What's Up This Weekend? Relaxing St. Patrick's Selection Sunday Edition

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​Selection Sunday is upon us.  And OF COURSE there will be a 13th (!?!?) annual UMTailgate.com Tournament Challenge.  

There will be no nail-biting anticipation.  There's no question, we're in.  But we need to get this whole Big Ten Tournament thing out of the way first, right?  I was inclined to vote for tanking it and having the boys enjoy a full week off, but yesterday's second half against The Fighting Sanduskys (classless? yup) made me feel better about the tank-job on Sunday (which I paid about $100 to watch over 3G in Columbia).  Maybe the BTT can be used to wipe the poor taste from our mouths left from Sunday, or that other PSU game, or the definitively poor last quarter of the season.

A'ight? A'ight.​

Today (3/15/13):​

  • ​Basketball (26-6, 12-6) vs. Wisconsin (21-10, 12-6):  And you thought we wouldn't get to avenge that half-court shot that sent the game to that shitty overtime at the Kohl center.  Big Ten Tournament Round Two Action tips off at the United Center at 2:30PM -ESPN.
  • Baseball (8-7) at Coastal Carolina (7-10): We're heading to the home of the Chanticleers!  First pitch in Myrtle Beach at 4pm.  Live audio lives here.
  • Hockey (15-18-3, 9-15-3) at Western Michigan (19-9-8, 15-7-6)​:  CCHA quarterfinals action in Kalamazoo.  I wonder if the Godfather is going?  I wonder who he will be cheering for?  6:35pm on FSD.
  • Big Ten Tournament Other Games:  Game 5: No. 1 Indiana vs. No. 8 Illinois, 11 a.m., ESPN  ||  Game 7: No. 2 Ohio State vs. No. 10 Nebraska, 5:30 p.m., BTN  ||  Game 8: No. 3 Michigan State vs. No. 6 Iowa, 8 p.m.*, BTN

Tomorrow (3/16/13):

  • Basketball vs. Indiana or Illinois:  The Big Ten Tournament continues?  ​12:40PM CBS
  • Other BTT Semi-Final: Ohio State or Nebraska vs. Iowa (see what I did there?)​ 3:00PM CBS
  • Baseball at Coastal Carolina: 3pm Live Audio​
  • Hockey at Western Michigan: Game 2 of the CCHA quarterfinals 7pm...no coverage?

St. Patrick's Day:

  • Drinking and Breakfast at Conor Oneill'​s with your's truly.  7AM
  • Basketball vs. Ohio State, Nebraska or Iowa:  The BTT finals...2:30PM CBS
  • Baseball vs. Akron (in Myrtle Beach)​ 11:00AM
  • NCAA Tournament Selection Announcement 6PM CBS.​
  • Hockey at Western Michigan (if necessary) 7pm

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Weekend Roundup, This is Just the Beginning Edition: 2/4/13

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Here's what happened this weekend while you helped put Denard on the cover of the next NCAA Football video game.

  • Big lights.  Big stage.  Big pooping of the pants.  Oh well, there's more games ahead.  Big ones.  Bigger ones.  And we're gonna win some of them.  We're still growing.  Still learning.  Kids.  And we've still got Trey.  There's time, a lot of it.  6 weeks...9 regular season games followed by the most competitive conference tournament in America.  Then it starts for realzies.   ESPN recap here.   UMHoops initial reaction.  Detroit News recap.

Weekend Roundup, Media Guide Edition: August 12, 2012

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The 2012 Michigan Football Media Guide is out (actually it's been out for a little while).  I remember when the media guide was a heavy $20 bible you'd run out and get at the MDen before the season started, and you'd go through page by page, marveling ​at the amazing history and tradition of Michigan Football.  There's probably some old timers from the tailgate that remember when the media guide was reserved for the media.  Now it's a publicly distributed pdf file, and those same old timers are squinting and reading a manual to figure out how to download it and save it as a file on their "internet boxes."  Ah, times they are a changin'.  It's available here in all of its glory.  And it's a big pdf, so be patient....especially if you're still rolling free dial-up internet from Net Zero.

Anyway, here's what happened around the internets​ while you sat in the fetal position in a corner wondering if the fact that Fitz was cleared to practice means he might play in Dallas.

  • ESPN's power rankings discuss Michigan at #8.  The have the weight of the world resting on Denard's shoulders.  Denard covers some boilerplate keys to season, and the pundits talk about our difficult schedule, and O and D line issues.
  • Michigan Basketball is on the map.  ESPN hopes to cover a rekindling of the rivalry of the 70's and 80's between Michigan and Indiana when Gameday travels to Bloomington on February 2.  I'm in.  Somebody find me some tickets.​
  • The Shreveport Times covers the flame out and exit of the Honey Badger, who will be taking his talents to FCS football in the hopes he can make an impact worthy of an NFL draft position.  I'm not sure what Musburger and Lundquist will do with all that airtime during LSU games that has been freed up now that they don't have to suck Honey Badger's nuts.
  • ​MVictors breaks down the media guide records section, and covers the historical numbers that might be in play this season.
  • Trey Burke is thinking national championship, and an ESPN blogger thinks he's not crazy.​
  • Ugh Ugh Ugh.  Roy Roundtree had arthroscopic knee surgery and is out for the next two weeks...as in  "A lot of guys come back in two weeks (from surgery like this)," Hoke said. "Our doctors did a tremendous job, we have a great medical staff."  Let's hope it's as minor as everybody at Fort Schembechler says it is.

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Foreward

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The last couple of seasons have taken the edge off of my ability to hate. It's hard to pick on your rivals when they're beating you, it's even harder when everybody is beating you. So I went into this season focusing my efforts inward. What's wrong with my team? What does my team need to do to be relevant again?  How do we get back to 8-4, so we can move forward to 13-0?

They've taken it step by step...game by game.  And with each step, the doubters only added doubts.  First UCONN is good, then we beat UCONN, so now UCONN sucks.  Somehow our Notre Dame win (on the road) wasn't nearly as impressive as MSU's (home, overtime, fake field goal).  The UMASS win was treated as a loss.  The Bowling Green win was brushed off.  And Indiana, despite having the #11 passing offense in the country BEFORE the Michigan game, is still considered Indiana.

But why can't the sum be greater than its parts?

I had an epiphany during the Indiana game on Saturday as I sat amongst the Michigan fans in Memorial Stadium (which was not sold out):  As long as teams don't figure out a way to score more than one touchdown in a single drive, we're going to be alright.  I mean, Indiana basically scored every time.  They put up astronomical offensive numbers.  It's impossible for it to be any worse.  I guess they could have scored faster, but then we would just have gotten the ball more.  Basically what I'm saying is that when it comes to offenses playing our defense, Indiana = UMASS = Florida = the 1999 St. Louis Rams.  So bring it on Big Ten.  You are all so lucky that our defense is super super shitty.  Because if it was just shitty, we'd be polishing that crystal football in January.  By my calculations, we've got two years to figure out how to put together a shitty defense, and when we do, you're all screwed.

And this just in....you might be screwed anyway.