a car loaded with gasoline and matchsticks off a cliff onto that bridge in an attempt to remove it from the earth.

College hockey? Maybe, but they may have college basketball to show instead. Yes, we know this should attract more attention than Georgetown vs. Other School From DC You Never Heard Of, but then no one listen to us anyway.

Besides, if the game stays on BTN and gets good (relative) ratings, that's just more money for the conference, and it becomes that much more likely that Texas some random Big 12 or Big East team jumps at the chance to form the Big Ten Plus One Plus The One We Already Had.

Bryan

March 2nd, 2010 at 4:04 PM ^

As such, there really is no choice but to declare solidarity and throw your lots in with Michigan football here. Rutgers football has been through the fire on something like this, so I can’t stand idly by and watch another mugging. It’s outrageous to treat two clean, just athletic departments that actually value academics like outlaws, while rogue programs run free south of the Mason/Dixon line. Get the word out, and shout from the freaking roof tops like it’s Tehran. No more.

BluePants

March 2nd, 2010 at 4:27 PM ^

I vote Michigan starts loaning MSU money from its endowment at 30 points a week. When they can't pay us back, instead of breaking their knees, we demand they pay us in basketball players. Best recruiting scheme yet.

BlueCE

March 3rd, 2010 at 9:24 AM ^

Haha, that is hilarious...

Seriously, as much as I hate (maybe not) say it, there is probably not enough room in the state of Michigan for two large D-1 sport schools. Maybe Ohio could do it, but there is not enough talent in Michigan. Thus, in the long run one of the programs should disappear, and my money is on UM surviving. MSU should just close down their atheltics program and concentrating on ensuring that the academics of their school survive.

Eck Sentrik

March 2nd, 2010 at 4:31 PM ^

From the comments in the Leitch piece:
"30 years from now, on some blog on this vast expanse we call the internet, someone is going to write a rambling piece on how Deadspin inspired him to start honing his dick joke craft."

Haha... God I miss the old Deadspin.

Fuzzy Dunlop

March 2nd, 2010 at 4:46 PM ^

Brian either is, or plagiarized, deadspin commenter clmetsfan on the Leitch story:

"@pr0FF3ss0r_j3rkwh3at:
You mean it wasn't always TMZ Sports?"

Just kidding. Co-sign.

rtyler

March 2nd, 2010 at 7:39 PM ^

I like the Rutgers fans' idea to run an ad in the offending newspaper correcting its factual errors. Is there any possibility that we could run an ad for the boycott in the Free Press? I can't imagine they'd approve it, but it would be hilarious.

qbwaggle

March 2nd, 2010 at 8:21 PM ^

Leitch's Deadspin story was so interesting and well-written that it completely distracted me from the Michigan beat-down of Minnesota.

Ebert's Twitter response made me cheer in my head. Great job, Will.

bronxblue

March 3rd, 2010 at 10:53 AM ^

Great article by Leitch. I read the Esquire piece about Ebert and felt that we really are losing a voice in pop culture lore.

As for the UM/MSU piece, I always had a sense that UM was doing better than most institutions of similar size and reputation in part, at least, because they sense that reliance on state funding was a dead-end and that branching out and finding alternative sources of income are essential. It will be interesting to see how the University's continued growth will affect its prestige and "rankings" in various academic metrics, especially when schools like the California system start to really feel the pinch.

Feat of Clay

March 3rd, 2010 at 12:55 PM ^

I think you're largely right. We've been carefully managed (finance-wise) and have seen the writing on the wall for some time. The massive amount of research $$ doesn't hurt either.

I have been astonished when comparing notes (and news releases) with colleagues at other institutions. U-M has managed to evade a staggering lot of pain going on elsewhere--public and private campuses included.

Last year was the perfect time for U-M to go on a hiring spree and go scoop up rising-star faculty who were made restless by the penury at their cash-strapped institutions. I'm glad to read that this is what happened.