Unverified Voracity Doodles Aimlessly
In the time of thumb-twiddling. Hey guys. Whole bunch of nothing going on. The Daily has you covered about the nothing going on with a timeline of events leading to the shutdown and what the implications are for various sports including men's and women's basketball.
Also there was the now-obligatory open letter asking to play:
The source of Hubaker’s frustration, though, was a sense that the MDHHS directive was poorly aimed.
“It’s foolish to think that the variant isn’t gonna be around in two weeks and it’s probably gonna be a bigger deal,” Hubaker told The Daily. “Because we’re the only sector of the community that’s being shut down right now. And we’re, in my opinion, the safest and have the strictest guidelines of anyone else in the community.
“So if we had it, the community definitely has it. And we’re worried, a lot of us are worried … and we’ve heard this two-week period thrown around a lot before and we’re worried that this isn’t gonna be a two-week thing.”
I completely understand the frustration since Michigan athletics will still be on pause when Michigan re-opens restaurants on February 1st, but the problem there is the latter. Fears about the pause extending past 14 days are probably unfounded. After that long anyone who has the B117 variant will have had enough incubation time for a test to show it, and further transmission is going to come from the community.
Some people were holding out hope that the MDHHS memo that caused the shutdown said "up to" 14 days and that things could get going faster, but it doesn't look like that's the case. MSU has rescheduled MBB games against Iowa and Nebraska for February 2nd and 3rd and has a game against PSU February 9th; previously they were scheduled to play Michigan February 6th.
Also off: a 1-vs-2 wrestling dual meet against Iowa.
I am still baffled that nobody from the Federal government on down didn't impose a mandatory quarantine. Nicholas Stoll in the Daily:
Currently, the U.K. is on the CDC’s list of countries with high-risk travelers, and travel from the U.K. to the United States is prohibited — with a few exceptions. Included within those exceptions are F-1 student visas and U.S. citizens returning to the states, one of which the U-M athlete almost certainly fell under.
Now, I’m not saying people should not be able to return home to the U.S. or that a student should not be able to visit their family in the U.K. and then come back. That’s not what inherently caused the B.1.1.7 outbreak in the athletic department. Instead, it’s the inability to enforce quarantining on individuals.
The CDC requires a negative COVID-19 test result one-to-three days prior to traveling back to the U.S., and although that is a good procedure, it is the only enforceable step and not impervious to the transmission of the virus, as proven by the U-M athlete. The CDC recommends a 14-day quarantine, but at every level, it has no power to actually enforce it.
What are we doing dot gif.
[After THE JUMP: achievement unlocked: Not Tennessee.]
At least we're not Tennessee. David Ubben and Bruce Feldman run down the 30 craziest things to happen in Knoxville since Phillip Fulmer's 2008 resignation. The institutional dysfunction is incredible to behold:
5. The John Currie/Mike Leach interview that wasn’t
If your name is Danny White, we recommend skipping to No. 6. Currie had been Tennessee’s athletic director only eight months when he got on a plane, flew cross-country and went missing in the midst of Tennessee’s quickly deteriorating coaching search that had failed to land Mike Gundy, Dave Doeren and others.
Earlier in the week, the crowd at a Vols basketball game chanted “Fire Currie.” Chancellor Beverly Davenport obliged the angry crowd later that week. Currie was nearing a deal with Leach to become Tennessee’s next head coach when Davenport elected to pull him off the road, later replacing him with Fulmer.
Although I support this one:
24. Vols get rings for TaxSlayer Bowl victory
When Tennessee beat Iowa 45-28 in the 2014 TaxSlayer Bowl to punctuate the season with its seventh victory for its first winning season in five years, the Vols were pumped. In fact, they were so excited they had rings made up to commemorate the win that said “Gator Bowl Champions” on the front surrounding the shiny Power T. Problem is, the game played in Jacksonville was no longer called the Gator Bowl. That stopped the year before.
The bigger problem there is making rings for a team that finished 7-6, but I mean… would those rings have been better if they'd said "TaxSlayer" on them?
A brief history of nowhere. MLive on the famous Houghton sign:
Michigan Tech's magazine has a fuller piece as well.
Trevion kryptonite (except that one time). Remarkable stat:
Most missed shots in a single game for Trevion Williams, out of 82 career games:
— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) January 23, 2021
13 — 6 for 19, vs. Michigan, 1-22-21
13 — 8 for 21, vs. Michigan, 2-22-20
12 — 16 for 28 (lol), at Michigan, 1-9-20
Ah well. I mean it's not in the top ten but "no senior Nico Collins" is in the top 100 bad things about 2020:
Nico Collins with one of the best reps of the day
— Brad Kelly (@BradKelly17) January 27, 2021
— Inside release, forearm pull to get rid of the jam by the CB
— Lean in to stack, enough of a hip shift at the top of the route to make the CB hesitate
— Track the ball over the shoulder and toe-tap on the sideline #SeniorBowl pic.twitter.com/xAbIg6u4fc
I'll be really interested to see how he tests. If he puts up a good 40 I bet he skyrockets on draft boards.
Also in Senior Bowl items, a heavy sigh.
RB Chris Evans was always an excellent receiving RB during his time at Michigan
— Ben Fennell (@BenFennell_NFL) January 27, 2021
49 receptions (56 targets) for 479yds in his career. Screens, Angles, Flares... Consistently plucks away from frame and gets upfield immediately pic.twitter.com/mtrsXX8C8c
If he goes on to a long career as a third down back you're never going to hear the end of it. From me.
Sure. John Buccigross reports that the B10 hockey tournament will be a single-elimination tourney at Notre Dame. Given everything going on that makes as much sense as anything. Compressing the tourney from 3 weeks to 3 days will give Michigan some extra time to catch up after the shutdown.
The Michigan draft. NHL.com has a top 32 for the 2021 draft and good lord:
1. Owen Power (6-foot-6, 214 pounds), D, Michigan (NCAA) -- Power is a big presence with good vision and strength and has the look of a top-pair NHL defenseman. The 18-year-old leads Michigan with 23 blocked shots and is tied for the lead with two power-play goals.
4. Matthew Beniers (6-1, 174), C, Michigan (NCAA) -- The 18-year-old left-handed shot can get to top speed quickly. Beniers helped the United States win the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship as the youngest player on the roster; he was the center on the second line, scored three points (one goal, two assists) and averaged 17:05 of ice time in seven games. He's scored 13 points (four goals, nine assists) in 13 games with Michigan.
5. Luke Hughes (6-2, 176), D, USA U-18 (NTDP) -- Hughes is a solid puck mover with good poise who is committed to play at Michigan next season. He has a quick release from the point and has scored 25 points (six goals, 19 assists) in 23 games this season. The 17-year-old is the youngest brother of Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes and New Jersey Devils forward Jack Hughes.
6. Kent Johnson (6-0, 166), C, Michigan (NCAA) -- Johnson is an offensive sniper who plays with pace and skill, and is crafty with the puck. The 18-year-old leads Michigan with 18 points (six goals, 12 assists) in 15 games.
Mackie Samoskevich, who usually features in the mid-to-late first round in these sorts of things, is omitted. He did make the top 36 in the CSB midterm rankings.
I have to imagine that having four of the top six on one NCAA team is unprecedented in draft history.
Etc.: Man attempts to follow the Tom Brady diet. It's not going well. Super Bowl logos vs Wrestlemania logos. It's a Face/off situation. Jon Rothstein merch, ranked. Lane Kizzah on hockey's ND series. Tom Brady late vs PSU. Kwity Paye at #14 in latest PFF mock draft.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:16 PM ^
I heard that it was a woman on the water polo team. How anyone on the water polo team is any more connected to the basketball team as compared to say, the physics department is beyond me. But the physics department is still open. And no doubt the basketball team is more heavily monitored than anyone else on campus. If it isn't it certainly could/should be. It isn't difficult to do. The logic here baffles me. It is like someone has an axe to grind with the athletic dept.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:22 PM ^
It's absurd. No other athletic departments have undergone a department wide shutdown, and it's so unfair to all the teams that have done everything right. This isn't being safe over sorry, this is overkill and it's sad that our AD is submitting to this.
January 27th, 2021 at 1:08 PM ^
It's not the AD, this is above his pay grade: it is the University of Michigan deciding to do this. As was clarified a few days ago, there is no penalty from the govt if U of M announced that they are playing games before two weeks.
The primary blame for this falls on U of M -- while I really wish the fed govt implemented an Australia/Hong Kong//etc true quarantine policy, the fact is, they don't. That is well-known. U of M decided to rely on testing, and only testing, and it came back to bite them. U of M has dorms specifically set up for isolation quarantine; the infrastructure is in place--they chose not to use it for out-of-country travelers.
To be fair, I don't know of any other schools doing "better safe than sorry" quarantine, but I also don't know how many of them decided it was OK for one of their athletes to go visit the UK during a massive, spinning out of control, outbreak and then congregate w a bunch of other people in the department.
U of M should grown some stones, and if they are confident it is safe (e.g., basketball players have been tested for 10 straight days and had no positives; those players have had no known contact with the infected individuals), play ball next week. And if not, explain why--and don't blame the state recommendations; own the decision.
January 27th, 2021 at 1:39 PM ^
True but you'd think that the AD could at least stick up for its athletes rather than kowtowing to what the university wants. Unless the water polo team (or whichever team had the athlete that went to the UK) is using Crisler or Yost for their practices and games then I see no reason why a department wide shutdown should happen. MSU didn't do that even though their entire basketball team has tested positive. It just makes no sense.
Your last paragraph is on point. By shutting down the department completely, the university is basically saying it has no faith in the current measures being taken.
January 28th, 2021 at 1:44 AM ^
At last check the athletic department was a function of the university, not the other way around regardless of situation and circumstance.
While I agree a complete department shutdown seems rather odd and excessive given the other operations taking place, I have to believe the University does have a Covid task force which has the required knowledge and chose to align with the recommendation.
January 27th, 2021 at 6:01 PM ^
Even more, again, I ask, why the athletic dept? WTH does the basketball team have to do with the water polo team? There is no connection here that is any stronger than anyone else on campus. The logic is . . . .well it just isn't logic. Like I said, someone has an axe to grind with the athletic dept, probably some sort of personal distaste for it.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:23 PM ^
It was women's rowing but the sentiment remains the same.
January 27th, 2021 at 6:03 PM ^
My bad, but I think I was told that the water polo team and rowing team shared winter training facilities. Either way, water polo, rowing, whatever. It is no more connected to BB than the physics dept. People in power trying desperately to prove it.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:37 PM ^
No offense to any women's water polo players reading this, but I would hazard to guess that their social circle has considerably *more* overlap with other athletes and support staff than with, say, the physics department. That, plus the fact that they all have to travel and be traveled to, in order to ply their craft. It's not an anti-athlete thing, it's an anti 'people breathing heavily in the same area' thing.
Much in the same vein as, unfortunately, churches being subject to COVID protocols. It sucks because church services by definition include many people in the same space singing, but it's not like health departments have it out for organized religion per se.
Given what we know, or more to the point, don't know about the new strain of COVID, I'd rather do too much than too little. As my state's health director said about the pandemic when it first hit, if it looks like in retrospect we overreacted then that's a good indicator we did things right.
January 27th, 2021 at 10:54 PM ^
Yeah, it feels like a lot of responses here are "how could this athlete in one sport possibly interact with this athlete in another sport" without recognizing that this virus is transmitted through interactions with people and those interactions can be chained along. I mean, last I checked there were 11 positive tests; that's enough people that if, say, an aide from one sport interacted with an aide from basketball (which isn't remotely crazy if you consider the overlap in a lot of those roles), it could be spread. Not saying that's the case, but I feel like every couple of weeks this place forgets the lessons we've picked up fighting a pandemic for almost a year and assume there's no way THIS instance could be like those.
I think the university and AD could be more transparent; UM in particularly seems resistant to that, and they should be taken to task for it. But this feels like a reasonable response to try to limit the damage of some bad decisions.
January 27th, 2021 at 2:28 PM ^
"But the physics department is still open"!
Dude, listen to yourself: did you somehow forget that we're talking about a university?
January 27th, 2021 at 6:08 PM ^
Are you saying that an academic dept gets to be more risky than an athletic dept, just cause it is a university and physics must go on at all costs? Cause you would be less worried about a bunch of middle aged couch potato professors getting and dying of covid than a bunch of 19 year olds?
January 27th, 2021 at 10:13 PM ^
Yeah, um, actually, I am saying that. Priorities man.
Setting that aside, as far as I can imagine, the Physics Department isn't and hasn't been "open" in any normal sense (i.e. remote classes, minimized and very cautious lab work) since March.
If you're so desperate to see SPORTZ at all costs, go watch the Pistons.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:31 PM ^
i for one can’t wait for the end of the pandemic, not because of the, you know, death and dying in every direction i look, but because i won’t have to listen irredeemable shitheads bitching about how overblown it is and how overcautious the people in power are and look at the real statistics and i know this one guy that had it and he’s fine and oh my god make it stop.
January 27th, 2021 at 1:27 PM ^
Hmm, for me it's the people who act like their congressional medal of honor is on the way because they typed "everyone should just stay home" a couple times on the internet.
January 27th, 2021 at 2:40 PM ^
Hate to "both sides" this, but I'm tired of everyone thinking they absolutely know what is best. We all have our preferences and opinions on the matter, but I can't wait for one less thing that we can all be divided on
January 27th, 2021 at 6:12 PM ^
Knowing what is best and calling out hypocrites are two different things. You don't have to know what is right/best to know hypocrisy.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:39 PM ^
"Brady's legs save the day!"
That old saying.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:42 PM ^
Fears about the pause extending past 14 days are probably unfounded.
My concern is not that the pause will be extended past Feb. 6, but that the team won't be in shape to play a big game against Illinois right after that. Either we go into that game with our conditioning shot to hell from two weeks of doing nothing or we postpone that, too.
January 27th, 2021 at 3:51 PM ^
Just to verify, a player can't even use the gym, correct? Even if it is one person? Also, I am not familiar, if students were just told to stay home, then where do the basketball players go? They just stay in their dorms?
January 27th, 2021 at 10:57 PM ^
I mean, I doubt the guys aren't doing "anything" right now. I think timing will be off and they'll be rusty; I'd pencil that game in for a loss. But these are college athletes who have a world-class athletic department watching over them; I'm sure they'll be given sufficient workout plans and the like to keep them in reasonable shape.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:54 PM ^
Whoever that LB was going against Evans, dude was doomed from the start. Evans 1-on-1 against any LB is a win. Especially with a 10-yd head start and no blockers!
But instead of seeing the swing passes, quick pitches, and wheel routes that would have largely isolated him against a LB, he was most often (by a mile) given the ball 7 yards deep and asked to go between the tackles.
Add Chris Evans to the list of criminally misused players in Michigan's vast football experience...
January 27th, 2021 at 1:08 PM ^
"But instead of seeing the swing passes, quick pitches, and wheel routes that would have largely isolated him against a LB..."
Just imagine how Meyer would have utilized Evans's talents. "Criminally misused" is entirely apt.
January 27th, 2021 at 1:16 PM ^
It's hard to get everyone involved and used properly when you're running as few plays as possible every game. Sacrifices have to be made to appease the killing clock gods.
January 27th, 2021 at 1:27 PM ^
Evans would look great in the backfield with Brady. The Bucs have a lot of things but their RBs cannot catch for shit.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:59 PM ^
I appreciate the recruiting plug by nhl.com. 32 draft positions, only 4 get accompanying pictures... and all four of them are the Michigan players and commit. Is the author a Michigan fan?
January 27th, 2021 at 1:14 PM ^
So cbssports.com sucks. Tried to click on the Brady diet story and had 5 or 6 things to click before I could get to the story. All while an auto-play commercial was deafening me.
I feel like there has to be a better ad campaign to run than that.
January 27th, 2021 at 1:29 PM ^
I am still baffled that nobody from the Federal government on down didn't impose a mandatory quarantine.
It's bad enough in Michigan with gridlock in the legislature and people in law enforcement not enforcing mandates. That's not mentioning all the protests. I don't want to see that multiplied by 50.
January 27th, 2021 at 1:38 PM ^
Point of clarification (I think?) on Brian's quarantine comment. I am pretty sure he is referring to a mandatory quarantine of travelers coming from a country - in this case the U.K. - where a new variant exists. Still challenges to executing it properly I'm sure, but much more doable than a nationwide "everyone is quarantied" order
January 27th, 2021 at 2:31 PM ^
He is. However, by the time the "British Variant" was identified it was probably too late. Just like it was too late last March when people realized the Covid was already here in the US (and had been for months).
Odds are it didn't even originate in Britain, they just found it first.
As the few people who have voiced support for the Australia/SE Asia type models note; unless we want to isolate this country 100% from the rest of the world, you can forget about keeping any variant of the Covid from getting into this country. There are some pretty sacred cows on both sides of the political divide that would have to be sacrificed in order for that to happen.
January 27th, 2021 at 2:45 PM ^
There are several issues with "mandatory quarantines", ranging from *who* has the authority to do it (state vs federal, executive vs legislative, etc.), *who* can be subject to it (citizen vs non-resident), *what* does it actually mean (what can they actually do), *how* constitutional is it, *who* enforces it, and several other issues not enumerated here.
Anyone spouting that "I can't believe [x] didn't do [y]" most likely does not have a full grasp of these considerations... especially since much of it is ill-defined at the outset. Comparisons to just about any modern European nation are flawed since none have the same state-federal dynamic (and really haven't since the Germanic confederations of the Holy Roman Empire) - and this is *not* a "bug" of the US system, but is an intentional feature.
I have said this numerous times since the begging of the pandemic: the situation would be much clearer (from a jurisdiction/logistic stamdpoint) if we were formally at war. Those lines/roles are already well defined in the various layers of civil government.
January 27th, 2021 at 2:22 PM ^
Oh, man. These John Currie items give me all the feels from when he was at KSU. Just a complete dipshit. I mean, if you are at KSU and are doing things to make Bill Snyder hate you, you are not very good at your job.
January 27th, 2021 at 2:47 PM ^
That Brady diet isn't far off from whole 30. It's honestly more in what you're used to and yeah, if you wholesale change your diet all at once the first couple weeks are going to suck real hard, and weird stuff is going to happen, but it's not that outrageous.
I lost 45lbs with a similar diet. Eventually it becomes the norm, and your cravings/desires change pretty fast when a slice of pizza and a beer now gives you the shits for 3 days after.
The water thing though is pretty stupid. I tried that formula and probably pissed 25 times a day. I asked my doctor and he almost fell off his chair laughing at me. "You can try for 80-90 oz if you want, but if you're trying to drink more and your body is telling you 'No, I don't want it', it's a pretty safe bet you're sufficiently hydrated."
January 27th, 2021 at 2:52 PM ^
I'm sure it was a completely rational and fair decision to have ND host the tournament.
January 27th, 2021 at 3:38 PM ^
The absurdity about the forced AD shutdown is how uselessly (over)reactive it is when the state is literally doing nothing to prevent this strain from coming into the state nor are they sequencing for it rigorously so as to be able to shut down any other cases in which it presents (spoiler alert, it's already in MI, the only reason they caught this is the rigor with which these athletes are being tested).
They are letting thousands of people into the state from the UK and have been for weeks without quarantining or doing anything about it so good luck keeping it out. And just like the original outbreak was well beyond China before countries even reacted to China travel, this is well beyond the UK now. It's in almost every state, certainly in numbers far more than we are aware because we're not sequencing many cases.
The good news is, this variant likely won't impact infection rates in the US because there's already a bunch of similarly contagious variants that evolved here already. We just didn't know about them because we weren't genetically sequencing like the UK was: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-scientists-hunting-for-coronavirus-15891829.php
January 27th, 2021 at 4:25 PM ^
The South African (I think also now being called Brazilian for some reason?) version is even more fun.
I'm sure it's here in the US now, there is zero doubt at all.
The media hasn't much officially noticed that one yet, they are probably still trying to milk the panic from the Brit Covid for clicks.
January 27th, 2021 at 5:24 PM ^
Ah, Mr. Hubaker going with the "but all my friends are jumping off the bridge, so why can't I?" approach.
January 27th, 2021 at 6:46 PM ^
or rowing the River Thames...
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