star wars

THE ESSENTIALS

Right: Look at ye, all nearly respectable-looking, I ‘ardly recognized ye. [Patrick Barron/MGoBlog]

THE US

This is the fourth and final basketball game the Big Ten decided to pack into eight days in the middle of January. Kindly enough, they made the final boss a relatively straightforward tank-and-spank on Sunday at noon, giving the Wolverines a welcomingly refreshing whole Saturday to wake up in their own beds and practice whatever the plan is to beat the screen-switching malfunction Nebraska exposed.

An off night in Lincoln after a mentally exhausting week is forgivable if it’s a one-time occurrence. On the other hand, Michigan’s only had about 20 minutes of good basketball in the 80 they’ve played since beating State by 10 in the Stand Behind Lou Anna Simon Center. Nick Ward’s ankles breaking dot gif can only be replayed so many times.*

Rutgers fortunately represents another step down in competition. However this year’s Knights are more like the decent WAC teams we’d like Beilein to schedule than the bottom-of-the-SWAC drags they’ve been historically. This Rutgers team also thrives on the kind of sloppiness that defined those awful halves. Also we have a running podcast joke about taking away your conference membership if you lose to the 14th who will always be the 14th member of it. It’d be nice to see that cleaned up early and some starters get their rest.

*(allegedly)

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

Pos.	#	Name	Yr.	Ht./Wt.	%Min	%Poss	ORtg	SIBMIHHAT
G	3	Corey Sanders	Jr.	6'2, 176	81	26	96	Yes
Distributor/ballhandler who’ll drive the lane but can’t shoot.
G	0	Geo Baker	Fr.	64, 180	80	20	105	Sort of
Pesky defender and main scoring threat who can also distribute—the biggest reason Rutgers has moved up to meh from utter crap.
F	35	Issa Thiam	So.	6'10, 190	70	11	118	Not at all
If Duncan Robinson was two inches taller (and was still hitting 44% from three)
F	33	Deshawn Freeman	Sr.	6'7, 227	65	27	93	Very
Physical defensive specialist with Ben Wallace-level hair game, Ben Wallace-like offensive game.
C	11	Eugene Omoruyi	So.	6'7, 234	52	23	97	Extremely
First among heavy rotation at C. Crashes the boards, gets a lot of blocks, gets to the line and makes half of them.
C	21	Mamadou Doucoure	Fr.	6'9, 243	35	16	91	Extremely
A guy. Can’t shoot.
C	2	Shaquille Doorson	Jr.	7’0, 275	22	12	108	Extremely
True C averaged 20 mpg vs OSU-MSU-Purdue, DNP vs Iowa-Wis. Will see him against Teske or not at all
C	1	Candido Sa	Sr.	6'9, 235	27	12	85	Yes
5/20 career on 3PA (1/1 this year), 40% from two. Very good shot blocker.
G	44	Souf Mensah	Jr.	6’2, 220	15	11	39	Yes
JC transfer who looks like he’s 40. Only non-C on bench with Mike Williams out, may be a marginal improvement over playing with just 4 guys.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

1 hour and 54 minutes

We are at the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, which has nine or ten conference rooms depending on if we count Wisconsin’s loss to Rutgers in basketball.

We Couldn’t Have One Without the Other

We can do this because people support us. You should support them too so they’ll want to do it again next year! The show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan we’d be sighing to ourselves.

Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Peak Wealth Management, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad,Human Element, Lantana Hummus and new this week introducing Ecotelligent Homes

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1. The Bowl Game Happened, and Hey, a Basketball Game!

starts at 1:00

Hit Kenpom Time at 7 minutes, positive step forward for the program despite getting almost nothing from Mo and Matthews. Very different to want Z taking shots. Getting Robinson back to the bench, where he can be on the floor with Teske, is the best part of starting Livers. Typical Beilein team coming together, Teske earning equal time. Best shot at a tourney win is beat Purdue at home—RPI hell going to put a good team on the 10 line. RPI should please adopt hockey’s adjustment where if a win would lower your RPI they drop it. Does Poole need a Xanax or roll with it?

2. The Bowl Game Happened, We’ll Talk About It

starts at 32:14

Every quarterback who played this year regressed. Losing the mash brothers lost the running game. Standard crazy good D with a big safety crack on a slot fade. Not upset with the direction of the program; upset with the takes this year invited. No excuse for pass protection to be THIS bad.

3. Next Year

starts at 46:17

Defense returns Don Brown and 10-ish starters, with some backups in line for breakouts. One guy they lose is the best DT in program history but deeper team could murder a la 2016. Bring back two elite LBs with a lot of good backup options, and possibly the two best CBs in the country plus Ambry Thomas.

Offense seems pretty bad. Looks like another staff shakeup coming. RB should be fine, Ben Mason is fine at fullback, Gentry/McKeon will improve, get more from Eubanks and Wheatley. WRs won’t be all freshmen anymore. Interior OL has to get better at pass pro. Bredeson needs a jump next year since he doesn’t fit with the mash-you unit. Gotta find two tackles, can probably find at least one?

Special teams: Gotta find a punter, Nordin good.

4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi wsg Richard Hoeg of HoegLaw

starts at 1:13:28

One of our advertisers wrote a viral Star Wars take so we invited him on. Brian loathed The Force Awakens for making a 2016 remake of IV. Agree there was a Marvel-ish iconoclasm to it—this bothers Richard and Brian thinks this series badly needed it. Ryan Johnson got a crap sandwich and figured out a way to make the third movie not Return of the Jedi. Do you want Windsurfing Skywalker? Casino planet too ham-handed—important for plot because it sets up a bigger galaxy that hates the First Order.

MUSIC:

• “X”—Xzibit
• “Fiery Crash”—Andrew Bird
• “Star Wars Theme Kazoo Cover”—Morpeef
• “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link
• What's with the theme music?

Kylo-Ren. Kylo-Rey is like they’re now dating. You’re shipping them.

Sorry this is late. I've been really busy. Actually no I've been kind of busy and wasting time following recruiting and watching the Citrus Bowl again and again.

/watches Citrus Bowl again.

Ahhhh. Man having that game recorded is like when my family got a VCR and they put the whole original Star Wars trilogy on TV like right after. That was followed by weeks of the most beautiful weather in Michigan history that I didn't go outside for, by the end of which I could pull everything about Star Wars from memory for the rest of my life, and I STILL wasn't sick of it.

Bronx made the obvious analogy:

To say Dave Brandon is reminiscent of George Lucas is not fair to either man, but the worst characteristics of both mirror each other quite well; both Lucas and Brandon truly loved the worlds they held dominion over, but were so tone-deaf, so blind to the realities of how those worlds were perceived under their stewardships that they threatened to irreparably sully their images.

I'd extend the analogy to say Hackett was the J.J. Abrams we brought in to rescue the franchise, and 2015 was his Force Awakens. IE a lot of it was simply a renunciation of the crap that immediately preceded it, and banging the audience over the head with the things we loved about the originals.

But in light of where we were, that was refreshing. Yes I did see (SPOILER) Jim Harbaugh pilot an X-wing down a trench to destroy a planet-sized world-destroying base of faceless bad guys again. The thing is that hasn't gotten old. We needed a reset, and got one, and should be totally satisfied. As for whoever follows JJ and JH, yeah man, take it in your own direction.

The next movie has a lot to live up to. Expectations are high, but so is that schedule. Alum96 went through the thing and decided that Michigan doesn't have a Big Two-Little Eight schedule anymore, but it's a standard Power 5 trip. How MSU and OSU rebuild will matter much.

Crutin needs updating. Incredibly useful Alum96 also is due for another 2016 class projection since this series has been fairly accurate at predicting things so far. He got Terrance Davis wrong, but had Dylan Crawford and David Long in the highest category of guys who as of last December seemed to favor someone else.

Squinting at his info and that provided by the board in the weeks hence you can kind of piece together a class that would take Gary, LaVert, Raulerson, Hudson and Nordin as long as they are amenable, plus a tight end (Allen or Asiasi), one or two DTs (Elliott, Tagaloa, Dwumfour, …?), another LB (Mbem-Bosse?) and 2-3 WRs (McDoom/N. Johnson/Donald Stewart/Pie). Call a guy not taking officials and a guy who is taking officials to Temple gone and Metellus a Jeremy Clark* grayshirt and that's what: 28? WRITE ANOTHER ONE ALUM WE HAVE TO KNOW!

Did you miss these gifs? Red_Lee is Michiganfreek. IE he makes awesome gifs like LSUfreek does for college football in general. For example:

Opponents Watch needs updating. Now more than a week old, Hail_Yes wrote about the teams M basketball has played, and what they've been up to this year since we formed opinions on them on the court. I'd like to see objects in the future, e.g. Michigan State. What's been going on with MSU hoops lately? They're just pounding everybody because Valentine's back now right? I haven't looked.

Etc. This is OT but it's a wonderful story about MLK visiting Grosse Pointe in 1968. The Maizer followed up on my bowl eligibility proposal with his own, which is a ranking system. M baseball preview. No, Dakich=/=Spike, they're not even like-sized. This month in MGoBlog 10 years ago history was all about Lloyd shuffling coordinators to set up his retirement.

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Best of the Board

OMIGOD NCAA FOOTBALL 2025 for the 2017 season with 2013 rosters?

The night of the Nat Championship EA put an EKG on NCAA2014's Facebook page. The world took this to mean that we might…just might finally go back to having new covers every year for the NCAA game. I guess it would mean a playoff is finally possible. I also probably shouldn't rip on them since I'm on year 2041 of a four-player dynasty* I have thoroughly enjoyed. Please leave Denard on the cover and tweak the game.

*We all got to pick each others' starting teams and one guy turned UMass into a national power that's still ripping off our recruits.

PRESENTING: THE IRON D

Ladies and gentlemen, the trophy you've all been waiting for, the Michigan vs Michigan State in Joe Louis Arena game that used to replace the best home game of your ticket package and now does that and isn't much of a rivalry anymore to be honest, the one, the only, here it is…

It is an iron d.

WHO SAID THIS IN THE MOVIES YOU ARE EMBARRSSED TO ADMIT YOU LOVE THREAD?

People listed some classic films—Wet Hot and A League of Their Own are consensus good—but this one…oh man this one:

It wasn't hated Sockface. While it was indeed "ambitious" (read: up its own ass) it also gave off a very George Lucas "I don't have to listen to anyone anymore because I made the Dark Knight" vibe. Not a bad movie, and at times it was stunning, but if it's the start of a Nolan trajectory into Jar Jar, well, this is our concern man.

Also put me among the Titanic crowd; the ship looks great.

ETC. Guy on board taking photoshop requests. Someone told me last night that Heiko got one of the top placements in the country for his field and I am zero surprised because that guy is a genius for whom "I got Michigan's cranky offensive coordinator to like me" has already been shoved to a footnote on his resume. Tom Harmon vs. porn? Jim Hackett is awesome.

YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN: