NIT Season Tip-Off Final Observations: Arizona 72, Duke 66

Fouad Egbaria

For those with unrealistic expectations, Michigan's 5-2 start to the season could be considered a disappointment. However, when tethered to reality and understanding the difficulties of breaking in a new point guard --not to mention replacing a player of Trey Burke's caliber, not to mention Tim Hardaway Jr., who is having a solid start to his NBA career in New York-- then perhaps such a start is not so surprising. 

With that said, if Michigan is planning on entering the Big Dance with a decent seed, they will need to grab a big non-conference win or two before entering what should once again be a brutal Big Ten slate. Fortunately for the Wolverines, Duke and Arizona (and even Stanford, to a lesser extent), present the Wolverines with that opportunity. 

I was lucky enough to attend Friday NIT Tip-Off final between Duke and Arizona at Madison Square Garden, so I figured this would be a good space to kill two birds with one stone with some of my observations on both teams. 

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First, a general outline of the game itself is probably in order. After sitting through the triple overtime Alabama-Drexel game, the first half of Duke-Arizona provided an enormous step up in the speed and level of play. The Blue Devils and Wildcats battled it out in what was an incredibly entertaining first half of basketball, one in which the largest lead was only five (11-6, Duke). 

Duke went into the half up, 36-33, with eight points from Jabari Parker in the half's final five minutes (he finished the first half with 10). Brandon Ashley led the Wildcats at the half with 11 points of his own. 

A Quinn Cook three six minutes into the second half gave Duke a 43-37 lead, its largest of the game. Sitting in MSG, however, you got the sense that if Duke got a stop and scored again, things might start to get out of hand. 

Luckily for Sean Miller U of A squad, a dunk and an Aaron Gordon three a minute later cut the lead to one, and it was back to being the tight game it had been all along. 

The Wildcats kept rolling, rattling of a 12-2 run that eventually gave them a 4-point lead with 8:16 remaining. The pressure was then squarely on Duke's shoulders, but especially Parker's, who had only scored two points in the second half to that point (from the free throw line). 

Rodney Hood, by far Duke's best player on Friday, pitched in an and-1 to cut the lead to one, but the Wildcats kept pushing, this time with an 8-0 run to gain a 57-48 lead, ultimately the knockout punch, with about six and a half minutes to play. 

Hood answered the call again, this time burying a shot from beyond the arc, but Duke couldn't defend the paint, allowing consecutive Arizona dunks. 

Preview: South Carolina State

No. 9 Michigan once again takes the Crisler Center hardwood tonight, this time against 1-1 South Carolina State. This is Michigan's final tuneup game before hitting the road on Sunday to take on Fred Hoiberg's Iowa State squad in Ames; even without senior forward Melvin Ejim, ISU should be a tough test. 

Nonetheless, there's not much use in going too in depth for a game like this, especially so early in the season. So, I'll talk a little SCSU personnel then move on to some miscellaneous Michigan-centric thoughts.

Resume
South Carolina State has played two games, at Marshall and St. Andrews, the latter which I'm pretty sure could be a school I played against in high school.

The Bulldogs --of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference-- lost at Marshall, 85-69, a game in which they were fairly competitive for a while. Then again, that probably isn't saying much, as Marshall finished just 13-19 last season.

In their second game, the Bulldogs hosted St. Andrews and won in overtime, 59-55. As always at this point in the season, neither of these things means anything. Then again, you typically don't need contextual evidence to know that South Carolina State is probably not very good vis-a-vis even the worst major conference teams.

Personnel

Based on box scores alone, senior forward Matthew Hezekiah seems to be SCSU's best player. He scored 19 and 17 in his first two games while shooting 69.6% from the field.

Speaking of the Marshall game, due to some foul trouble the Bulldogs ended up playing 15 (!) different guys. That is incredible. Unfortunately for SCSU, Hezekiah was the only one to get in the double-digits in points.

Against St. Andrews, senior guard Adama Adams scored on 6-of-9 shooting (3-of-5 from beyond the arc). Barring some of the other guys on the roster getting a hold of Michael Jordan's "Secret Stuff," these two will likely be the only scoring threats.

Points of Emphasis

• This is another bad team: can Michigan avoid a first half case of the Mondays? Not that it even matters if they don't, but consistency is nice. 

• With Mitch McGary still out, can Glenn Robinson III continue to find ways to make himself a focal point of the offense i.e. to "hunt" for his shots? As has been discussed over and over again this offseason regarding his game, this is no longer the year of the putback/dunk for GRIII; he will now be expected to create. 

• Can Michigan get out in transition early? UMass-Lowell did a good job of shutting down Michigan's fast break game by simply getting back on defense with alacrity. 

• Derrick Walton watch: How does he look on the pick and roll? How about from three-point land? Can he learn from his relatively few mistakes thus far, i.e. last game's traveling call in transition?

• Is Caris LeVert actually shaping up to be a guy Michigan relies on for big points and some amount of ball-handling? Or is he simply filling the McGary-sized production vacuum?

• Plain and simple: shooting. Michigan was downright atrocious from the field in the first half against Lowell. I guess part of the benefit of these cupcake matchups is the opportunity for guys to get some good looks and see the ball go in. The Wolverines would like to get the types of looks they go in the second half against Lowell as opposed to the parade of jumpers they settled on in the first half. 

Most of these questions won't be answered for a while; unlike football, however, there isn't quite as much urgency for these answers to be so immediate. Each game is a small step forward in the data-gathering process. As for this game, it is one last chance for the team, especially the freshmen, to breathe before the non-conference schedule starts to pick up in quality. 

No use in even deigning to make a definite score prediction here. Michigan will win, by a lot. 

Exhibition No. 1: No. 9 Michigan 117, Concordia 44

NB: Just like last season and the season before, most of my basketball writings will go up at Maize n Brew. With that said, I'll still be putting some stuff up here, starting, well, tonight. 
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With Mitch McGary on the bench in street clothes and the Wolverines taking on Concordia, an NAIA squad, in an exhibition contest, the stakes were about as depressed as Eeyore on a bad day.

Then again, it is a sign of the times that someone such as myself, who has always held college football aloft as the apex of amateur athletics, is legitimately excited about such a matchup. The game itself might not have meant anything, but it does mark the beginning of the next installment of the John Beilein era. On the heels of finished runner-up in 2012-13, the Wolverines have several questions to answer before the real question--Can they do it again?--can be addressed in earnest.

The Final Four run has etched itself in the minds of Michigan fans everywhere; once the afterglow of that campaign started to fade, the logical array of questions bubbled to the surface. No Trey Burke? Tim Hardaway Jr.? What about Derrick Walton? Can Mitch McGary, Glenn Robinson III and Caris LeVert take the next step? Can Spike Albrecht run the show full-time? 

And so on. Although the final outcome of these sorts of games is generally immaterial, it is worth watching just to see how various lineup combinations play together, whether the ball is ultimately being scored or not.

Michigan began with a starting five of Albrecht, Robinson III, Jordan Morgan, Jon Horford and Nik Stauskas. At the 16:27 mark, Walton, Max Bielfeldt and LeVert subbed in (Stauskas and Robinson remained in).

It wasn't a particularly great start for Albrecht; he missed an open layup in transition and also turned it over on another possession in which Michigan mostly stood around. He did take a charge down on the block before being subbed out.

Elsewhere, Stauskas started things off with a familiar sight: him driving hard to the rim and going to the line after not quite being able to throw it down. Upon hitting his patented corner three, Stauskas had scored seven of Michigan's first nine points.

Abotu four minutes into Walton's shift, Concordia brought a little full-court pressure. Walton took the ball up the right side, saw two defenders beginning to collapse on him, and left his feet to lob a doomed pass well past No. 21 Zak Irvin. In case you needed reminding, Walton is a true freshman, and he will likely make those sorts of mistakes early on in the season.

Stauskas got into the double-digits in scoring after nailing his second trey of the game, executing a seamless shot fake and one dribble left into an effortless stroke from the the left wing. Level of competition caveats aside, there probably shouldn't be any concerns about the added muscle affecting Stauskas's shot.

Despite not playing a perfectly clean game, the Wolverines jumped out to a 30-9 lead just about 12 minutes into the game, partially aided by nine Concordia turnovers. Stauskas once again put the ball on the floor, taking it from the corner and ripping through challenging defenders into an uncontested layup.

For the sake of history, let it be known that Walton tallied his first points with about 7:12 to go in the half. The freshman buried a three from the left wing, then added two more buckets in the span of about 30 seconds. Shortly thereafter, Walton lasered a no-look pass to a wide open Jordan Morgan under the rim for an easy two and dropped another easy dime to LeVert in transition. After committing a careless turnover earlier, Walton had clearly picked up some confidence during this later stretch in the first half.

Michigan went into the half up 60-19, with an eFG% of 89%. Five Wolverines tallied seven or more points in the first half. Stauskas and LeVert led the way with 12 points apiece. Not that this means anything at all, but Michigan scored at a clip of 1.71 points per possession in the first half (Concordia was at 0.56 PPP).

Also of note, late in the half Beilein rolled out a lineup of LeVert-Stauskas-Morgan-Irvin-GRIII, with LeVert running the point. There have been rumblings about the potential for LeVert to run the show some this season, so perhaps that is the lineup we'll see when he does.

Miscellaneous Minutiae, 10/29/13

Well, here we are: Michigan State week. Hopefully the Wolverines got their rest and ate their Wheaties during the open week, because a win this weekend will take nothing less than their best effort:

• This is old news as if this posting, but tight end A.J. Williams has been suspended for this Saturday's game. Legal ramifications aside, I'm honestly not too sure how big of a loss this is for the Michigan offense. As a blocking tight end, Williams hasn't exactly been a great blocker, and not having Williams at Borges's disposal might curb the desire to run power into the teeth of the Spartan front seven. In any case, Williams's absence means you'll see a lot more Jake Butt and Jordan Paskorz. 

• Minnesota's 35-24 victory over Nebraska this past Saturday was as big of a win as the program has seen in some time. With that said, the Gophers head to Bloomington this weekend, where they'll have to contend with a truly fearsome Hoosier offense. Defense and David Cobb have been enough to carry Minnesota to victory the past two weeks; they'll likely need to make a few more plays through the air if they're going to keep up with Kevin Wilson's offense. 

• Speaking of the Hoosiers, Indiana defensive coordinator Doug Mallory (brother of Michigan secondary coach Curt Mallory) is tuning out the criticism re: his defense's performance. Also at the same link, Tre Roberson might get the start this weekend over Nate Sudfeld. 

• The Only Colors on the Spartan offense potentially approaching "average." 

• The Badgers will need some help if they're going to grab a BCS berth this season, even if they win out. 

• Michigan basketball opens up its exhibition season against Concordia tonight (7 ET). Perhaps it is a sign of the times that I am looking forward to watching this and am even devoting an iota of attention to it during a week leading up to Michigan-Michigan State on the gridiron. Regardless, the only thing worth paying much attention to is the various lineups John Beilein will trot out. If you get the chance to watch, Beilein hopes that you'll get to see a lot of the freshmen out there tonight. 

• Also on the basketball front, as expected, Mitch McGary is out for tonight's exhibition tilt. 

Michigan-Pittsburgh Preview: Movin' On Up

No class today+the Wolverines and Bulls taking the floor tonight=previewin' time. Let's start with Michigan. 

Go Michigan Go Michigan Go

Time: 9:30 ET
Place: Madison Square Garden--New York, NY
Line: Michigan -3.5 

Exposition

Michigan heads to the World's Most Famous Arena tonight to take on an undefeated but unranked Pitt Panthers squad. The Panthers started last season 11-2, but those two losses came at the hands of Long Beach State and Wagner; it's perhaps no surprise that the Panthers collapsed from that point forward (i.e. the Big East schedule), finishing the regular season 17-16 (5-13) and missing the NCAA tournament entirely for the first time since 2001.

 Pitt has defeated Mount St. Mary's, Fordham, Lehigh (the 15-seed that defeated Duke) and Oakland. The Panthers handled the first three by an average of 27 points, but the fourth game against Oakland was a bit trickier. The Panthers trailed by as many as 18 points in the second half, only to rally back and take the game to overtime, where they ended up winning by 10. The halftime deficit of 14 points was the largest ever overcome by a Pitt team.

Michigan, on the other hand, has handled each and every overmatched early season opponent with ease. The Wolverines have completely eviscerated Slippery Rock (sorry guys, we still like you), IUPUI (all those letters couldn't save them) and Cleveland State. Is there much point in discussing these games with any sort of depth? Probably not, but it is worth noting that Jon Horford has seen time after missing most of last season with a foot injury. He provides invaluable depth and rebounding to the Wolverines, despite the fact that the Wolverines have seemingly acquired both over the span of one offseason.

Otherwise, Trey Burke is still Trey Burke. Tim Hardway Jr. (known here as THJ, for the uninitiated) has shot a hilarious 73% from 3 (8-11) and 62% from the field overall and the freshmen (minus LeVert) have all flashed their certain sets of skills that made them one of the best basketball classes to come to Michigan in some time.

The Opponent 
 
Pitt is averaging 79 points per game (to Michigan's 89 ppg), paced by three double digit scores in 6'9'' F Talib Zanna (14.0 ppg), 6'0'' G Tray Woodall (13.8 ppg) and 6'6'' F J.J. Moore (13.3 ppg).

Moore is the most efficient 3-point shooter on the team, having gone 6-13 to date (46%). However, Woodall has taken by far the most on the team, taking 27 and making only 8 (30%).

As a team, the Panthers have shot 52% from the field, good for 13th in the country. Luckily for Pitt, however, missing shots has been an "I ain't even mad, though" propostion: the Panthes have rebounded 50% of their misses thus far this season (55 offensive rebounds). Now, take with a sizable grain of salt given the level of competition, but Michigan will of course need to be ready to handle its toughest test on the glass this season by far.

As far as eFG% goes, Zanna is the only Panther who currently checks in within the top 100, sitting at 71.4% (awesome NB: Nik Stauskas currently leads the nation with an eFG% of 96.2).

Against Oakland, Pitt rolled out a starting lineup of Zanna, Woodall, G James Robinson, G-F Lamar Patterson and freshman 7'0'' center Steven Adams, a 5-star recruit from New Zealand.

Like Michigan, the Panthers are capable of dipping into their bench and finding some quality play. The aforementioned J.J. Moore actually comes off the bench himself, so Michigan's second-teamers will need to be ready to be aware of his presence on the 3-point line.

Trey Zeigler, a familiar name for Michiganders, also comes off the bench; he went 2-4 for 5 points and also pitched in 3 rebounds and a steal in 20 minutes against Oakland. 6'9'' 235 lb. F Dante Taylor logged the most minutes of any second-teamer for Pitt against Oakland, putting in 28 minutes and scoring 12 points on 6-7 shooting.

The Gameplan 
 Offensively, Michigan will be able to put up points. However, the step up in size with this Pitt front court will take some adjusting to, especially for a youngster like Mitch McGary, who has been a giant amongst men thus far. Jordan Morgan has been playing against guys taller and more athletic than him for a while now, and should be okay. This is a game where a guy like Horford could prove immensely useful.

i would imagine despite the similarity in height between Tray Woodall and Burke, either THJ or Vogrich will draw him on the defensive end (this is speculation, of course). Woodall is a redshirt senior who can fill it up from outside. He's only shooting 42% from the field --he shot 2-14 from the field against Oakland-- but leads the team in overall attempts with 48.

From the bits and pieces of highlight videos and other miscellaneous things on the Internet, he doesn't strike me as an exceptionally explosive guy. However, he can transition from the bounce to the jumper with relative ease, and he does not seem shy about launching it from beyond the arc. Burke/whoever will need to be ready to chase him around screens. In addition, Woodall is a more than capable distributor, averaging 7.3 assists per game thus far (and an assist percentage of .

6'3'' freshman James Robinson runs the point for the Panthers. He is definitely a classic point guard but hasn't been much of an active playmaker (that's been all Woodall) based on my limited exposure to Pitt basketball thus far. Then again, he is a freshman. With that said, and with all due respect to Robinson, a Rivals 4-star recruit, Burke should be able to have some serious success against him on the offensive end of the floor. I can't see Robinson hanging with him on the pick and roll and, really, off the dribble in general. Woodall has a bit more hop in his step than Robinson, so maybe he gets matched up on Burke after all.

Otherwise, the Panthers have some solid bigs that can score and hit the glass, but given the new look Michigan squad, Pitt's trio of 6'9''-and-taller players (Zanna, Taylor and Adams) shouldn't be able to have their way with Michigan like bigger teams have done in the past.

Miscellaneous Stats

•  Possessions per game. Like Michigan, the Panthers aren't exactly the most up tempo team in college basketball: they average 62 possessions per game (to Michigan's 68). Michigan shouldn't really ever be out of its comfort zone in this one, pace-wise. 
• Also like Michigan, the Panthers boast a nice and shiny assist to turnover ratio of 2.03 (Michigan is sitting at 1.66), good for 4th in the nation.
• Block party. Pitt is 64th in the nation in block percentage at 9.1%.

Ending Thoughts, Predictions, Etc. 
I realize that basing most of my perception of the relative quality of Pitt's team and individual players on the aforementioned Oakland game might not be the most wise thing to do, but it's pretty much the only somewhat meaningful data point to work with at this point.

Pitt doesn't shoot the three all that well but they do seem to take care of the ball for the most part, in addition to getting on the offensive glass fairly effectively. If this were an NCAA game, Woodall is definitely one of the guys getting the "star player" designation; he makes things happen for Pitt, whether he's coming off a screen for a jumper or distributing the ball elsewhere (he has a 38.3% assist percentage).

Again, Pitt has some bigs, and freshman 7-footer Steven Adams can even step out and hit a mid-range jumper if you let him. Still, I don't feel as I did in the past when Michigan was going up against a physical team with multiple bigs, mostly because, hey, Michigan has multiple bigs too. It is a nice feeling, indeed, analogous to the feeling that I get when I watch the football team play defense these days after wandering in the darkness that was the Greg Robinson era.

This will be a good test for Mitch McGary due to the uptick in the level of quality of the opponent's bigs, and it will be interesting to see how he responds. A put-back or two on his first shift would certainly do wonders for his confidence, which is already pretty high to begin with.

Michigan probably won't blow out this Pitt team unless everything turns up Milhouse in a major way, but a 10-15 point victory is not out of the realm of possibility. Jamie Dixon's Pitt squad is an experience one, and will absolutely put up a better effort than it did against Oakland.

A lot of it comes down to whether or not Tray Woodall can have a decent night from the field and whether, conversely, THJ can even halfway continue his torrid shooting pace to date. For THJ, this also includes prudent shot selection, especially in an arena often known for its unforgivingly callous rims.

Score: Michigan 78, Pitt 70.

We Hardly Knew You, 11/2/2011

Another Saturday has come and gone. A brief snow flurry fell as I watched Gameday Saturday morning...mansome. It's Big Ten football time, for real y'all. It feels so strange not being in Ann Arbor for all of this after spending four years there, each week recovering from the last only to build up steadily each day until it became Saturday again and everything was good. Even when things weren't good, they were something. Thankfully, I will be making it out for the Nebraska game, so it'll only be a few more weeks of this "not being in the Big House" nonsense.

(HT: Mike DeSimone)

Goodbye: This is already old news at this point, but Carvin Johnson is the latest Wolverine to leave the program. Of course, once you get past the fact that this is a not insignificant dent to Michigan's depth in the secondary, it hurts to lose a guy like this for many other reasons.

An average Michigan recruiting class normally features a five-star or two (sometimes more), a veritable army of four-stars, and a smattering of three-stars boasting offer lists that seem to dispel their lukewarm recruiting rankings. You'll see an elite quarterback, monstrous offensive and defensive tackles, and defensive backs with a propensity to cover large swathes of turf with speed, agility, and courage.

Then you have the rest. It's hard not to become attached to players like these, players who were specifically elected, plucked from the enormous faceless mass of anonymous three-stars because they sparked some interest in somebody along the way. That's nothing to scoff at. The domain of the three-star is not that different from that of the working world at large; that is, the sheer number of people in existence makes it difficult to differentiate one's self from others, to make one's self noticed, appreciated, seen. In college football recruiting, there are infinitely more three-star and below prospects than there are four and five-star guys (this is obvious and follows logically--ultimately very few are cut out for college football), and it's difficult to get noticed by the elites.

I wish he had stayed, but, in the end, these are the guys you root for even when they're gone, simply for the fact that they keep an idealized notion of hope afloat. The idea that simply getting noticed is even a possibility should be reassuring to us all.

Three and Out: I received my copy of "Three and Out" last Thursday and, after tearing through it in the span of 24 fevered hours, was intent on writing a big ol' depressing post about it full of outrage and hand-wringing. After letting some of the book's more ignominious revelations settle in my mind for a while, I decided not to for the simple fact that: a) it's been talked about ad nauseam and b) it's incredibly depressing. With that said, if you haven't read it you probably should go do that. A few impressions ranging from the general to the specific to the inane (this is completely off the cuff...I know there will be many things I'm either forgetting to mention or lack the ability to adequately confront):

• Obvious statement of the century, but man did RR git a raw deal from the word go. He made his mistakes, but he just didn't have a chance. Eric Mayes's comments pretty much sum up what RR was up against and represent some of the far from rosy underbelly of the institution of Michigan football. The most frustrating part of the book is realizing how much RR actually did understand many Michigan traditions, going all the way back to his early coaching days. I just wish he was more able to articulate what he did know to the media, in addition to knowing when to just stop talking and start coachspeaking. 
• As a piece of writing, this book is awesome from start to finish. The survey of college football history and the development of athletic departments, the relationships between ADs and college presidents, the evolution of offenses, all the way up to the biographical bits about RR's upbringing and early pursuit of a career in coaching, were consistently captivating, even if you already know about most of these things. 
• As grim as much of the book was, something about a grown man saying--profanity ahead--"FUCK ME" was admittedly kind of funny (after watching "Fargo" the other night I guess I'm in a dark comedy sort of mood). Obviously, the circumstances were not funny at any point, but the aforementioned is something I imagine a 15 year-old on a Mountain Dew and Halo bender saying. Although the depiction of RR's cursing and object tossing wasn't flattering, it was real and most of all familiar. 
• Similarly, Rod Smith's "Suck it, Notre Dame" line...GOLD. 
• I mentioned last week that I would be reluctant to view things in any sort of black and white sense despite whatever disappointments I'd find in the book. While I'm still dedicated to that notion, it's hard not to lose a little respect for, yes, Lloyd Carr. 
• Despite RR's treatment, it becomes quite obvious (if it wasn't clear already) that the players were the biggest victims throughout this entire nightmare. Bacon's descriptions of what the players had to go through on a daily basis--as a result of the ongoing drama in addition to the day-to-day grind of life as a college football player--humanizes the whole shameful affair in a way that's unrelentingly heartbreaking. 
• The last line of the book was perfect and yet so painfully succinct that you wish it would just swallow up every page that preceded it. I remember my unbridled excitement about what was to come in the moments leading up to kickoff of the Utah game; it seems to have happened so long ago that I'm not sure it was ever real. 

Glazed, No Sprinkles: Transitioning to less depressing topics, this week's edition of Inside Michigan Football promises its usual buffet of fluff that doesn't give you anything new or useful to think about (but you still love it anyway). Hoke talked about this and that and other things, but the only reason I'm linking this is to note that he mentions a liking for glazed donuts but not the sprinkled kind. Once again, Hoke proves that he gets it. Sprinkles are most certainly the flashy, substance-less dressings of a donut lacking in fundamental toughness. A man who likes sprinkles is not a man I want to know.

Also, there's an awkward exchange about Halloween costumes at the end, punctuated by Hoke hilariously saying: "I just don't know, Jim."

Minnesota In Ur Base, Outscheming Ur D00ds: Black Heart Gold Pants has a great rundown of what exactly went wrong last Saturday against a horrible, horrible Minnesota team. I highly doubt we'll be basing our gameplan on what Minnesota did given that we, you know, actually have some amount of defensive talent to work with, but it's an interesting read nonetheless. If Minnesota DC Tracy Claeys can figure it out, I have faith that Mattison will be just fine.

The Gophers went with the "wide nine" for much of the game, which is now in vogue in the professional ranks and has replaced the Wildcat as the gimmicky deviation from the monotony of sterile manball the NFL espouses that is inevitably mentioned a million times per broadcast involving a team using these philosophies. To a certain extent it kind of worked for the Gophers. Sure, Coker made a killing on the ground, racking up 252 yards; at the end of the day, though, the Gophers only gave up 21 points, which is pretty miraculous given Minnesota's defensive incompetence against everybody save USC. BHGP writes:

It certainly seemed like Minnesota was copying the recently popular NFL concept of setting their ends up in the so-called "wide nine" stance, as in outside the tight ends. And unlike NFL teams, who prefer this look solely on passing downs, it certainly seemed like Minnesota went with this look all the time. Why go this route? Here's a good article on the concept, but the basic idea seems to be to pressure the quarterback. And Vandenberg did seem to face pressure all day, even when Minnesota didn't have an explicit blitz call on.  It's hard to say if that was due to the alignment of the ends and how much was due to a mediocre day by the Iowa offensive line, but whatever it was, it worked. 

Again, there's no way Michigan goes with this extreme of a game plan on defense, but it's worth considering. Despite the outcome of the game, Iowa will provide a serious challenge this defense; Vandenberg is a capable, strong-armed quarterback, and, paired with a pretty good back in Coker and an NFL quality receiver in McNutt, nothing but our best effort will do. Iowa's offensive line isn't really anything to write home about, and I don't see the more straight ahead stuff being a major threat barring any obscene displays of horrible tackling. As usual, controlling the edge will be crucial because the Hawkeyes do like them some stretch plays. If Michigan can duplicate the relatively solid edge-consciousness they displayed against Purdue then that should go a long way toward shutting down the run and giving Mattison free rein to blitz the heck out of Vandenberg and a leaky OL.

McGary Watch: If you haven't heard, tomorrow is the day that Mitch McGary, coveted 5-star big man, announces his decision tomorrow. Everybody who's anybody is saying that he's a lock for Michigan, which, if true then WOOOOOO. Nick Baumgardner of AnnArbor.com talks about the implications of a McGary commitment:

If Brewster Academy mega-recruit Mitch McGary puts on a Michigan basketball hat Thursday, he instantly changes John Beilein's program.

The Wolverines' 2012 recruiting class suddenly shoots up the national rankings and Beilein gets a 6-foot-10, 250-pound power forward with seemingly limitless potential to add to his already promising roster for next season.

 The article even includes a LaVell Blanchard name drop, with recruiting analyst Dave Telep noting that McGary would be Michigan's highest-rated recruit since Michigan landed Blanchard way back in 1999. That shouldn't be surprising at all (see Amaker, Tommy and Ellerbe, Brian) and yet it is. Blanchard was my favorite player as a younger fan (I was in middle school when he played) and the only basketball jersey I currently own is a blue Michigan #30, a cherished relic from a frustrating era.

With McGary ostensibly (knock on wood) joining the program, I think it's safe to say that this sleeping giant is starting to wake up. And to think that people wanted Beilein and his "gimmick" philosophies on offense and defense gone at one point--ah, the virtues of patience. Michigan hit a home run the day they hired Beilein, and that investment is finally starting to bear fruit.

More? Adam Jacobi's "Keys to the Game" for this Saturday...I'm pretty confident that we'll win but for some reason I'm getting some strong 2009 Illinois-esque vibes. HOLD ME. Joe Pa insistent on keeping the 2-QB system alive...Penn State's QB situation takes the old "if you've got two quarterbacks then you've got none" saying and derpifies it even more than would normally be the case. As WVU lawyers up, new Big 12 puppet commissioner Chuck Neinas says "Hey guys, see y'all next year!" Former Alabama and LSU stars now in the NFL weigh in on the game of the year, with each player shockingly siding with his alma mater. Georgia taking a page from the Iowan reality known as "not having any running backs ever due to various circumstances/having to deploy a guy named Paki O'Meara for a non-zero number of plays"...thankfully for UGA, they get New Mexico State this week. The WSJ on Bama-LSU.