Wallpaper by jonvalk.
Before we dip into this week's user content, go draft your FreeRoll team! You've got until noon. Draft Street kindly sponsored yesterday's liveblog.
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Kids who were my age in France all grew up with this song Ce Matin, un Lapin… (this morning, a rabbit…) about a hare who turned the tables on a hunter and thus commenced the bunny revolution. The singer is a lady named Chantal Goya who spent years trying to carve out a niche in pop music by being ironically jejune, then found her calling by dropping the irony and singing kids songs on the French Disney Channel.
Kids my age who went to Michigan might remember a band called Tally Hall who have followed a similar career path. In 2005 I earned my Level 5 music cred badge by sharing a booth at a New York bar with the Atlantic Records people while Tally tried out for them. The music folk tossed around fancy adjectives like "jejune" to capture how fresh and cool it was to find a rock band that can occupy the antipode of metal the Beatles brushed with An Octopus's Garden. They signed them, but after one album the label forgot about them and that lapsed into that. Recently my best friend reported via Facebook that his three-year-old is a huge Tally Hall fan.
All this week Michigan fans shared a booth with all the really cool basketball people while they circle-talked themselves into the South Dakota State Jackrabbits as the hipster upset pick and Nate Wolters as the best point guard in the country (though you've probably never heard of him).
Nine minutes into the second half the rabbits were finally starting to lose pace with the Wolverines when Burke and LeVert* went up for a rebound and Wolters ran in to give Trey a 'Wisconsin Special' undercut hip check that sent Michigan's own pretty good guard crashing to the floor. As Burke clutched his head the panic claxons went off in yours. There was no foul (of course), the ball was awarded to the Jackrabbits (of course), and they of course went right down the court and scored.
Bryan Fuller|MGoBlog
You could imagine the Disney ending from here, a Cinderella advance amidst the cheers of Spartans in brand new turquoise tees. All it would take was 11 minutes of indifferent D, refs that hate us, threes that clang, twos that shouldn't have been shot, and Spike Albrecht running around with the ball like a mad chicken, to end the career of Michigan's greatest player since _____(?) with the prostrate pose above.
Here's how it really went:
- Stauskas drove hard (NJAS!) to the basket and through hard contact to make a layup and collect a rare and-one, which he made. 52-43.
- Wolters forced to take a long two, missed, rebounded by Albrecht
- Albrecht does his running around thing, gets the ball to Hardaway, TIMMMAYY makes a jumpshot. 54-43.
- Wolters misses a three, Horford MANBALLS the rebound out of another contestant's hands.
- Trey Burke returns, drives inside collecting ALL THE DEFENSE, then kicks out to wide open Hardaway for three, buried. 57-43.
That was enough for the Wolverines to finish off the rascally rabbits, final score 71-56.
As it turns out the audience for simple cutesy catchy formulaic music is little kids, rabbits tend to lose to hunters, and Michigan is better at major sports than those guys you've probably never heard of. Who could have imagined? Also as it turns out this little game column was all a prelude to the Diary of the Week by saveferris, who looked at the performance of past 4 seeds and found, well, the higher seed you are the better your prospects for tourney success. File all of this under the kind of duh that takes occasional reminding.
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* His surname is French for "The Green" but a "leveret" is a baby rabbit.
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Etc. Every goal from hockey's WMU sweep plus a few bad puns of blue/blew from MGoBlueline. The basketball game is at noon on Saturday so you can watch that then still make it to the Joe. LSAClassof2000 looks at run vs. pass balance over recent Big Ten history, finding Wisconsin and Ohio State run a lot. Need to get the 4th quarters and blowouts out of there though if you want to find the meat. Blockhams was drawn before Ryan was hurt, isn't funny anymore.
[Jump, Best of the Boards]
THE MICHIGAN DRILL
mgovideo: on the board | on his site
Pipkins made a pretty nice play against Bosch and Rawls starting at about the 2:25 mark, directly followed by Quinton Washington against Braden in which Q completely halts some poor guy wearing 18 (I think) with just his arm.
HOT NEW MEME: VCU EQUALS TURNOVERS
Our second round opponent if you haven't heard likes to force a lot of turnovers. Nice work by Gordon Berenson to break down the TOs in each of VCU's games this year. Money shot:
In wins VCU sports the following:
VCU TO: 11.3 per game
Opp TO: 21.7 per game
TO Ratio: 1.92In losses VCU does this:
VCU TO: 12.1 per game
Opp TO: 14 per game
TO Ratio: 1.16
Michigan averages 9 turnovers a game to opponents' 12; we lead the nation with a 1.55 assist-turnover ratio. Trey Burke plus all the points.
SOLAR SYSTEM RECRUITING
According to the latest maps of the universe, matter is a slightly bigger deal (4.9% versus 4.5%) than was previously thought. This is good news for Michigan State recruiting, via 5th and Long:
That was his response to the thread for Facebook's cool rooting interest maps. Turns out life on other planets is all just a bunch thugs who wish they lived on Earth. It also appears Russian Spartan fans have discovered a new land bridge. #NEVERENDINGWINTER
ETC. The football t-shirt designs for this year are for the kids; my vote's with #2. I can only take this kid saying "GONZAAAAGAAAAH" like twice. Spring roster discussion.
This is the Sort of Thing Your Moment of Zen Was Created For:
Oh Les-xy you so SEC-xy.