Michigan Tidbits:

Well let us start off with some good news and that is the Michigan women’s basketball program and getting into the WNIT. This was the first time Michigan has been in any tournament since 2002 and in the first year under coach Kevin Borseth really shows that he was the right guy for the job. He took over a struggling program and turned it around with some upperclassmen that really turned things around. They won almost more games in the Big Ten this year with ten then they have in the past four years with eleven. The ladies have played well at home (10-3) and hopefully that trend will continue and the fans will come out and support the team this Monday.

The lady Wolverines will have a bye for the first round in the WNIT and will face either Virginia Commonwealth or Charlotte on Monday (March 24, 2008) at 7:00pm EDT at Crisler Arena. Be very interested o how this team plays in a tournament setting along with different competition. Good luck Michigan Women’s basketball program.

Hockey news this week as Michigan goes for the Mason Cup at the Joe Louis Arena on Friday and hopefully Saturday night. Congratulations to Max Pacioretty for becoming the freshman of the year, Red Berenson for coach of the year and Kevin Porter for CCHA player of the year. This is the time of year that you need your team to get on a roll along with your goalie to get hot and as they say “stand on your head” type performances these next several weeks. Michigan can make its road easier by winning the CCHA Championship and locking down the number one seed overall and getting into the easier bracket. Michigan will be without Max Pacioretty because of getting into a fight last Saturday night when they face Northern Michigan Friday night. Good luck to the hockey program this weekend and stay out of the penalty box.

Men’s Basketball program finished the season last weekend with winning one game in the Big Ten Tournament and then losing to Wisconsin who ended up winning the tournament overall. This year was a struggle, but one thing I would like to point out is this team (IMO) looked better as a Michigan team then the last few years Michigan’s teams. This team was very young with limited playing time from last year’s team with four seniors. Epke Udoh was basically the only guy that got significant playing time last year. Ronnie Coleman got injured early on and was a non-factor most of the year. DeShawn Sims (IMO) was basically a freshman this year or red-shirt freshman with all the things he went through last year with his bother. Michigan was playing with guys that either saw limited time last year, road the bench last year or just came from high school. That is not making excuses, but telling you what the problems were early on especially with no real upperclassmen leading this team with Coleman out and Sheperd not playing that much this year as a junior.

This team (IMO) will get better next year just because of being able to learn the Beilein system and what the assistant coaches expect from the players. They lose Coleman who was a non factor on the floor this year so basically everybody will be back with another year of experience and gaining new recruits who might be three or possible four freshman depending on what Beilein and the coaching staff decides to do with the remaining scholarship. One huge factor which again (IMO) hurt this team early was the top five schedule out of 341 team last year in which the team struggled even against teams they should have beaten because they had no confidence in themselves or their teammates because they were learning on the run. It is a lot easier to learn a system when you’re winning games and building confidence along with adapting to a new coach, new assistants and new system completely then your basically counting on true freshman to carry your team the entire year and if he has a bad night your team suffers. Also the team will have Lucas-Perry (transfer from Arizona) on the squad which will help his team out tremendously with depth on the bench and not having to rely on walk-ons to have such an active role on this team. Another thing will be practice time where the competition during that time will be more competitive and that is how a team gets better on the court.

I am not expecting miracles next year, but I believe we will see major improvement and a team that should get into the NIT for sure and who knows possible their first attempt in over ten year to the NCAA big dance. That being said I am not saying this team will make the tournament next year, but it should be a goal for them. They are bringing in some freshman that can actually help this team with problems that they suffered this year. They are bringing in guys that will actually make t easier for guys like Manny, Grady, LLP and DeShawn. They have guys that can hit the outside shot so when Grady or Manny drive to the hoop they can kick it out to those guys from 15-22 feet and hit the open shot. This will make it easier on Manny especially since he felt the pressure to have to do everything in his mind set this year.

Recruiting this year people have different opinions on what direction this team should go and want to downgrade Coach Beilein for the 2008 recruiting class. First off recruiting in basketball is so much different than football with kids committing earlier and earlier every year. When Beilein got here the ’08 class was nearly half way signed with the great to good players committed or had their minds made up what schools they were interested in. I believe Beilein went after guys that could help out his ball club, guys he could land and along with balancing out the type of players he has on the team. This team needed guys that can hit the 15-20 foot shot consistently and I believe they got two of those guys along with a big guy that will help down the road that can work well in Beilein’s system. Hard to teach seven foot and find it as well. The big question will be the 2009 and beyond recruiting with Coach Beilein (IMO) and they have gotten a local kid in Morgan which is a decent piece to the puzzle. Several key recruits are being targeted for the ’09 class that could help this team out as soon as they arrive on campus.

Michigan football spring practice is in full swing now and the coaches are getting their first real look at what they have this year. One thing about it the team feels like they are in better shape and conditioned with Barwis in control of their S&C program. Just think it has only been three months and the players already feel a huge difference and they are buying into the new system which took them a few hard weeks for most if not all to “get it” now. A few minor injuries have happened, but nothing serious. They are putting on the pads now and look for more physical practices along with some frustrating practices as well which is to be expected when learning on the run with a new system, new offense and new coaching staff with players that were not counted on last year. This is a very young offense and the defense will have to carry this team (IMO) this year to be successful. Biggest question will be what will the offense look like this spring compared to this fall when the freshman arrive especially the guys that the new staff targeted once they arrived. The players (IMO) that will make the biggest impact will be the three slot receivers in which I could see all three of them getting playing time as soon as they arrive. We will be able to have more detailed reports once we see practices first hand and once the team gets into the swing of the new system.

written by ErocWolverine

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