In which I discuss the sports teams at the University of Michigan

[cougjunkie]

Michigan now up to 8 commits this weekend and 10 overall in the top 200. Alabama had 14 in the top 200 last year anffinished with the top class.

[woot]

Michigan now up to 8 commits this weekend and 10 overall in the top 200. Alabama had 14 in the top 200 last year anffinished with the top class.

Yeah that was a crazy weekend. If even half of the elite guys that currently favor Michigan end up committing this will be a class for the ages. It probably won't have more than 20-22 kids in it.

I love Hoke's style. He's going after high-character kids who care about academics and giving it to them straight in a non-flashy way. One of the weekend's commits was down to Stanford and Michigan, and said he went with Michigan because it came down to academics. Cool.

[woot]

Michigan wins a share of the B10 title, first since 1986. It's been a long road for the organization, but the number of consensus 4-stars on the team quadruples next year, and John Beilein has shown he can develop talent. I expect good things.

[dabrockster]

Congrats to you. And to my Buckeyes... It was nice to beat MSU @ home and redeem their loss...

[woot]

Michigan announced yesterday that 3 basketball players are transferring. One was a career end-of-the-bench guy, one was a relatively good PG recruit who just didn't seem very good on the court, and one was the guy projected to start at the 4 next year.

This year Michigan basically had a 6-man rotation, so with 2 of them graduating and 1 transferring, next year becomes a bit scary despite a really good recruiting class coming in.

Expectations are still that next year's team will be better, but Trey Burke is now thinking about entering the draft, which would be a disaster. There is not a single player outside of Burke on next year's roster with sufficient handles to run the point. I think it'd be fun to see how well a team that talented does without a PG, but I suspect it wouldn't result in much success.

It seems likely that Burke will return, since he's probably second round pick at best, but his only real negative is his 5-11 height, which isn't going to improve, so he might go ahead anyway, especially given that this is a pretty weak draft for PGs (although it's a pretty deep draft overall, it seems).

In football news, UM is up to 16 recruits, 15 of which show up on at least one of the top 250/300 lists. There are still 4 or 5 5-star types that list Michigan as their leader too, so if we can get a couple of those this could be a really good class. Available scholarships sit at 19, but a class of 22-24 is likely (5th years not being kept, natural attrition, etc.)

[woot]

Another cool thing that might be happening is using Devin Gardner at WR. He was the #1 dual-threat QB out of high school but has had to sit behind Denard. Personally, I hate his throwing mechanics and am skeptical that he'll be a very good QB, but I think he has the look of a great WR, which will be a thin position this year.

The issue is that there are only 3 scholarship QBs on the roster, a senior (Denard), a RS freshman who wasn't all that great of a recruit, and Gardner. It seems a conundrum, but if Denard can stay healthy I like getting Devin on the field. There's an excellent QB coming in 2013, so that reduces the risk of this slightly.

[woot]

So far this spring, Michigan's best defensive player and their #2 QB have torn their ACLs. The former is a huge blow, but there's a serviceable veteran replacement, at least. With the backup QB out, there is a grand total of 1 scholarship QB now on the roster (with another arriving in the fall). So, either a redshirt freshman walk-on will be the backup, or the true freshman will waste what should have been his redshirt year. Bummer either way.

The basketball team isn't bad though.

[woot]

GR3 and Mitch McGary are announcing their decisions at 4:30 today. Early reports, which so far have been reliable in every case, have them coming back. This would be huge for Michigan. Burke and Hardaway have highly-ranked 1-to-1 replacements coming in, while the other two would have caused some roster chaos. So Michigan should still be pretty good next year if these reports are indeed true.

[cougjunkie]

GR3 and Mitch McGary are announcing their decisions at 4:30 today. Early reports, which so far have been reliable in every case, have them coming back. This would be huge for Michigan. Burke and Hardaway have highly-ranked 1-to-1 replacements coming in, while the other two would have caused some roster chaos. So Michigan should still be pretty good next year if these reports are indeed true.

In order the Michigan players that should have come out:

1. Burke
2. GRIII
3. McGary
4. Hardaway

Of course Hardaway comes back and 2 and 3 stay.

[woot]

In order the Michigan players that should have come out:

1. Burke
2. GRIII
3. McGary
4. Hardaway

Of course Hardaway comes back and 2 and 3 stay.

Yeah I'm guessing Hardaway just realized that he is what he is and staying another year wouldn't have gotten him into the first round. I would have preferred to see him stay, but don't think he's a huge loss. Burke was pretty much a given, so the other two were the major concern. I think they'll both be much improved next year and am excited to see them develop. They should both be lottery picks if all goes well next year.

[woot]

The interior offensive line looked pretty good against CMU in week 1, so the biggest question mark on the team could be okay. CMU isn't a great gauge, obviously, but last year they didn't look against anybody. The 5-tech spot seems like it'll be decent by committee (the 4-man d-line has 9 or 10 guys getting roughly equal minutes), and the new FS played fine too. The RBs are still a bit pedestrian, but there's tons of talent there and the lights will come on eventually.

So it seems that M has reliable guys at just about every position -- guys who will get their assignment done on most every play, but who in most cases won't do anything beyond that. That seems like a recipe for a solid 9 or 10 win season. It'll take some luck to do better.

ND could go either way. It'll be crazy under the lights.

[woot]

[woot]

So the defense doesn't seem as good as hoped, the offensive line is maybe a little better than I'd feared, the running backs aren't nearly as good as I'd assumed, and the QB, while very different from Denard, shares the penchant for being either amazing or terrible. I'll stick with my 9-win prediction, but shrug. If M goes out and pounds UCONN this weekend, I'll be confident that Akron was an aberration and might even feel better about 10 wins, but this is a very flawed team either way.

In 2014, even if Gardner comes back the offense could be anywhere from above average to horrific. The defense should be a great deal better though.

[The_Douger]

So the defense doesn't seem as good as hoped, the offensive line is maybe a little better than I'd feared, the running backs aren't nearly as good as I'd assumed, and the QB, while very different from Denard, shares the penchant for being either amazing or terrible. I'll stick with my 9-win prediction, but shrug. If M goes out and pounds UCONN this weekend, I'll be confident that Akron was an aberration and might even feel better about 10 wins, but this is a very flawed team either way.

In 2014, even if Gardner comes back the offense could be anywhere from above average to horrific. The defense should be a great deal better though.

Michigan will beat them. UConn lost at home to an FCS team bad in their opener. They aren't a good team this year.

[woot]

Michigan will beat them. UConn lost at home to an FCS team bad in their opener. They aren't a good team this year.

Well, yeah. But Michigan needs to basically decide what the scoreboard will read against UConn or else Akron will not have been an aberration.