On the awful MSU thing. I have all these tabs open and am struggling to say anything that's not all-caps and spittle-flecked. Most of these tabs have the same theme: how on earth can these people survey the devastation wrought under their leadership-type substance and not commit career seppuku? The lack of shame on the part of MSU's leadership is unprecedented; all these people should be voted out, if possible. The two guys who would have been up for election in November are getting out of the way, but if I know anything it's that a... person like Joel Ferguson will try to bluster his way through:
Joel Ferguson, vice chairman of the MSU board of trustees: “The meeting we had the other day was five hours. Talking (Simon) was 10 minutes. ... There's so many more things going on at this university than just 'this Nassar thing.'”https://t.co/sRE6lPb5kE
— Scott Bell (@sbell021) January 23, 2018
As a reminder, here's Ferguson in March:
“But if Coach Klages was told as early as 1997 about this and didn’t do anything, isn’t the university at fault?” Jones asked.
“I wouldn’t say that at all,” Ferguson said. “That’s a bad decision that she made, and it has to be stretched to us by all the folks chasing ambulances, because there’s no payday by her.”
He's up in 2020, and if the state Democratic party knows what's good for them they won't let him get to the ballot. Does anyone know if you can recall trustees?
Meanwhile, Lou Anna Simon should not resign. She should be put in jail. She was told that there was a sexual predator at the university she purports to be in charge of, and she said "don't tell me about it," by her own admission:
"I told people to play it straight up, and I did not receive a copy of the report."
If three Penn State executives saw jail time for failure to report, Simon should too. It is absolutely indisputable that her purported leadership increased the number of victims from the worst serial sex assault case in American history. I feel like I'm going crazy here. At long last, does Michigan State have no shame?
The nice old man who expresses himself in Werther's Originals sculpture. A very John Beilein criticism is leveled here.
"You gave me some lame excuse... what was the lame excuse?" @JohnBeilein shows no mercy in the film room, as @BTNJourney embedded with @umichbball this past week.
Fueled by @Gatorade: pic.twitter.com/xGMtu0j9xH
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) January 18, 2018
The man is himself, and nobody else.
Patterson status. Michigan is waiting on Shea Patterson's appeal for immediate eligibility, but the folks in charge are dotting and crossing letters before they make their move. "Late February" is the current timeframe; Sam Webb provides the most thorough update I've seen so far:
There are six other kids/schools I know of at this point – Houston (Deonte Anderson), Florida (Van Jefferson), Nebraska (Breon Dixon), Georgia Tech (Jack DeFoor), Central Florida (Tre Nixon), and UAB (Jarrion Street). My gut tells me that the process for gathering information for each kid’s appeal is painstakingly thorough and they all want to make sure no details are missed. So the delay is largely due to their desire to make sure no corroborating details are missed, because as one source close to Patterson’s circle told me… “you only get one shot at this. You can’t go back and add things after the fact.)”
There are several additional paragraphs at the link.
The delay comes from meticulousness as the lawyer who's working with these guys collects everything from all seven of them so he can present the best case to the NCAA that Ole Miss went out of its way to lie to that year's recruiting class so they would end up signing. NCAA waivers seem to make no sense from the outside but the large number of guys petitioning gives several different schools motivation to get this done, and collectively they should be able to gather sufficient hard evidence that Ole Miss got them to sign by lying their asses off to convince the NCAA of that fact. Hopefully that's enough for the waiver.
Hurst burst in first. Daniel Jeremiah ranks the top 50 prospects for the upcoming NFL draft; Mo Hurst lands at #21:
Hurst is an undersized defensive tackle with exceptional quickness and awareness. Against the pass, he has elite get-off. He explodes off the snap and has a collection of effective hand moves to generate pressure. His bread-and-butter move is a quick swipe before wrapping around the blocker and exploding toward the quarterback. Against the run, he relies on his quickness to beat cut-off blocks and disrupt. Occasionally, he'll get stuck on blocks and is moved out of the hole. His effort is excellent. Overall, Hurst is an ideal 3-technique and could emerge as one of the best interior pass rushers in the league.
No complaints with that evaluation. I do think that #21 might be low for him since the NFL is now such a passing-heavy league. The kind of interior disruption Hurst provides is much more important than his tendency to get clunked on the rare occasions anyone can land a clean shot on him. Naturally, PFF has him third overall because they're just behind Mo Hurst's mom on the list of entities that like Mo Hurst. (MGoBlog is #3.)
Never again. Stu Douglass has a story about offensive rebounding:
Good story to backup the "emphasis" part:
I once got a tip dunk in the half court during our euro trip & during film (you guys know he clips everything) he showed the play and I was so proud of it up until "you will never do that again". I was a good O-rebounder before college
— Stuart Douglass (@SWD_317) January 14, 2018
I think we all knew this in our hearts already.
Good move. Now generalize it:
DI Autonomy conferences pass proposal to allow men’s ice hockey prospects to be represented by an agent without jeopardizing college eligibility.
— Inside the NCAA (@InsidetheNCAA) January 19, 2018
The agent thing has always been more pressing in hockey because of competition from Canadian juniors. Agents prefer the security of a contract to the probable-but-not-definite relationship they had with an NCAA prospect as their "advisor," so the prevailing thought amongst college hockey coaches is that agents tend to push their guys towards the CHL. That barrier is gone. Probably won't change much in the ongoing CHL-NCAA blood war, but neither will it do anything to the competitive landscape of college hockey.
It's past time for everyone to get that consideration.
Don't get it stolen, don't get it blocked. Defense by possession start:
summary of possession efficiency after a 'start type' in CBB through saturday's games this year. the % transition column counts a possession as transition if it ends within 10 seconds of the start. didn't expect to see recovered blocks that high. pic.twitter.com/mKpRMV9OfS
— Will Schreefer (@ReferSadness) January 23, 2018
Fairly intuitive. It is interesting that first possessions are so bad even relative to normal half-court offense.
Etc.: Quinn Hughes is the #4 NA skater in the CSB midterm rankings. Incoming D Bode Wilde is #22. No one else makes the list except 2019 recruit Phillipe Lapointe, who's #201—in the usually undrafted range. Angelique on Grant Newsome. On Dakota Raabe's first goal. If I had one critique it's that the sword is nowhere near big enough. Abuse enablers for jail.