jack randl

Items. Isaiah Hole has launched a new Michigan site called Wolverines Wire, and has started off with some insider takes on the team. Another walk-on WR is making a name for himself:

While we’re told that second-year WRs Donovan Peoples-Jones and Tarik Black have continued their impressive ascent from a year ago, a name we keep hearing come up is a fellow second-year receiver from Solon(OH): walk-on Jake McCurry.

One source told WolverinesWire that McCurry’s ascent has been notable across the entire team.

That take was endorsed by various Michigan players on Twitter, which is unusual. McCurry probably isn't going to have much opportunity what with Black and DPJ and Grant Perry looking set as the top options at each of the three starting slots, plus a reasonable amount of highly-rated depth. But he could get some run.

You'll never compete with Alabama until you start looking like Alabama. Michigan's new strength staff has them headed in that direction. Karan Higdon 2017 vs. 2018 pic.twitter.com/TDKHbPi6Qg

— LG (@LGhail) June 6, 2018

Hole also provides some details on Ultra Jacked Karan Higdon, who's reportedly up to 203 pounds from 190 last year—David Long is up to 195—and lists five guys who insiders are touting post-spring. Bookmark! Or whatever you do these days. Eat the Snapface content.

I am Jack's utter lack of surprise. Mo Hurst is doing well in the Raiders' minicamp:

Hurst has been more than a pleasant surprise for Oakland in that he is running with the first-team defense in its 4-3 base at left defensive tackle (last year's starter, Eddie Vanderdoes, is rehabbing from a torn ACL) and has starred in the offseason. Beating All-Pro Kelechi Osemele when he flipped sides not only opened the eyes of the coaches, but also got the attention of Osemele, who gave the rookie the, ahem, business. -- Paul Gutierrez

Gonna be a lot more embarrassed NFL guards in the near future. His DC:

The 6-2, 290-pounder is a perfect fit for Guenther’s 4-3 defense that relies heavily on defensive lineman to create pressure without blitzing. His skill set is comparable to six-time Pro Bowler Geno Atkins, who saw some of his most productive seasons under Guenther when he was the Bengals defensive coordinator from 2014-2017.

“He has great off,” added Guenther. “The three-technique is the penetrator of our defense. He does a great job with that. He’s going to have to learn big man’s game a little bit where you don’t get the double teams as much in college. You’re going to get a lot more of that in the NFL. Then obviously in the pass rush. He’s slippery in the pass rush. He has good side to side movement. He’s a powerful guy.”

Hopefully Hurst becomes infamous as the second-worst scouted NFL draft pick in Michigan history.

[After THE JUMP: the trolliest NBA career, hockey rule changes, and hockey scouting.]

D Bode Wilde is the headliner

THE SPOTS

There's no way around the fact that Michigan has too many guys coming in to fit on one hockey roster. I'm not sure if this is in fact oversigning since hockey is not a headcount sport so you can split scholarships. Some incoming commits might be on half or a quarter scholarship; a few are probably pure walk-ons. And it's common to offer guys a "yes, but" in which they might come in in year X or might have to take another year in junior, depending on what ravages your roster sustains.

So: Michigan has six seniors who will definitely exit. Four are forwards; two are defensemen. Two of those forwards (Porikos and Roos) are probably not getting much, if any scholarship money, FWIW. They open up a roster slot but not a scholarship one. Cooper Marody has also left for the NHL.

Nick Boka, Joe Cecconi, and Brendan Warren are all draftees entering their final year of eligibility. NHL teams often try to sign those players since a player who stays four years at college can become a free agent. Warren probably hasn't done enough to warrant a contract; Boka is iffy; Cecconi probably has.

Michigan also has a few underclass departure threats: Luke Martin and Will Lockwood were second round picks and Quinn Hughes is about to go top ten—possibly top five. Lockwood got hurt the second half of the year and Hughes seems unlikely to bolt immediately, if only because he's a wee gent who could use a second year in Ann Arbor before attempting to crack an NHL roster. Martin is tough to tell since he's not much of an offensive threat.

Michigan needs somewhere between seven and ten guys unless this year's Michigan Hockey Summer is especially severe.

THE GONE

Since the last time we looked at the 2018 class, Michigan lost Mattias Samuelsson to WMU, Alec Regula to the OHL, and Gustaf Westlund to Ohio State. They plugged in probable top 15 draft pick Bode Wilde at D so the D losses won't hurt Michigan much. Westlund is a '97 with 34 points in 54 USHL games and is probably not a huge loss.

FWIW, I remain skeptical that Kenny Johnson is actually going to play for Michigan.

THE OLD

The three longstanding commits in the class who are still in it are all midlevel prospects; they're not sure things but they come with some reasons for optimism. None figure to have much immediate impact.

Randl drives action

Jack Randl is in his second year with the USHL's Omaha Lancers. He's got 32 points in 49 games, which is sixth on his team. A couple caveats: he's second in goals and he's the top 2000-born player on the team; only one of the guys in front of him is even a '99. HS-age guys who are close to a PPG in the USHL project as scoring line players, at least down the road. He's a bit borderline in that department. Possibly helpful: a hockey analytics guy named Will Scouch compiles numbers for the draft and Randl leads everyone in the USHL or CHL in % of goals where he either scores or has the primary assist.

P1IPP?

1) Jack Randl - 82.6%
2) Andrei Svechnikov - 82.1%
3) Tristen Nielsen - 73.9%
4) Serron Noel - 72.2%
5) Ryan O'Reilly - 72.2%
6) Sampo Ranta - 72.2%
7) Blade Jenkins - 70.7%
8) Hunter Holmes - 68.8%
9) Filip Zadina - 67.7%
10) Allan McShane - 67.4%

— Will Scouch (@Scouching) February 25, 2018

This means that he's driving most of the play when he's on the ice. USHR did like him quite a bit in a prospects game where he slotted in just behind a variety of high draft picks:

7. Jack Randl -- Michigan recruit had a goal and two assists, made plays consistently. Strong skater.

Randl got called up to the U18s to play at the Five Nations tourney in February, which is also a pretty good sign. He might go late in the NHL draft. He's ranked 158th by the CSB.

[After the JUMP: a lot more guys. Also a nine year old's absurd shootout goal.]

look, if they had a spring game you wouldn't have to keep looking at the same picture [Bryan Fuller]

Shea status. Michigan responded with a letter from Shea Patterson answering the questions posed, and Ole Miss said "whatever," more or less:

In communications this week, Ole Miss told the NCAA it basically had nothing to add.

"There is nothing new here," Bjork told CBS Sports. "We do not oppose the student-athlete competing right away if the decision is based on accurate information, NCAA bylaws, applicable waiver standards and relevant case precedent."

Patterson's attorney, Tom Mars, concluded, "Therefore, the case is ready to be decided. The timing of the NCAA's decision is a matter of the staff's discretion, so there is no timetable for when a decision will be made. I'm confident, however, that the staff will not take any more time than is necessary to come to the right decision."

The NCAA has all the information it's going to get, and it is a lot of information. Mars bombed the idea that Patterson hadn't added anything new in an interview with Sam. Patterson's letter was apparently 9 pages long; Ole Miss's response was a single paragraph.

Either way we'll know soon—but it had better be a thumbs up unless the NCAA wants a ton of awful PR for no reason. It's not like there's going to be a spate of free transfers from schools that get in trouble and lie about it—currently that list of schools stands at just Ole Miss.

Hang on to your butts. Neal Rubin has details on the terrifying but ultimately harmless plane crash before last year's Big Ten tournament:

…according to the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder, part of the investigative report released last week by the National Transportation Safety Board, the pilot’s terse “Abort” at 187 mph was met with a historically sensible, procedurally correct and potentially fatal response.

“No. Not above —” the copilot said, referring to takeoff speed. Then: “(Expletive.)”

What the captain felt in his hands, and the copilot had no way of knowing, was that the two-engine jetliner was not going to climb. The yoke “felt heavy, like there was a stack of bricks on the nose,” he told investigators, and so he immediately did exactly what pilots are trained to avoid.

The 881-page report is here if you have a great deal of time.

Tough sell for transfers; transfers a tough sell. Per Josh Henschke, South Dakota transfer Matt Mooney has dropped Michigan from consideration. This is not much of a surprise since he should be able to find 30 MPG somewhere else.

The only other transfer currently associated with Michigan is Robert Morris SG Dachon Burke, but 1) Burke is a sit one, play two kid with 2) a 102 ORTG in the NEC. I don't know what ORTG a sit-one-play-two low-major guy would have to have to be appealing given that Michigan currently has one open 2019 scholarship, but it's not 102. It's probably 130. Anyone talking about Burke seriously hasn't looked at Michigan's roster.

Carton's HS has great jerseys that Michigan should try to copy, too

Especially since… In the aftermath of Michigan's Final Four run, Beilein has started hitting up a bunch of top 50 guys. Michigan appears to be recruiting in the expectation they'll have two spots and they would like those to be a combo guard and a wing. With Duke folks still banking on Joe Girard, it's recently-offered IA CG DJ Carton who now seems like the most likely big-time combo addition. Carton's recruitment is nearly an entirely intraconference battle, with Marquette the lone school outside of the Big Ten drawing much mention.

Carton has four CB picks to Wisconsin on his profile but Wisconsin 247 guy Evan Flood seems like he's trying to let the locals down easy, saying that if he had an idea of where to flip his pick he'd flip it away from the Badgers. Guard depth is cited as a problem—a dubious assertion given Wisconsin's guard play and recent recruiting. Meanwhile Henschke seems fairly close to a Michigan crystal ball.

Nunez doesn't hit rim. Some highlights:

Much shorter reel than Castleton's but that form is so pure.

Final CSB. Players of note on the postseason Central Scouting Bureau's list of NA skaters:

• #6 Quinn Hughes. Actually dropped from #4. Crazy!
• #7 Oliver Wahlstrom. Wahlstrom decommitted from Harvard and is apparently choosing between BC, Michigan, and maybe a year in Europe. No news since Jeff Cox reported that a week ago.
• #17 Bode Wilde. Will be a freshman in AA next year, also after decommitting from Harvard. Hopefully he and Wahlstrom are bros.
• #154 Jack Randl. That makes Randl a late pick if he actually goes.

Michigan's other draft-age commits—Calen Kiefiuk and Jacob Semik—are not listed. That's not a huge surprise for either given their USHL numbers, though Semik has some peripheral stats that look pretty good. (More about that later.)

This class was hurt pretty badly by the uncertainty about Red Berenson; Pearson's tried to fill it in with various overagers as he seeks to bridge the gap between Hughes and Norris to the 2020 group. Flipping Wilde will be a big help there; a one-and-done from Wahlstrom would also be real nice. Also…

Of course, as I say something about him, he scores. Jack Hughes with a beauty. This game is tied at four. #U18Worlds #2019NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/oFWKw0mxh4

— Steven Ellis (@StevenEllisNHL) April 19, 2018

Obligatory Jack Hughes mention. Hughes draws a New York Times(!) profile. Most of it is stuff you're already familiar with if you follow Michigan hockey. A section at the end definitively states that he won't accelerate (boo), but then broaches the possibility of the #1 pick in the draft spending a year somewhere other than the NHL:

Hughes is undecided about where he will play after he is done with the National Team Development Program in 2019. He is considering college hockey and the junior ranks in Canada. “We can’t get too far ahead of ourselves. He’s just a kid,” said Jim Hughes, who now works for Pat Brisson, the top agent whose clients include Matthews, now a Maple Leafs star, and other N.H.L. players.

One other possibility is a year of pro hockey in Switzerland, where Matthews played, on Brisson’s advice, before being drafted. Going directly to the N.H.L. after the 2019 draft could be a stretch unless Jack Hughes adds plenty of pounds and bulk over the next 18 months.

That's not going to happen, right? When's the last time that happened? I don't even want to think about it. They'd still give the Hobey to Jimmy Vesey.

Exit fun guy. Alas: 2020 hockey recruit Antonio Stranges signed with London. May he have better luck than previous Michigan decommits. Fellow touted 2020 recruit Andrei Bakanov signed a tender with the USHL's Cedar Rapids after not making himself available for the OHL draft and is on track to matriculate. Bakanov has some stats:

Bakanov, a six-foot-two, 192-pound forward, spent the 2017-18 season with the Oakland Jr. Grizzlies, totaling an impressive 112 points (57G, 55A) in 77 total games between the program's HPHL schedule and U16 AAA schedule.

“Cedar Rapids has a great history of producing tremendous players," Bakanov said. "The plan that Coach Carlson provided my family and me not only for on ice development , but also developing as a student and person, far exceeded our expectations. I was able to see a game on my visit and the support of the fans for the team really excited me."

If he scores at a decent clip in his draft-1 year in the USHL he'll be a first round candidate.

Etc.: Awful Announcing on the Athletic's impressive growth. 2019 wing Jae'lyn Withers lists Michigan as one of four schools he's hearing the most from. Withers jumped 54 spots to 61st in the latest Rivals update. Zach Shaw says goodbye to Wagner. He's probably a second round pick. Ticket packs and prices announced. Baseball is "last five in" per D1baseball Dot Com