MGoBlog: The MGoPodcast

1 hour and 36 minutes

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com.

Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management, Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, The Sklars Brothers, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, Venue by 4M where record this, and Introducing this season: Radecki Oral Surgery, and Long Road Distillers.

1. The Tourney Draw, Midwest Region Preview
Starts at 0:51

Overall a fine draw for the 3rd one-seed, with several teams that did not want Michigan as their one-seed. Alabama as a four-seed is a fine draw. They have some big wins because they can shoot their way to a W in any game, but they're also a tempo team that gave up 40%+ ORebs to the three teams they faced with major bigs. The 5-seed is Texas Tech which lost star center JT Toppin but shot their way to a win over ISU without him. We think they're a good upset pick in a 5-12 with Akron but we are impressed with the Just-a-Shooterness of Donovan Atwell.

The 8-9 are Georgia and Saint Louis. We want Georgia, another tempo team that's a year away from its maximum and has a center who just makes buckets and blocks shots, versus Saint Louis which is where Robbie Avila went; they're five-out, #1 in the country in average 2PT distance, but opponents also get to the rim (Avila is no defender).

On the other side is 2-seed Iowa State, which doesn't block shots but they turn you over and sniper Milan Momcilovic can shoot over guards—a team with three bigs might be their kryptonite (see: 79-70 vs Cincy). Joshua Jefferson is a Danny Wolf (28 assist, 17 TO) PF. 3-seed Virginia has a couple of ogres they rotate at center that might prove tough, and their own Yax-like in Thijs De Ridder, who's not from New Jersey.

[The rest of the writeup and the player after THE JUMP] 

2. Hot Takes and Men's Basketball vs Purdue
Starts at 33:39

Takes hotter than Brian when they refused to call a 5th foul on Oscar Cluff the fifth time. You're not insane; it was a ref show, and a clownish end to DJ Carstensen's career. But that only explains why Purdue won—they played Michigan evenly because Michigan had their worst defensive performance, unable to stop the PnR two-man game between Smith and TKR. M's offense is off the hook for the 1st half since Purdue was just fouling and getting away with it, but what's their excuse for not having any plans for a stretch in the 2nd half when Purdue pulled ahead? Hoping against hope that May has been saving all of his real sets for the Tournament. Brian's giving up on Gayle and his Knoblockian adventures at the rim.

3. Men's Basketball vs Wisconsin and Ohio State
Starts at 1:01:40

Wisconsin goes 7/23 from two but 16/38 from three once they've given up on Boyd and Blackwell drives that worked for them in the first meeting. Their twos were earned—pushed back and forced to shoot over Mara. Only the Aussie going nuts from three got this competitive again, but we were still dismayed over Michigan's offense. They had a Mara advantage they only ran in the 2nd half, and didn't really give him help off of that. Tschetter minutes are not working. The OSU game was annoying for all the little reasons, but the big one is something from the whole Tourney, which was Morez Johnson not playing up to his standard. He got the first two series and second was a fallaway jumper. He's a bit limited when backing up people have found. Bruce Thornton was limited by length but his eyes lit up whenever he got Cadeau, who seemed to be tiring late, but Michigan is a TO machine without him. Maybe they're saving Yax usage for the Dance.

4. Hockey vs Penn State and Tournament Lookahead
Starts at 1:22:35

They're now locked into the 1st overall seed with Ohio State knocking MSU out of the tournament, and North Dakota losing, which means YAY we don't have to play Denver in a Denver Regional (stupidest playoff format ever). Michigan-NoDak-MSU-WMU will be the 1-seeds, in that order, and Michigan will draw the worst the #16, IE the Atlantic Hockey champion (Bentley most likely?) and the worst #2 seed (Duluth? Cornell? Penn State?) in, likely, Albany. Penn State hockey is James Franklin Penn State football: can beat anybody except the big bads in their conference. Not afraid of facing them again after a thoroughly dominant semifinal. Good to see a snipe from Hage, and what Moldenauer has become.

MUSIC:

"An Ocean Between the Waves"—War on Drugs

"This Could Be Your Lucky Day in Hell"—Eels

"A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger"—Of Montreal

“Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

Things Discussed:

Fears: The Red Cedar Message Board are sacrificing their junk to get the bottom of this.

Minus LJ: Roddy Gayle stepping up. Just need him to finish (read: no turnovers) at the rim. Trey McKenney doing it on defense.

What teams scare you in the BTT? Illinois has the size and can shoot their way out of any problems with the softness of their frontcourt.

Nebraska plays offense like an NBA team, and that allows them to get around Michigan's defense a bit. MSU is a bad matchup for them, however, because MSU has so much size on the perimeter.

Purdue? They are getting 100% what they can from offense and they are limited on defense.

Michigan? Can they keep Mara and Cadeau on the court? Cadeau is showing he's willing to shoot more and there will be a correction to that from defenses to bring back the dunks.

Officiating vs MSU, what's the deal? Fears should have been thrown out of the game. The 3rd foul on Rez was 100% a foul grift and needs to be legislated out of the game. The only reason they called a tech on Mara is because they just gave one to Fears. They must like being yelled at by Izzo because they reward his behavior.

It's just the one guy—Ron Groover—who shows deference to Izzo, is a notorious Duke friend. But this does not apply to Jeffrey Anderson, and DJ Carstensen, who's retiring after the Tourney, is the best at officiating bigs.

The Fears foul can't be a Class B tech—that's what McKenney knocking the ball out of a guy's hands is. These should not be the same things. We saw that in hockey last night when ND ran the goalie twice; the Big Ten doesn't care about player safety.

Izzo: Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else noticed?

IU: What happened to you? Don't even think DeVries's kid is that good.

NCAA Tourney? Duke lost their PG and might be without their C until the 2nd week, aren't as deep as Michigan. Arizona has so much size and depth; their offense can be stopped by three bigs but until they meet a Michigan they probably won't be threatened. Iowa State can shoot man—Mommy!—might be in our bracket because Michigan played a lot of the potential 2 seeds already. Good news all of these teams don't want to see Michigan.

1 Hour and 43 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.

Segment 1
Does Daylight Savings Time bother you? Does the World Baseball Classic have too many teams? The tournament does have a lot of national pride amongst the teams. Let's check in on some old friends across the league. Notre Dame sweeps Ohio State (Notre Dame's final conference record is 5-17-2). Michigan State clinches the Big Ten despite a shootout loss. Discussing bracket scenarios. 
 
Segment 2
How are former Wolverines doing in the NHL? Updates on Luke Glendening, Jacob Trouba, Dylan Larkin, and Andrew Copp. Several deserving teams in the Eastern Conference may miss the playoffs. Player injuries and team projections. Michigan's pipeline is all over the NHL at various skill levels.


 
MUSIC

NHL on ESPN Theme

"C'Mon Down" -- Poor Man's Poison

Ice Hockey (NES) theme

1 hour and 44 minutes

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com.

Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management, Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, The Sklars Brothers, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, Venue by 4M where record this, and Introducing this season: Radecki Oral Surgery, and Long Road Distillers.

1. Men's Basketball vs Michigan State
Starts at 0:51

Michigan is the best team in the Big Ten since the 1977 Indiana team. You can't say they didn't earn it, they had to win at Breslin, Carver, and Illinois. They would still win the Big Ten outright if you only counted the games that Michigan won by double digits. It was Yaxel's deep shooting that propelled Michigan when they weren't shooting well. Michigan felt mortal with Tschetter at the four but MSU didn't exactly take advantage of that time. There were a lot of 1-on-1 opportunities, Michigan only had 12 assists. 1.27 PPP is crazy against Michigan State. Where does Yaxel Lendeborg rank all time amongst all Michigan players? They had a reel prepared for when Fears would kick someone in the jingle jangles, and it did happen. Credit Dusty for keeping the team calm when things start to go wrong. How is Fears allowed to keep playing the way he does? Congrats to Nebraska for getting the #2 seed. 

2. Men's Basketball vs Iowa
Starts at 32:06

A very slow game and a very annoying win. Their thing is fouling you constantly and hoping the refs don't call it. They fired Fran and we hate Iowa basketball now. Michigan finally gets some calls in the second half and turns the ball over a lot. Bennett Stirtz's 4-14 from three feels optimistic for him given the shot quality. There was a "sink or swim" moment when Cadeau had to sit out and it wasn't great. Cadeau played 30 minutes but in an important tournament setting he'll probably play more than that. Roddy Gayle has some at-the-rim difficulties that have lasted most of the conference season. Fran McCaffery was a beautiful Big Ten coach and now he's in the Ivy League.

3. Hot Takes and Spring Ball - Offense
Starts at 54:05

How excited is everyone for this spring practice? What will Bryce's role as a runner be? JJ didn't run much but in the championship season there were only 4-5 games where he would have needed to. Maybe Bryce looks a little better throwing downfield now that he has actual receivers. JJ Buchanan might have a Colston Loveland level catch radius. There was a moment of silence for Max Bredeson but we truncate silence on this podcast so you didn't hear it. What's the tight end depth going to look like? Evan Link to guard? We're expecting a big third year swing for Blake Frazier. 

4. Spring Ball - Defense
Starts at 1:22:09

Any sort of news about John Henry Daley being able to play would be high on the list. And Rod Moore. Also hoping to hear good things about Palepale and Cam Brandt. The North Dakota State linebacker (Nathaniel Staehling) transfer could be really good, he was a captain and these scenarios often work out nicely. Ideally he's the 3rd linebacker because that means some other guys popped off. How much much better will everyone look with better coaching? Unfortunately we won't be able to see if rotation on defense gets better in the Spring Game. Could Shamari Earls overtake Jyaire Hill? New kickers but kicking in April seems different than in the Fall. Looking forward to punting drills. Taylor Tatum for punt return? 
 

MUSIC:

"Any Major Dude"—Steely Dan

"Believe"—My Morning Jacket

"Broken Chair"—Luna

“Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

Things Discussed:

Illinois game: Impressed that they not just shut down Wagler with Yax but they hunted Wagler defensively. They're not physical enough to play defense and not quick enough to guard point guards—Dent did it to them, Fears did it to them.

Why didn't Illinois shoot us out of their building if they're five out? Mara was everywhere on defense, Boswell was left to shoot.

When Boswell got downhill he gave Cadeau issues. That's something to watch out for because burlyguards on top of a five-out offense are able to score vs M.

Yax went off-script to switch on defense.

MSU the second-best team in the Big Ten; Illinois is going to get physicaled out of the Tournament.

Rez was lit, and that maybe lit up Mara. When Mara gets himself to the rim he's unstoppable.

What do you do when someone takes away what you want to be?

Cason: Problem with losing him is ^. He was our answer. Best finisher on the team, critical in transition. Like with Rez last year, the play that he got injured on was the play that shows you who he is.

Replacing Cason: Cadeau has to back off to play 30 minutes.

Minutes-wise Trey and Gayle. Usage-wise, Yaxel can do more in transition and hunting his own buckets, want to run more offense through Mara.

Gayle would be nice—he's been that before—but he hasn't been good this year. McKenney is not a creator at all at this point. If they play without Cadeau opponents are going to blitz the ball. When that's Mara...good luck.

Who's the Big Ten PoY: Two different questions: Who's the best player in the Big Ten this year? Yaxel or Wagler, and Yax's defense puts him over the top for me. Who's going to win it? Probably Braden Smith, even though he's < Stirtz and Boyd and Wagler and Yax, because the Big Ten is an old boy's network. The way Michigan can switch is because Yax can guard all of the guards.

Iowa: Concern is we're playing a mini-Nebraska on the road. Stirtz and the Drakes make me nervous because can play like Nebraska but with more depth. They'll go with their stretch five and play small. Globetrotter-esque: duck inside the perimeter to pass out to duck inside to pass out until they find a cutter.