brent hibbitts
UNDER-16 TIME-OUT SUMMARY: pic.twitter.com/7iM2hDkC2M
— Bryan Mac (@Bry_Mac) November 30, 2017
[game begins]
Oh man, this is awesome. Like that one half of the UCLA game.
Oh, now I remember the other half of that UCLA game.
Dick Vitale is going to talk about the Fab Five?
[hits mute button]
[awaits final score]
[Hit THE JUMP for actual notes and the box score.]
![08-6651010btbase052515A[1]](http://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/images/UV_A374/08-6651010btbase052515A1.jpg "08-6651010btbase052515A[1]")
Hey: tournaments. Softball making the postseason is a given, and even the CWS is kind of expected when they're having a good year. Baseball not so much, but they played themselves in off the bubble. So here we are with an unusually busy late May sports weekend.
Softball's opener is against Alabama on Thursday at 8 PM Eastern on ESPN2. Alabama's 47-13, the #6 overall seed, and one of five(!) SEC teams to make it. All eight national seeds made it to the CWS because softball is way more predictable than baseball. if they win that they will play on Friday at 10:30; if they lose they'll be in an elimination game on Saturday at 3:30.
Baseball kicks off its regional against two-seed Bradley at 2 on Friday. That game is only available on ESPN3; Louisville is the top seed and host. Let's find out about Bradley!
"We don't know anything about Bradley, so we are going in with a blindfold on," Cronenworth said.
Nevermind!
Let's have a DB transfer key party. Just days after the Moncrief kerfuffle, Blake Countess announces he'll spend his final year at Auburn. Excellent pickup if you're going to play a lot of zone, but this is the important part.
Auburn will have a Duke, Prince, Queen, King, President and a Countess on the roster in 2015. http://t.co/aiTFaHhPn0
— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) May 26, 2015 So they've got that going for them.
Holy pants. Remember a few days ago when I compared the Big Ten's DOA freshman ineligibility plan to Nationwide Your Kid Just Died? They may have literally been created by the same people.
The Big Ten floated the “year of readiness” plan mostly as a ploy to get people focused on discussing more academic and student-welfare issues, or what Glass called “less controversial and more doable” reforms.
Nationwide ran an ad during the Super Bowl that started a fierce conversation. The sole purpose of this message was to start a conversation, not sell insurance.
Unfortunately, Jim Delany isn't accountable to anyone. Jim Delany could walk around pooping big scarlet Rs on Big Ten fans and it wouldn't impact his job security. He could jump on the hood of a car and fire 17 scarlet Rs at unarmed passengers and get acquitted. Nationwide bro got future endeavored.
“Matt accomplished a great deal during his time at Nationwide and we wish him the very best in his future endeavors,” Nationwide spokesman Joe Case said.
No such luck for the Big Ten's partisans.
Camp Sanderson yoke up of the year. Can't be summer on a Michigan blog without a picture of a basketball player who has put on an impressive amount of muscle. Memorial Day has just passed, so:
With all credit to @CampSanderson. The offseason is all about progression. From 215 to 238 #summerisSERIOUS pic.twitter.com/d3sT6OGDnp
— D.J. Wilson (@Lanky_Smoove) May 21, 2015 That is a big leap, one that should help him a lot as he gets drafted into playing some center this year.
To rein people in, stop reining them in. Via Get The Picture, GT coach Paul Johnson has a way to fix all the offer-not-offer stuff going on in college football currently:
“Once you start your senior year of high school, you should be able to sign at any time,” Johnson said. “The schools have their 85 scholarships, and you can sign no more than 25 in a year. When you sign your limit, you’re through. If you sign a kid and he doesn’t qualify, you lose it for that year. We put the onus back on the kids with better grades and better students, and we stop all the craziness of the hat shows, soft commits, decommits and all that.”
You can't stop a hat show, but he's right on about that. My blue sky version of that goes slightly farther:
- players can sign a non-binding LOI whenever they want
- this LOI commits the school to offering a slot in their class
- the kid can withdraw it at any time until Signing Day
- he can only visit the school he committed to, he has unlimited contact with that school, and other coaches can't call him
It's a bad idea to lock people into commitments before the coaching carousel stops moving in mid-January, but that system gives both schools and players incentives to be up front with each other. Johnson:
“If a kid said he was committed, you hand him the papers. If he didn’t sign, you knew he wasn’t committed. The same thing on the schools. If the kid went in, and they said, ‘You’ve got an offer,’ and the kid wants to sign, (he’d) call their bluff as well."
As GTP says, hard to argue with that logic.
A bit on Hibbitts. I wonder if Michigan went with preferred walk-on Brent Hibbitts over Max Bielfeldt with their last scholarship this year. Once they missed on Jaylen Brown it seemed like they had a spot to keep a guy who is drawing interest from Nebraska and Indiana. Bielfeldt told reporters he would like to stay but that wasn't happening. Illogical, captain.
But then Michigan gets a 6'8" stretch four with mid-major offers. If Michigan thinks they could develop Hibbitts into a player given some time—and their track record is impressive in that department—and they need a carrot, guaranteeing him a scholarship for his first year isn't a bad one.
Etc.: John Calipari has goals man. Harbaugh regret in San Francisco. There are more quarterbacks now. Excellent outside zone primer from James Light. Highly recommend the first comment. Stauskas comes back for the summer. Dawkins and Donnal evaluated.
Hello Hibbitts. Brent Hibbitts did decide to sign on with Michigan as a preferred walk-on over various MAC and other mid-major offers. This is more notable than most other walk-on acquisitions because Hibbits has intriguing size—he's 6'8"—and had a high level of interest from D-I programs. His skill set also fits in with Michigan:
Hibbitts averaged 17.4 points and 11.5 rebounds per game as a senior at Hudsonville last season, earning Associated Press Class A All-State honorable mention status and leading the Eagles to a district championship.
"He has a really nice skill set," Hudsonville coach Eric Elliott told MLive last Wednesday. "He can handle the ball, is a great passer with court vision and has a nice shooting touch. Interested schools see him as a stretch four. That's his ideal position."
There's a lot of competition at that spot presently, but give Hibbitts some time and there's a nonzero chance he's a contributor late in his career. I mean, we all know where the Stain Train started.
![2012-February-11-19-17-34[1]](http://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/images/0da7bfd5dbbe_DB9C/2012-February-11-19-17-341.jpg "2012-February-11-19-17-34[1]")
Weirder things have happened.
This is about to change. It already has with Dennis Norfleet's exit, in fact. It is a breakdown of attrition in the Big Ten:
| TEAM | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | TOTAL |
| IOWA | 10 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 25 |
| Rutgers | 10 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 19 |
| Michigan | 14 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 18 |
| Illinois | 8 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 17 |
| Ohio State | 11 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 16 |
| Nebraska | 6 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 16 |
| Minnesota | 6 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 15 |
| Maryland | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 14 |
| Penn State | 4 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 13 |
| Wisconsin | 1 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 12 |
| Purdue | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| Indiana | 7 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 11 |
| Michigan State | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 10 |
| Northwestern | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
That is spectacular on Michigan's part. The 2011 class rivaled 2010 in flameouts, and then virtually nobody left for three years. There's about to be a major uptick, but at least Michigan retained the bulk of their prospects before the inevitable attrition that comes with a coaching turnover.
Iowa is pretty salty about what's going on there BTW:
In all of the non-Iowa seasons in which a program lost 10 or more players -- 2011 Michigan, Ohio State and Rutgers -- a coach had left, with the new coach either cleaning house (Meyer, Hoke/Harbaugh) or failing to keep the last coach's guys (Flood). Iowa, of course, has no such impetus for big attrition.
That is especially galling when Wisconsin and Michigan State are quality redshirt-and-develop programs with recruiting approximately on Iowa's level. It seems impossible that Ferentz will get Iowa back to even B+ football before his buyout reaches plausibility.
DAYTON. ONLY DAYTON. I mean.
If Hibbitts had been offered by Dayton he would have gotten a full hello post, I think.
Overseas options hit hockey. I don't think this is going to be a trend since 18-year-olds can just go play in the NHL if they're that good, but uber-prospect Auston Matthews is at least considering the option of spending next year in Switzerland:
The Everett Silvertips of the Western Hockey League hold his junior rights after selecting him in the third round of the 2012 bantam draft. A report from Switzerland’s Blick News Service on Sunday said Matthews had signed a contract to play for the Zurich Lions in the Swiss A League.
He denied that report, but said he was keeping all options—including the A League—open. It was doubtful Matthews was going to sign on with Michigan, and more doubtful after the Copp stuff broke. It would have been fun to see him in college anyway.
HATIN' ASS MICHIGAN SPURRIER. The fruits of your labors, ladies and gentlemen:
Notre Dame players hit that "Play Like A Champion Today" sign, and dang if they don't look like a ten dollar sweatshirt you got in 1993.
Don't think Michigan fans should be torn up about the Notre Dame rivalry ending. If they want to play a religious school that goes .500 against USC, Boston College is free.
Rudy and The Lego Movie are basically the same story, except nobody pretends The Lego Movie is a documentary.
Bielfeldt is on the move. Any remaining hopes that Michigan might hang on to Max Bielfeldt are now gone, and it is definitely the coaching staff's choosing.
"I did tell the coaches that I did want to come back to Michigan," Bielfeldt said. "But at the end of the day things didn't work out and we both decided to move on."
Bielfedlt added, "I told (coaches) that I wanted to stay (and) Michigan was my first choice but as time went on I had to explore other options."
That is odd since it doesn't look like they are going to fill their 13th spot this year. I am more enthused about Ricky Doyle than most people but even I think Bielfeldt is a backup plan worth having when you have major questions about the guys behind him.
Etc.: Sierra Romero is ESPNW's softballist of the year. The Longhorn Network is a disaster. Jay Mariotti still has Jay Mariotti opinions. Rudock profiled. Remember this site calling the pursuit of Jim Harbaugh the "Harbaugh Hail Mary?" Here's a Harbaugh Hail Mary. On the shoe wars. Exposure U details.
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