We’ll get started a bit before 6pm.

Here’s to keeping it respectable!

Posted under Basketball

Or: Tim’s foray into tempo-free statistics.

Michigan takes on UConn at 6PM tonight on ESPN. The game takes place on the Huskies’ home floor in Storrs.

Tempo-Free and efficiency comparison (if you need an explanation of what any of these things mean, head to KenPom’s website):

Differences of more than 100 places in the rankings garner two-letter advantages, differences of more than 200 get a third.

I’ll keep this brief, since Michigan is going to get beaten down by the #1 team in the country. 1 fact of note: Michigan’s team profile improved in every single respect following the Penn State game except for offensive rebounding. They still have huge deficits to UConn in most of the Four Factors, though the discrepancies in overall offensive and defensive efficiency really aren’t all that bad.

KenPom predicts a 77-59 Huskies win, and I think it’ll be a little closer, but still something of a blowout.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Part 1 can be found on MGoBlog

Brendan Gibbons

Coach said that Brendan has a great leg and will immediately compete for playing time at place kicker and on kick offs, especially with the departures of Gingell (whew) and K.C. Lopata (actually fairly solid).

Cameron Gordon

Staff seems high on him at receiver. Rodriguez said that Cameron will compete for time at receiver exclusively. Currently no plans for him to play linebacker.  That could chance in the future, but so far it seems he’ll stay put at wide receiver.

Thomas ‘Prison Abs’ Gordon

Rodriguez said the Gordon was one of the better all around athletes in the class.  He gave the impression that Gordon’s position is kind of in flux, but he’ll start working at safety and nickel.

Brandin Hawthorne

I didn’t tweet any notes about him and can’t remember if coach Rodriguez said anything of note about him.  He’s listed at 6’0″ and 197, so there could be a redshirt in his future to allow him bulk up and learn linebacker reads.

Mike Jones

Who? Anyway, Jones was pretty funny when I talked to him at the press conference. He’s taking five classes and says they’re not bad, but the papers are kind of tough.  Rodriguez says he’ll start out at safety, but has a good chance of putting on weight and becoming an outside linebacker.

Teric Jones

Rodriguez said Teric was one of the fastest guys he’s seen, which is saying something.  He’s going to start out primarily at running back and maybe work into the slot at some point.  I almost get the feeling that he’ll red shirt, but that’s my own opinion without any real corroboration.

Anthony LaLota

He mentioned how LaLota hasn’t been playing football that long, but is a really athletic defensive lineman that played basketball for most of high school. Rodriguez said that all 3 incoming defensive linemen will have a chance to get in and play, but I think it will be  tough for him to see the field with how raw he’s reported to be.  I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he redshirts, but he’s in the program right now trying to improve, so who knows?

Part III will be a bit later today or early tomorrow. I’m actually having to do work at work. Weird, right?

Posted under Football, Personnel

Rawr.

Delaware State is your 12th opponent, per the DetNews, and I’ve posted a preliminary look at the Hornets over on the Mothership.

Posted under Football

Quick programming update: The first few recaps of info on individual players from the press conference are up on MGoBlog. Subsequent notes will be here throughout the day and maybe a bit tomorrow.

If you want a full recap of the game that’s not obscured by some post work revelry, I suggest you head over to UMHoops and check out Dylan’s always excellent recaps.

For a lot of games in the Big Ten season I’ve found myself repeating the same things over and over again. Indiana/Purdue/Penn St./Illinois can’t keep hitting those shots. They invariably kept hitting them. Michigan can’t keep shooting this poorly all game. They sure could. The refs will actually start calling those hacks on Manny. They never really did. Finally, against Penn St. last night, I was actually right.

In the first half Battle made some ridiculous shots that no one has any business making.  But Michigan kept playing mostly good aggressive defense and eventually it payed off. They held Battle to 3/16 shooting and only 9 points.  This is the guy who has to be the odds on favorite for Big Ten player of the year and he was pretty much stymied.

On the other side, Manny blew up.  He got his 3pt shot to fall early, which seemed to give him a bunch of confidence.  He also, for probably the first time in conference, got to the line like he should. 14 free throw attempts! That has to be the record for him in Big Ten games this year. He didn’t just score either. His final line was 28pts/6reb/7ast/2blks/2stl and only 2 turnovers.  This was easily his best game of the conference season and definitely top 3 on the year.

I’m not sure if Penn St. was doing something different from the first time the two teams met, but it really seemed that Michigan was able to get a lot of cuts moving toward the basket for easy lay ups and dunks. Like I said, I was certainly enjoying myself during this game, so my analysis is lacking, but I feel the big difference was Michigan finally started hitting some outside shots. This stretched out the defense, which allowed for the cuts and for Manny to get into the lane and make things happen.  On top of that, when Michigan is hitting their shots, all the players seem to be much more energetic in the 1-3-1 and force a lot of action.

When Michigan gets going like they did last night, they can hang with most teams in the league, especially at home.  I’m not going to say there’s a chance against UConn, but the performance of Manny and the defense of the entire team gives me hope that Michigan could steal a game down the stretch and maybe win a couple of tournament games.  Every time I think this team in done, they go and play well.

Posted under Basketball

On National Signing Day, dual-threat quarterback Denard Robinson signed on the line to become a Michigan Wolverine. Robinson stands 6-0, 190, and has been clocked in the 40-yard dash at 4.38 seconds. Robinson became the 21st commit in the class of 2009.

Recruiting Notes
Following the decommitments of Kevin Newsome and Shavodrick Beaver, recruiting a second quarterback for the class of 2009 became a priority for the Wolverines. Several prospects became options, including Raymond Cotton, Tajh Boyd, and one Denard Robinson. Robinson immediately got the full-court press from Michigan, who knew they had a tough compeition for Robinson’s signature, going mostly against the home-state Florida Gators. Florida and Michigan were the only two of Robinson’s offers that offered him the opportunity to be a signal-caller at the next level. Robinson took his official visit to Michigan the January 9th recruiting weekend, along with his teammate, corner Adrian Witty. Within a couple weeks, he knew that he wanted to play in the Rich Rodriguez spread offense, but held off on announcing a decision until Signing Day. At his 11AM press conference at his high school, Robinson gave a fake-out by showing up in a Florida Gators hat. However, when he announced his actual intentions, he picked the Michigan Wolverines.

Player Notes
Robinson is a definite dual-threat quarterback, and has speed and moves that Wolverine fans haven’t seen from the quarterback position in ages. He is not only accomplished as a runner, but he can really throw the ball, as well. Robinson has a strong arm, and with some coaching at the next level, could become a very good passer. He has been compared to Rich’s former WVU quarterback, Pat White. The one major knock on Denard Robinson (at least as far the the QB position goes) is size. He is (generously?) listed at just 6 feet tall. One advantage Robinson has over other QB prospects is the ability to switch positions. If playing quarterback doesn’t pan out (i.e. if he gets beaten out by Tate Forcier and/or other QBs down the road), he will be able to switch positions.

Video

Posted under Football, Recruiting

We’re suffering from live blog fatigue from Signing Day, but the guys from WLA are ready and raring to go. They’ll be moderating, but we may come in for a bit. Also check out their new digs.

Posted under Basketball

Rich Rodriguez uses his press conferences much like a politician does. He takes the attention, especially on big days, and uses it to shape the message and control the commentary. There were 3 major themes that he came back to and stressed throughout the press conference. It seems like a lot of his responses were directed to local columnists who, for some reason or another, seem hellbent on proving he’s a current or future failure.  This was put together from my recollection and the tweets I banged out during the conference. Statements in quotation marks are actual quotes. The full press conference can be viewed on MGoBlue.com.

Recruiting the State of Michigan

Coach Rodriguez came back to this point 4 or 5 times during the press conference, which seemed fairly telling. A lot of the local papers have accused the new coaching staff of forsaking the state of Michigan in favor of Florida and other southern states in which the coaches had connections during their tenure at WVU (or, for many of them, South Florida).  On first look, that may  appear to be valid, since there are only 4 players in the class from Michigan, and MSU snagged the better half of the state’s top 10 recruits.

Rodriguez addressed this bluntly a few times. At one point he said “people who say we don’t recruit the state of Michigan are way off-base,” and  “it’s the first place we look.” He mentioned that Michigan is the place where the first targets on the board come from.  He also said that he’s not going to take a Michigan kid just because he’s from Michigan. They’re going after guys who fit their system, and they’ll look in Michigan first, and go national if they can’t find what they need in the home state.

One reason for the lack of commitments from kids in Michigan is that the coaching staff hasn’t had the time to develop the relationships with the high school coaches. Coach Rodriguez’s coaches clinics have a good reputation, so this should turn around quickly. Expect Michigan to push hard after the big name in state prospects (Devin Gardner, William Gholston, et al).

Effects of a 3-9 Season/Negative Recruiting

This was another recurring theme during the press conference.  He said that some of the recruits had some questions about the season and the issues that the team faced. The struggles made some people a little wary, but Rodriguez also said that because of some of the weaknesses on the team, he was able to promise every recruit the opportunity to come in and immediately compete and make an impact.

He also said that negative recruiting often comes back and bites the person spreading the rumors. One example he gave was southern schools trying to scare kids by talking about the weather in Michigan. A lot of kids from Florida were braced for an Arctic expedition only to find it wasn’t as bad as they thought.

Obviously Rodriguez didn’t name any specific coaches, but at the beginning of his statement he made a statement to the effect of “there was a lot of negative recruiting out there we had to fight through.” He kind of pulled back a little bit and said that, in general, most coaches don’t do any negative recruiting. Usually it’s a young, over-ambitious assistant trying to reach.

Rodriguez, predictably, stated in no uncertain terms that neither he, nor anyone on his staff recruit negatively. He said, “if you got a good enough program to sell, why bash someone else’s?” Also, as previously mentioned, there is a real chance of backlash when recruiting goes negative.

Decommitments

This got brought up more than once, a lot of times by the reporters asking questions. Rodriguez said he “wasn’t surprised by anything on Signing Day.” This may be spin, but it was apparent that he had a pretty good idea of what was going down, especially with the two defensive tackles. He basically conceded that a commitment from a kid who is still taking visits doesn’t really mean anything; you still have to recruit him hard, since the commitment basically doesn’t exist.

He also said 2 or 3 time that “sometimes you want people to decommit, sometimes you don’t.”  I’m pretty sure he didn’t want both DTs to decommit, but it makes sense in the case of Jordan Barnes, DeWayne Peace, and their ilk. The offer still stands, but the communication and constant salesmanship flags until eventually the recruit realizes he is no longer wanted, and chooses someone else.  Seems a bit ethically dubious, but better than the alternative of over-signing. Recruiting is, in essence, seamy, so it’s all shades of gray to a certain extent.

If you have any specific questions about Rich Rodriguez’s portion of the press conference, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Posted under Coaching, Football

At the top of his press conference Rich Rodriguez basically went through the list and talked briefly about each commit. A lot of it was coach-speak and praising the high school coaches, but there was quite a bit of useful information (as opposed to Lloyd Carr press conferences, which were awesome in their own way) on most of the players. One interesting thing in general is that Rodriguez let us know who the lead recruiter was for each player, and for just about everyone from Florida it was Rod Smith. I guess that’s why need a de facto third QB coach. On to the players:

Isaiah Bell

Coach mentioned that the staff is really tight with Youngstown Liberty coach Jeff Whittaker. It’s not that stacked of a school, but seems to produce a bit of talent ona regular.  He said that Bell would start competing as a safety, but if he can but on enough weight, may move up to outside linebacker.

William Campbell

Looking at depth chart would probably tell you this too, but Rodriguez said that Campbell will play defense only and will compete for playing time right at the outset.  Campbell got the instant impact tag from the coach.  Will said himself that his goal is to start his freshman year.  Even though he is a really funny, kind of goofy guy, I get the feeling that he’s super competative; I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be a RB/QB playing against Michigan in two years. Campbell is now doing the full Barwis workout and says the toughest part was the running becuase since the all star game he’s been relaxing and “got fat.”

Vlad Emilien

Coach said he could play either Safety position and will probably be moved around to positions of need.

Tate Forcier

Apparently in the Spring, Jason Forcier was in town and talked with Rodriguez. He basically said he’d recruit Tate for Michigan.  I just can’t help but wonder how different this last year would have been if Forcier hadn’t transferred… Oh well.  Obviously will come and compete right away for time at QB. When a reporter asked Rodriguez if he was confident that he’ll end up with a really good quarterback he responded that “we’ll have a really good competition.”  Tate says he works much more on accuracy and a quick release than arm strength. In some passing drills he claims he hit Mike Cox and Kevin Koger in the back of the head because they weren’t expecting the ball to get there as quickly as it did.  After his interview with the TV crews at the press conference, most reporters were surprised at how well he handled himself.  He really seemed like a pro.

Jeremy Gallon

For some reason, I gor the feeling that Rodriguez is especially excited about Gallon, but I’m probably just projecting my own excitement.  Coach said he’ll compete immediately at slot.  Tim has made this argument that Odoms is a pretty good slot receiver, but the concept of the slot receiver may be more appealing than Odoms himself.  Rodriguez also mentioned that he’ll immediately be in the mix for returning kicks.  Obviously, Coach didn’t talk about grade issues in specifics, but he mentioned that there are about 2-3 recruits who haven’t been approved by the Clearinghouse and that all of those recruits of realistic plans to follow that will allow them to qualify.  Rodriguez didn’t really seem to worried about grade issues.

Check out Varsity Blue throughout the day for the tidbits on the rest of recruits.

Posted under Football, Personnel, Recruiting

Or: Tim’s foray into tempo-free statistics.

The Wolverines have a chance to exact revenge on Penn State tonight at home. The Wolverines will try to get a home victory on BTN at 7PM.

Tempo-Free and efficiency comparison (if you need an explanation of what any of these things mean, head to KenPom’s website):

Differences of more than 100 places in the rankings garner two-letter advantages, differences of more than 200 get a third.

When Last We Met…

Various Nittany Lions were absolutely on fire from he floor, and DeShawn Sims was the only Michigan player who could do anything from the field (LLP was 0/6 from 3, for example, and Manny was 2/11 from the field). Michigan got sent home from State College with a 58-73 beatdown.

Since Last We Met…

Michigan briefly halted their slide against Northwestern, but got beaten up at the hands of Ohio State and Purdue. Zack Novak and Manny Harris were ejected (fairly and unfairly, respectively) in those two games, and Michigan’s offense and defense are both headed into the tank. The one area in which Michigan has improved is rebounding, but that hasn’t been enough to net them any wins. The Wovlerines, preiously great at not turning the ball over, have startedmaking up for lost time in giving the ball away, and the shooting has gone from very good to aboslutely pitiful.

The Nittany Lions, on the other hand, have caught fire. They struggled throughout most of their game with Iowa, but pulled together at the end for a huge come-from-behind win, then they beat Michigan State in East Lansing.

And it Means…

Sine the long break before OSU wasn’t enough to spur the team to a win, the even longer break this time can hopefully help them. With Zack Novak taking a breather for the Purdue game, and Manny getting one for nearly the entire second half, the team should be well-rested. The key will be for the shooting to return to respectable levels, if not where it was early in the season. Limiting easy baskets by Penn State, and not sending them to the foul line will also be key. PSU has advantages in most tempo-free cateogires, so the current Michigan team will have to revert to the non-conference Michigan team is they want to win.

Ken Pomeroy predicts a 68-66 Wolverines victory in a 62-possession game, and gives Michigan a 56% chance of winning. Since NCAA tournaments dreams have basically become unrealistic, the Wolverines absolutely require a win here to stay alive, or they’re at least playing for NIT seeding.

Posted under Basketball