1 Hour and 33 Minutes

With David Nasternak and Alex Drain

This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul is the guy with the C you want skating next to the ref and pleading your case. He's also a good guy to sit next to at the hockey games.

• Opener
• More Lack of Scoring
• Korpi to Stein and Goals
• Overtime Power Play

• Early Period Goals
• Cocaine OT and Shootout
• Old Friends and the League
• Four Nations Opinions

MUSIC

• NHL on ESPN Theme
• "Overtime" -- Cash Cash
• Ice Hockey (NES) theme

Things Discussed:

• Ohio State hires Matt Patricia:
  • Brian: He'll have a Wile E. Coyote year with Caleb Downs but he's not a good coach. He does have a weird beard though.
  • Seth if the idea is to capture what Michigan got in Wink Martindale they forgot the part where he invented the defense that Michigan runs.
  • Craig: Nothing in his resume shows he's a good coach.
• Purdue game: Michigan had to try at least four defenses against Braden Smith to wear that guy out, finally got Danny Wolf to work. Seth: the zone was the most effective because it was forcing him into even worse stepbacks.
• But Braden Smith, gotdang is that a good basketball player. Gives them a floor for every shot of 0.9 points per possession.
• Physicality: Caleb Furst and Trey Kaufman-Renn brought it, Vlad got chewed out but then he gave it back.
• Michigan: Massive effort, especially early from Tre Donaldson who led the first comeback by getting ball-dominant.
• Officiating? Craig takes the side of Szelc. Seth says it was bad; they let them play way too physically early on and then switched it up, which is how you get both of Purdue's forwards fouling out late after getting away with a ton early. Players hate inconsistency the most.
• Recognition for Roddy Gayle and Rubin Jones. Roddy filled the box score, can play the role of a secondary creator much better than the role of a fourth offensive option/spacer. You want him starting possessions not ending them.
• Shooting from either? Roddy's shot is broken—that high arc makes it travel further which means he's effectively shooting at a smaller target. That needs an offseason. Jones's shot looks fine; he's just got to keep taking them and playing as hard as he did.
• Dusty "inspiring" Vlad leads to two hard takes over TKR where he used his size advantage. Need that from Goldin.
• Dusty May's future: Brian thinks the pressure cooker in Bloomington with similar resources as Michigan makes Michigan the better job, but we all agree Michigan has to make an Indiana-level investment to keep him.
• At the outtro: congrats to Kim Barnes-Arico: the winningest basketball coach in the history of the University of Michigan.

1 Hour and 24 Minutes

With David Nasternak and Alex Drain

This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul is the guy with the C you want skating next to the ref and pleading your case. He's also a good guy to sit next to at the hockey games.

• Opener
• Power Play Goals
• Korpi Wins It
• Is That Enough?

• Korpi Hangs On For 30
• The Dam Breaks
• Old Friends and the League
• Gopher Redux

MUSIC

• NHL on ESPN Theme
• "Get Ready For This" -- 2 Unlimited
• Ice Hockey (NES) theme

Things Discussed:

Signing Day: Got the most talent on offense since…1998? Down the list:

• OL: Two of the highest-ranked OTs in the history of the program, Gach was a Priority 1 for the program, Strayhorn is a center.
• RB: Jasper Parker the sites just missed; poorer man's Adrian Peterson. M thinks DJ is healthy.
• WR: Marsh was a big pull vs heavy hitters, Year 1 player. Browder needs development but Junior Hemingway upside. Washington is tall and can move well.
• TE: Owens is a Bredeson, really hurts that they missed on Olesh.
• DL: We love the heavy-handed build-a-bears that Esposito recruits. Remember his WMU guys? Moten and Patterson are going to be those guys too. Lou is convinced Benny Patterson is the guy. Kanka is a Godin. Marshall was a Priority and a big win. Can't expect them to get the scouting coup of the century with Graham and Grant every year but they can scout and now they can win the guys they scouted.

Basketball:

• Every guy is good with a tradeoff, and that tradeoff is turnovers, e.g. look at the defense that Roddy Gayle (and Pippen) played on Ace Bailey.
• Rutgers: We got a break by missing Harper, who just shredded Illinois.
• Oregon game: the mental errors are baked in at this point, like they're not going to score at the rim as well as you want them to.
• Also baked in is the fact that they switch everything and play drop coverage, so your Shelstad types who make 50%+ of other twos after attacking a Goldin or Wolf are going to score.
• Sugarplum vision of a top-3 seed and winning the B10 is probably gone. All but one of their remaining games (all but Rutgers at home) are Kenpom A (top-50) tier, IE Q1 opportunities.

Things Discussed: Mostly we discussed the Dellinger Leak and Michigan's response to the NCAA re: Signgate. I'll have a UV later today on it.

• Michigan has a very—extremely—strong case that they did very little wrong. Most of the in-person scouting was for teams not on their schedule, all of the evidence for a coverup is flimsy:
  • Sherrone deleted texts: Only off his phone, because he knew they had imaging, those were provided to the NCAA, and they were completely innocuous.
  • Mike Hart was told that Stalions was "extra" which: yeah.
  • That's it! That's all the evidence!
• Most of the report is just a glimpse into how sign operations worked—Stalions was sharing signs with Rutgers and Nebraska, who just used wristbands when they played Michigan. It also showed just how marginal sign-decoding was: Sherrone was told to change his signs before Ohio State and said he'll "think about it," Partridge yelled at Stalions about trying to use a team manager, etc.
• It has a name! Signal organization stupid thing, or S.O.S.T.
• NCAA's position is basically "We know we broke our bylaws and this isn't remotely just, but we need to humiliate you because look how mad all the Bielemas are."
• Michigan has requested a prehearing because the NCAA has at least one in-house source that refused to be identified, which we've just now learned is apparently against NCAA bylaws. No idea if the COI has to grant that prehearing
• The process is meant to be collaborative; it completely breaks down when the two sides have entirely different realities and goals. That's a big problem for Michigan because the NCAA's purpose here isn't to be reasonable or just.
• The fear here is NCAA's main motivation is relevance; they can't do anything about paying players, which has been their raison d'être, so this is the one field where they can demonstrate any kind of power.
• Legal challenge? Seems they'll go that route if things proceed as they seem to be. Guessing that's what the NCAA wants so they can placate the Bielemas by saying "it was the courts, not us."
• Seth: don't underestimate the difficulty of winning this case in court. Like the Tony Petitti thing, when it's not about constitutionality or the law, courts often default to whatever the agreement between parties is, and Michigan's agreed to be under NCAA judgment whether it's fair or not. With Tennessee: 1) It was their attorney general flexing power on behalf of the only thing his state cares about, which isn't who Dana Nessel is or how Michigan politics work, and 2) that was about paying players, which got into a constitutionality issue of denying the free trade of services.
• Guess how it plays out: NCAA goes overboard, Michigan takes them to court, court takes a long time, and when it's settled nobody cares because it's been too long and we all have more important things going on.
• Story Time: Just like 1928!

Non-S.O.S.T. thing:

• Jim Knowles off to PSU for a lot of money! What does it mean? It means anyone who can is getting away from Ohio State fans.