Unverified Voracity Is Number One Comment Count

Brian

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: gymnastics-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.

Comments

Geaux_Blue

April 19th, 2010 at 12:16 PM ^

why didn't you mention the new plugin that also lets MGoBlog track the emails and net activity of users, reporting said statistics to the NSC and CIA, as well as the GOB and LOL?

YOU SEE THAT GREEN LIGHT ON YOUR SCREEN MAGNUS? THAT'S MGOBLOG LOOKING BACK AT YOU! IN SOVIET MGOBLOG, SITE READ YOUR RSS!

The Royalty of Roto

April 19th, 2010 at 12:55 PM ^

I would definitely rather have Javontae Hawkins than Isaiah Sykes. In fact, Michigan's staff should save the scholarship. I hope I'm not bursting any bubbles in saying that the ceiling for next year isn't tremendously high, so why push for someone this year? I'm a fan of the wing forwards with good athleticism, especially ones with a mid-range game. He's got a good looking jumper, just needs to spend more time in the gym working on it. Saw him throw down a nasty one on Country Day in the playoffs driving baseline as well.

As for the Dane Fife news, I got wind of this over the weekend at an AAU Tournament. Good for Michigan. In fact, hire the whole Fife family. Dane's father Dan is perhaps my favorite high school coach in the state of Michigan, and Dane is a great guy as well.

helloheisman.com

April 19th, 2010 at 1:22 PM ^

Congrats to the Men's Gymnastics Team. It seems like an athletic program that finished so high year after year in the director's cup standings should be winning more team NC's than once every 5 years.

wiscwood

April 19th, 2010 at 6:45 PM ^

Michigan's Gymnastics Team winning the National Championship made me smile, I mean grin!!! It just told me that wonderful things can come from the most unexpected places. This is not a slight to the team. I'm surprised and please, Go Blue!!!