VeevlandBrowns

Harbaugh cried after beating Michigan State?

If you’re paying attention to the DOJ college basketball case, you’ll note that the $125K is in line with the numbers being tossed around as having been paid to players via shoe companies. In some cases more, in some cases less than what players allegedly received but in the ballpark. I think this won’t be the easy decision some are already claiming it is, though. Yes, you get paid without any hassle and you get access to “NBA infrastructure, as well as a bevy of off-court development programs geared towards facilitating and accelerating their transition to the pro game.” However, there are some questions… 1. Brand. The reality is that no serious number of people are going to watch the GLeague, with or without elite HS players coming straight into it. That’s just reality. Might it shift over time? Sure, but that will take a LONNNNNNGGGG time. The calculation for many will be that the year of playing at a high profile school for a year will more than offset $125K. For everybody? Nope, but I believe absolutely so for some. So if you want name recognition, I’m not sure the GLeague is the best way to go about it. 2. More importantly, there’s the issue of the draft. Keep in mind, when someone takes this offer, they’re not signing a two way or playing in the NBA at all that year. The entry rule for the Draft remains unchanged. So they’re going to be earning their draft position by playing against men 5-6 years older than they are (in most instances) who are desperately trying to earn a look from the NBA, same as they are…except they’ll be more physically and mentally mature in most cases. Again, in the long run, are you better off going this route and possibly being exposed or just simply shown to be not ready for grown man levels of play, or are you helped more by playing in college for a year? I think that’s going to be a calculation with multiple answers, depending upon the situation. To me, it boils down to this…does the $125K “move the needle,” given the downsides (worse conditions for training/playing in most instances which negatively impacts draft status, etc.)? I’m not sure it does but we’ll begin to find out soon enough.

This is conducted now by The Athletic and the Columbus Dispatch (used to just be the latter, IIRC). 28 media members from around the conference coverage area participated. Order of Finish 1. Michigan State 2. Michigan 3. Indiana 4. Nebraska 5. Purdue 6. Wisconsin 7. Maryland 8. Ohio State 9. Minnesota 10. Iowa 11. Penn State 12. Northwestern 13. Illinois 14. Rutgers That’s relatively close to my own. The top 3 are inexactly the same order. I have Purdue 4th, Wisconsin 5th but it’s close. They’ve got Minnesota a shade higher than I do but if everything breaks right and they stay healthy, that kind of finish is certainly possible. They’ve also got OSU much higher than I do…we’ll see if Holtmann makes me look bad two years running. I just think they go from a very experienced core to one where they’re relying on a lot of youth and I think it’s going to show up. MSU was 1st on 22 of 28 ballots and 2nd on the remaining 6. That’s a pretty definitive #1 according to the media guys. Personally, while I expected MSU to be the consensus favorite (and they are), I also think the league has less at the top than it had a year ago, so it doesn’t feel much like last year’s preseason, even though the view in terms of order of finish is pretty similar. The bigger surprise to me was seeing Winston as 1st Team All Big Ten. Not that I don’t think he can end up there but I thought there might be a little more support for Cowan from Maryland. Haven’t seen a vote total so maybe it was close. Good for him getting that kind of recognition and I absolutely think he could make good on it.

Interesting show cause ruling out of CA... http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-todd-mcnair-show-cause-20181009-story.html Essentially, a state court in California ruled that the NCAA’s “show cause” penalty for a USC assistant football coach is an “unlawful restraint” on his pursuing a lawful profession and thus struck the penalty down. I won’t be surprised to see the NCAA pursue this further, because at the moment it removes one of its go-to moves in penalizing individuals associated with NCAA violations. A couple of quick points on this… 1. Not surprising at all that this happened in California. For any of our attorney members who do any type of employment/contractor related work which touches that state, I’m sure you’re familiar that state law there is construed against employers and any restrictions (non-competes, non-disclosures, etc.) in the most extreme fashion of any state in the nation. So, under that theory, not surprising to me that a judge there found that penalty to be an unlawful restraint. I question whether we’ll see that anywhere else but we’ll see. 2. It is of at least tangential interest in regard to the current college basketball case, in that at least one of the assistants under indictment was also a USC coach. Prior to this, I would have expected that individual to have received a show cause at the bare minimum, with more penalties to the program also possible. Now? Well, we’ll see.

Precarious time for Towns. This is the first point I've seen him start to receive some criticism...this time last year, he was the Golden Boy and the future of NBA big men. Now it seems some are doubting a bit. Reading that story, I flashed back to that Kobe interview in a parking lot somewhere when he tore into Andrew Bynum...I'm not a Kobe hater but I don't think that guy was ever the same and he certainly never reached his potential. That's not all Kobe's fault by any means but it might light even more of a fire under the TWolves to get Butler out of there, before things escalate and maybe it does start to impact Towns negatively.

That Ferguson-Pettis fight had more blood than I’ve ever seen in a UFC fight. Too bad Pettis broke his hand to end the fight — that was an incredible fight.

In watching a few commercials over the weekend, two music background drops jumped out at me. First of all, I think I heard a Rolling Stones song in a commercial for the first time, ever. It was a cover version of "Sympathy for the Devil" for what I think was a car commercial. (A heavy cover version of the song. Sounded pretty good, actually). Made me think, "Well, I guess the Stones don't have enough hundreds of millions of dollars individually, so might as well sell portions of their catalog for another few million." ** There used to be a loss of street cred for artists who "sold out" and allowed their music to be used in commercials. But I don't think it carries the same stigma that it used to. And it's become an effective way for bands to get their music heard by the masses (google search interviews with John Mellencamp about this topic. After selling a song for a car commercial, he said, "it turns out that General Motors is a better record company than Columbia or MCA.") [He simply said he wanted people to be aware that he had a new song out, a new album, and he had no faith in the record company promoting his work, and no faith that his new songs would get airplay. He lamented that Tom Petty had released what John thought was a great album one year earlier, but no one knew anything about the album because old acts weren't getting any airplay.] So the Stones, 50-plus years into their career, have "sold out." Some would say they've been selling out, in more ways than one, for more than 40 years. Dabbling in disco probably disappointed their fanbase in the late '70s. I don't think "cred" is anything Mick Jagger and the guys are worried about at this point. And I guess I don't care one way or another. ** On the other side of the coin, I'm sure some of you have heard of a new blues/hard rock band from Frankenmuth called Greta Van Fleet. They are young guys, early 20s, and they sound like early Led Zeppelin. Almost exactly like Led Zeppelin. This sound has given them an instant following with older rock fans who have precious, precious few new bands to listen to, because that genre of music has become an endangered species. So Greta Van Fleet is a wonderful breath of fresh air for tons of older fans, and I'm assuming that at least a few younger fans are appreciating them to. So this past weekend, I noticed a commercial for Fanatics.com sports apparel, and in the background is Greta Van Fleet's song, "Highway tune." ** So it struck me that here's one band, the Rolling Stones, 50-plus years into their career, one of the top two most famous bands ever, and they are just now "selling out." And here is the apparent torch bearer of blues/rock, brand new Greta Van Fleet, "selling out" with basically their first or second song. I thought it was interesting and ironic. Feel free to disagree or challenge anything that I posted, because I'm by no means an expert on music. I just call 'em as I see 'em.

Certainly fared well at Texas Southern, given the challenges. 4 NCAA trips in 6 seasons...in a one bid league, that is a great run. Which happens first: IU plays in a regional final or UD plays in the 2nd round? Big Dance not NIT. I like the Davis hire but UD has a hard row to hoe in that league. Even with Valpo having moved on, you still have strong programs in Oakland, Northern Kentucky, the two Wisconsin schools, etc. I think IU has a shot to get to the second weekend this year. It all comes down to whether they can get their point guard situation addressed, but at least they have options. Their post combination will be one of the better ones you'll find anywhere and Langford gives them a major talent on the wing. I'm not betting on an Elite Eight but I do think they've got a shot at it this year if everything breaks the right way. I think they are the team in the Big Ten with the best chance of pulling away from the pack. I've got them 3rd because I'm not a believer that everything will come together entirely for them, but if it does, there's enough material on hand to have a very good season.

I like the Lions. I like the Lions the way they are. If they changed and became great, I might not like them anymore. It would seem strange. So I like the Lions as they are. They were horrible last night, and that makes life seem correct and comfortable.

Former MSU commit Eric Devendorf is coming home (sort of) to Michigan. He's been an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Syracuse, where he ended up playing. He's leaving to become a "special assistant" (not an "assistant coach") to Mike Davis at UD. Looks like he may be involved in scouting, film work, etc. For those who may not recall, Devendorf was a high level prospect out of Bay City (#22 nationally per RSCI) who originally committed to MSU and then de-committed, leaving to play his last year of HS at Oak Hill and then committing to Syracuse. He was known as something of a hot head and head case as a prep and even collegiate player but it seems that he's matured a lot since those days, so good for him getting a shot as a coach in his home state.

M lost again in Spain this past weekend. This time to Jovenut, a team playing in the highest rung of the Spanish professional league, 85-79. Good experience for them. I expect M to be the consensus pick for #2 in the conference behind Michigan State. Tough to draw many conclusions from what they did over there. They faced some good competition without Beilein. Didn’t play well offensively at all, which (to the probable surprise of many) was something of a rerun of last season…that was not a great offensive team. Yet, they were facing professionals. From what I can gather, the opposition they played was a tick below what MSU faced in Italy three years ago, when they played the national teams from Russia and Georgia along with a second tier Italian team. If you’re looking for positives, the Canadian freshman forward was right at the top of their scoring chart. Charles Matthews seemed to put up good numbers. Negatives would be that they got nothing from any of the other freshmen (and they’re going to need Brandon Johns at least, and probably more than just him, to step up next season in a big way) and Xavier Simpson didn’t show signs of any real improvement offensively.

M in trouble around shoe resale by players? http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24344541/north-carolina-tar-heels-warn-others-wake-ncaa-violations-shoe-resales UNC just suspended 13 football players for doing this. Article does not clarify which sport is potentially impacted. Seeing some talk around the Internet that it may involve "double digit" number of M athletes between both football and basketball. No names yet, obviously. Interestingly, Marquette has already released a statement saying that no "current players" have sold shoes and thus they feel safe in declaring they're in the clear. Notice what that doesn't say..."past players."

A popular OSU site (11 Warriors) has an interview with Smith's mother where she (as one would expect) denies her son's guilt. More importantly, they also talked to his ex-wife's mother, who supports her former son-in-law's version of events and casts doubt on her daughter's story. Both claim that she told them multiple times she would "take Zach down and take Urban Meyer down with him." None of that is dispositive, of course. You'd expect his mother to defend him and mother and daughter could have 1000 issues between them leading to this. However, at a minimum, when the mother of an alleged victim is saying her daughter is lying...that has to give one at least a second of pause, right? My bottom line on this, and why I haven't posted a word about this whole thing until now, isn't very different than my feelings about some of the OTL stuff in regard to MSU. When you are dealing in these kinds of dynamics...sexuality, families, etc...finding "THE TRUTH" is not as simple as most want it to be. I would think if any group of people would understand this, it's the Michigan State fanbase. McMurphy's story looked awful and maybe it's ultimately mostly or even entirely correct in what it says and what it suggests (two different things, of course). However, much as in the MSU stories, in the fullness of time we start to see other voices, other perspectives and other facts begin to emerge which suggest that maybe it's not quite as cut and dried as it first appeared. My conclusion? Apply rational, reasoned skepticism with regularity and you won't go wrong. https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2018/08/95121/lynn-bruce-zach-smiths-mom-alleges-that-courtney-smith-vowed-to-take-zach-down-and-take-urban-meyer-down-with-him

Mike Davis with an interesting staff at UD... Tracy Dildy, former head coach at Chicago State and I believe worked for Davis as an assistant at UAB (also assistant at places like DePaul, Auburn and Ole Miss). Chicago guy. Rod Strickland – Longtime NBA player. Was in an administrative role under Cal at Memphis and worked at USF as an assistant for 3 years. Also hiring Mike Davis Jr. On paper, at least, it would appear to be a staff with some recruiting chops. Nothing in terms of local background, though, which makes me wonder if UD is going to continue to cede Michigan kids at their level to Oakland and go a bit more national in scope.

Not a big surprise. Some may recall there was an incident last winter where Keion missed a game. Some sense that there wasn’t a meeting of the minds between coach and player/parent.