MGoBlog: The MGoPodcast

1 hour and 46 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, the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded app, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, and Venue by 4M where usually record this. 1. Men's Basketball vs Auburn - Sweet Sixteen Starts at 1:00 It's times like this that make you think of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias which has a passage about "when you're leading by 9 points with 12 minutes left don't give up a 20-2 run". Michigan made Auburn as dumb as Michigan for a half and then Auburn remembered they were the #1 overall seed. Michigan gives up 1.04 ppp overall. Turnovers were tied but Michigan was obliterated on rebounds. The season-long issues with the front court came to light in this game. This ended up being what you would expect in a game of Michigan vs Super Michigan. We'll miss Vlad Goldin, Craig has some nits to pick.  2. Looking Back on the Season Starts at 21:51 Dusty May comes into a roster with Will Tschetter and Nimari Burnett, most of his FAU squad doesn't follow him (besides Vlad Goldin). But he assembles this motley crew of a team. The question coming in was "can he assemble a good roster or did he just have one good recruiting class?" Turns out he can assemble a good roster. Brian hoped this could be a 6-seed coming into the season and people thought this was crazy. They probably should've been higher than a 5-seed. This season earns an A for exceeding all expectations, not an A+ but an A. Dusty May was the better choice over Niko Medved.  3. Hot Takes and Looking Forward to Next Season Starts at 42:43 Takes hotter than whatever Craig is about to say. Michigan loses Rubin Jones, Jace Howard, Vlad Goldin, Justin Pippen, and probably Danny Wolf, You now have a roster cap of 15, they can be scholarship or not. They'll be looking for centers in the portal. Get ready for an L.J. Cason glow up. Looking ahead to Trey McKenney as a freshman. If Sam Walters was going to hit the portal, wouldn't he have done it by now? There appear to be a lot of high quality centers in the portal. Transfer portal targets, Brian wants Magoon Gwath. What's the ceiling for next year? They'll finally have some continuity on the roster. Just find a guy who's 7 feet tall and put him on the roster.  4. Michigan Football Spring Practice and Hockey Starts at 1:26:08 The only QBs available are Bryce Underwood and Jadyn Davis, Mikey Keene is injured. Otherwise we're not hearing much of anything. Shamari Earls is supposedly turning out and is Charles Woodson sized. There will not be Jeremy Clark slander. Michigan hockey had a disappointing end to the season, how will they bounce back? How much will Michigan pay for hockey after football and basketball? What does the rest of the Big Ten look like? MUSIC: "Cradle The Pain"—Morgan Nagler "Back to Earth"—Manplanet "I Wish"—Skee-Lo “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra    

Things Discussed: Auburn: They're Michigan if Michigan was everything they wanted them to be. No turnovers, extremely high efficiency. Michigan's turnovers are mostly still Michigan's. Lately the first 5 minutes of every game they're on pace for 60 TOs and then they are not a high-turnover team the rest of the game. UC San Diego: Michigan was a terrible matchup for them. Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones is their top scorer and he was useless against Danny Wolf. They had a good shooting day and Michigan had turnovers to make it close. Texas A&M: Michigan put their effort into rebounding. A&M saying they couldn't score at the rim in the 2nd half but they've been a bad shooting team all year and the only thing that was working was Payne physically dominating. LJ Cason: Go ahead young fella! Dusty admitting he should have played him more during the season, but Cason wasn't very playable until recently. Gives Michigan a different attack because nobody's been able to attack the rim since Gayle's shooting issues began. It's also the way to break A&M, which wants to have one bad defender on the court for scoring purposes and can get away with it if you have an offensive weak spot on the court. Gayle: What a game! Not just the shooting; he was making big plays on defense and creating for others as well. But the shooting is the thing; he's been slowly getting his shot back, and that opens up all kinds of offense because letting him sit alone at the perimeter was the way defenses took away Area 50->1. Why didn't Nimari play much? Because he's not a rebounder and you're playing Texas A&M. Rubin Jones was a key player on the boards. Cason and Gayle were doing a good job of boxing out. A&M's rebounding isn't just the bigs; they get wings heavily involved and keeping them outside was key. Goldin tired? Put all of his breath into rebounding; flopped three times against Payne—as soon as Payne got tired A&M had no way to score points. Michigan scored 30 points in the last 10 minutes of that game. AUBURN: They're 8 seniors and a 5-star freshman who chased Tre Donaldson out of there. Maybe one of the best basketball teams the Tournament has seen in many years because they have these up-transfers who got a few years to play together and an extra season to improve their skills. Do we have a chance? They're an excellent team. They're better Michigan. They let off the gas a little against A&M and gave up 24 ORebs because Auburn had already clinched the SEC; before that their only losses were overtime vs (two-big) Alabama and at Duke. Brian says Michigan needs to use A&M's strategy—win a lot of rebounds and get 17 extra shots?—and shoot 40% from three. Seth thinks the key is make them pull Dylan Cardwell because the switching is forcing him to be an offensive nexus, and then have Goldin score on Johni Broome, who's more of a finesse center.

1 hour and 34 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, the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded app, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, and Venue by 4M where usually record this. 1. Sweet Sixteen Vibes Starts at 1:00 Oh hey! We didn't expect to be here! Roddy Gayle just made more threes in one game than during Michigan's entire Big Ten schedule. He has risen from the dead and Michigan out-rebounded the best rebounding team in the country so here we are! Michigan got hosed by the selection committee but made it to the 2nd weekend anyways. Brian 'Roddy Gayles' the sponsor read. Going into next year, Dusty May needs a center and a backup center but should otherwise be set. 2. Men's Basketball vs Texas A&M Starts at 15:26 Nobody expected this game to go the way it did. Michigan started 1-7 on threes and then started hitting a lot of great shots against a top 10 defense. Michigan got a lot of un-contested rebounds which was weird considering that's Texas A&M's thing. Goldin was probably getting more tired than usual, he got pulled early. L.J. Cason was a game-changer in this one, he could be special next year. Why did Nimari only have 13 minutes? All of Goldin's energy went towards rebounding, his performance would've been very memorable if it wasn't eclipsed by Gayle. Just don't pass to Patrick.  3. Hot Takes and Men's Basketball vs UC San Diego Starts at 37:20 Takes hotter than RODDY GAYLE. UC San Diego is such a weird team. Brian still can't pronounce their star's first name who fouled out in 25 minutes. Michigan should've had the bigs dunk at the rim but UCSD defended them well. Roddy Gaye and L.J. Cason played important roles, not quite as big as in the TAMU game. Michigan's shot parity is only -2 which is good enough. If Wolf played better then maybe Michigan walks away from this one. They hit the Kenpom spread exactly. How well will we remember this game years from now?  4. Previewing Men's Basketball vs Auburn Starts at 1:01:34 Michigan has drawn the #1 overall seed in the tournament. Auburn's greatest strength is shot making and are the 2nd best offense in the country (1st is Florida). They have some super seniors from the Covid year. Auburn has a similar Bigs setup to Michigan so they can handle Goldin+Wolf. One of their biggest weaknesses is that they foul a lot. Personnel wise, these teams are very similar and both coaches will likely match each other. Jahki Howard might be the worst teammate in the country. Auburn will want revenge against Danny Wolf after last year's Yale game. Everyone was watching the Michigan game on Thursday since most of the first round games were uneventful. This Auburn offense is 8 efficiency points better than the 2013 Michigan offense.  MUSIC: "Where Do We Go From Here"—Charles Bradley "Monstera Escalito"—Ciao Ciao Marigold "What do You Like"—Tommy Richman “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra    

Things Discussed: Michigan wins Big Ten Tournament, it doesn't matter for seeding, and then the get the strongest 12-seed in the history of Kenpom. UC San Diego preview: They figured out how to deal with a 7-footer in the third game against UC Irvine, the other good team in their conference of California state schools plus Hawai'i, but they haven't faced two 7-footers. Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones is their major usage guy who might end up having to play a lot of center because Nordin Kapic, their nominal big, is a 6'8"/245 stretch. PG Hayden Gray has the #1 steal rate in the country, and this is part from him harassing you from all angles all over the court, and part playing in a league of teams with bad handles. Need a plan for getting upcourt and warning when he's coming. Seeding: Proof that the Committee just needs to go, because they're trying to talk Kenpom now instead of rewarding seasons. Just use Wins Above Bubble like they do (with Pairwise) in hockey. Sam thinks they way overvalued nonconference games, which hosed Michigan given the context of Michigan's losses; some two-way thinking went on where close losses in the nonconference are a big deal but close wins in-conference are luck. The explanations offered up by the UNC AD were not inspiring. He was trying to make math cases but the guy is clearly illiterate in terms of math. Seth thinks they were trying to make a bracket instead of a field, using their own limited understandings of matchup stats to give top seeds easier paths, even though that's explicitly not what their job is. Evidence: they were talking about things like wins against Iowa State when their best player was out not counting as much. That's terrible. Round 2? Brian thinks Yale can beat A&M who can't shoot. They're the Iowa of basketball: they rely on Cooper DeJean returns. Seth thinks A&M rebounds too well and they always manage to hit stupid shots in the last minute. Nobotdy thinks we're getting past Auburn and Johni Broome, a point forward whose TO rate is 8. Louisville doing us a favor in Lexington? Chucky Hepburn isn't beating Auburn. How far is MSU going? "Cakewalk to Final 4" what? Auburn as well, unless ISU beats them, but their injuries are too much to overcome. Rooting for the Young Martellis (that's a 30-point spread). Remembering Giddy Potts. Theory: MSU has too many centers for Izzo. That's a great thing in the Big Ten where Our brackets? SEC-heavy. Florida, Auburn, Alabama…I mean I want to root for Houston but I hate their draw of upset specials and their slow pace that invites it.

1 Hour and 19 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: What Happened Last Weekend?   Opener Old Friends and Around the League Pairwise Rankings and Rooting Interests Who Might Go Where Segment 2: Stick Ball Sports and the NHL   He Said/She Said Hardball Rundown Softball Catchup NHL Chit-Chat   MUSIC NHL on ESPN Theme "Praying For A Miracle" -- Dan Sartain Ice Hockey (NES) theme

1 hour and 28 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, the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded app, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, and Venue by 4M where usually record this. 1. The NCAA Tournament and UC San Diego Starts at 1:00 Michigan is your Big Ten Tournament champions! There was a lot of doom and gloom at the end of the regular season so not many people saw this happening. Michigan might be the most boned team in the tournament draw. Wisconsin is an 18 point favorite against Montana, Michigan is a 3 point favorite over UC San Diego. UCSD is clearly a top 50 team but they can't match up with Michigan's Bigs. Get familiar with the name Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones (in pronunciation and basketball production). The Tritons give up a ton of threes. Yale is a popular upset pick over Texas A&M, TAMU's thing is missing shots but rebounding them. Who would you rather play, TAMU or Yale? That's a tougher question than it would seem. Clearly the results of the Big Ten Tournament don't matter because Michigan is seeded like it didn't happen.  [The rest of the writeup and the player after THE JUMP]  2. Men's Basketball vs Wisconsin Starts at 32:43 The shooting percentages in this game were... ugly. Wisconsin had good looks but just couldn't hit them. Goldin seemed absolutely gassed this game. L.J. Cason really helped bail out Michigan. Michigan only had eight turnovers! But missed on the boards.  3. Hot Takes and Men's Basketball vs Maryland Starts at 49:43 Takes hotter than your Big Ten Champion Michigan Wolverine Football Basketball team. This is one of the worst officiating games we can remember. Roddy Gayle had a great game... and MADE A THREE. He only had nine points but that level of production is what Michigan needs. The final play was a football play in its design.  4. Men's Basketball vs Purdue Starts at 1:14:01 A nice bounce back game that happens from taking care of the ball. Why does everyone want to kick Goldin in the nuts? Purdue gets more goonish when they're tired and they were coming off a tough game against USC. Michigan wasn't turning the ball over and was assisting well for each other, this was the Dusty May team we love to see. Michigan gets the night game on Thursday and will be played at 5,280 feet. Please fly over right now and get acclimated, you're invited to sleep on my couch (IT'S A NICE COUCH, SETH). It may be a 50/50 chance we preview Auburn next week.  MUSIC: "Take This Job And Shove It"—Johnny Paycheck "F*ck You"—CeeLo Green "MUTT"—Leon Thomas “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra    

SKLARS TONIGHT Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle in Royal Oak. Show's at 7:30, doors at 6:30, VICTORS books for sale and signing after the show. HOT TAKES segment during the show if enough MGoBlog fans are there. Tickets. Things Discussed: Basketball big picture: they're a good team, though they've been more of a 10-seed than a 4-seed since January because they hit their ceiling. Strategy has stagnated but tactics are good, wins close games. Take Michigan in the 1st round vs a 12 or 13 because they won't have someone who can stop Vlad. Tre Donaldson needs to play better—ball is getting stuck in Wolf's hands, also Tre's defense has fallen off. Cason? Very high upside: defensive athleticism, #1 on the team at getting himself to the rack, shooting is just bad luck—big difference between his shots that circle the rim and Gayle's shots that barely touch it. But he's not going to be ready this year. During break: Craig uses the F-word. Is something wrong with Tre Holloman? Seth: If that guy played for us we'd love him. MSU floor-kissing: mostly nothing. Seth believes the rule should be whoever wins gets the midcourt/midfield logo. That game was over. Women's basketball: Michigan's playing five guards, the game has gotten much better, incredible what KBA did after her roster was gutted by the portal. They can stick with anyone in the country. Hockey: Need help. No bid stealers. Comfortable that one of the many Big Ten and Hockey East at-large teams will win their tournaments, need Arizona State to go out, need Quinnipiac to go out early enough not to pass Michigan or win their bid. Naurato: This won't be a problem again. What does he mean? Maybe he's going to raid Canada.

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. Segment 1: Defense? What Defense?   Opener Puck Mismanagement So Many Goals for Everyone That OT Call Segment 2: No Bounceback Whatsoever   What Even Happened? Did You Expect That? Old Friends and Around the League Is There A Chance? Pairwise and Predictions   MUSIC NHL on ESPN Theme "Sports" -- Beach Bunny Ice Hockey (NES) theme

Sklars performing at Mark Ridley's in Royal Oak this Thursday at 7:30PM (doors open at 6:30) tickets: Supersklars.com We will be there having drinks with copies of VICTORS to sign after the show. If you can't make a weeknight they're performing 2 shows on Friday and Saturday night. 1 hour and 10 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, the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded app, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, and Venue by 4M where usually record this. 1. Men's Basketball at Michigan State Starts at 1:00 We still have to do a podcast. Dave went to go enjoy the weather instead. This game was over in the first half. 3/24 on threes is not good! Last year's team would've given up at halftime, this team at least fought back a little. What has this team improved upon since their trip to California? Michigan doesn't have a guard that can generate offense. We thought a lot of these transfers would've turned a corner by now. This team still exceeded expectations for the season, the way they got there was just not how we expected. There's the potential for Michigan to not win another game this season.   2. Men's Basketball vs Maryland Starts at 21:11 This game was similar to the Michigan State game in that Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin were the only ones scoring. Maryland got to play a Maryland game and Michigan didn't have a plan.  3. Lukewarm Takes and Hockey vs Penn State Starts at 32:11 Just some lukewarm takes this week. Go see the Sklars in Ann Arbor this Thursday-Saturday! Hockey is now just 42% to make the tournament after getting swept by Penn State. Root for Western Michigan, Denver, and Quinnipiac. Friday's game was pretty fun at least! Despite giving up bad goals. It didn't feel like a super talented roster. Imagine if Michigan got goalie Trey Augustine instead of Michigan State. Goal-tending was unclear going into the season and seems like it will continue to be unclear.  4. Football Spring Practice Starts at 57:47 Spring practice starts soon! Is Bryce Underwood already the guy? Running backs have a top two, it's a battle for #3. Will the offensive line look similar to last year? There are some lower level transfers coming in but offensive linemen can flourish in the right system. Please hype up a wide receiver. Hopefully the two transfer defensive tackles come through. They'll be fine but it's still a huge downgrade. Cornerback will be an interesting position, we want to hear that Jyaire Hill is rounding the corner. How is Rod Moore's health? Who's the punter?? MUSIC: "Lie In The Gutter"—Peel Dream Magazine "Dollar Store"—Ben Kellar ft. Waxahatchee "Mr. Chill"—Friendship “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra    

Things Discussed: They say I look like Mick Foley? I don't see it. Maryland: Vlad has to make >50% from two or you can't lose the shot disparity by ten, but you can't have both. Lots of mental lapses: Vlad on defensive boards, Wolf has 4 turnovers on 5 possessions, then Tre does something similar. Teams do things well. Illinois put on a clinic of what they do: spread it out, shoot a lot, and rebound bricks vs your guards. Maryland put on a clinic of what they do: Queen and Reece block a lot of shots and they get you switched onto matchups to dominate you in the paint, with their guards hitting threes off the dribble at critical times. What does Michigan do? We had Area 50-1 but when teams adjusted to that we didn't have the next thing. It could be Wolf shooting pullup twos, it could be something else, but Michigan hasn't adjusted to the adjustment to them. Maybe they can't? Maybe they haven't had time because they've played every 3 days since January. Sometimes you just aren't good at the thing you have to do to punish the adjustment. Maryland kept Michigan in the game by taking a lot of midrange shots. Vlad isn't a hedge and recover defensive threat. You're limited by your team. Can Donaldson be a true PG? His turnovers are kind of lazy perimeter passes; he's got more than he's given. Can be the guy who hits the big shots; Ja'Kobi Gillespie did that to Michigan when they were coming back. Can they play a 3-man game in the middle? Think that was the plan if they had Walters. Craig: Go look at the workout tape for Tevis Metcalf, the younger brother. He says it's jaw-dropping. Is Wolf a 1st round pick? Probably, because he's got a weird skill. Question isn't whether he'll be a better player if he returns; it's whether he'll be a better NBA prospect, and he's probably not.