MGoBlog: The MGoPodcast

Craig has an eye patch, Sam is ill. Things Discussed: * Season Grade: A. Exceeded expectations, put up a banner, Sweet 16 after getting hosed by the committee. * Dusty May is good at this: Michigan is really good in the last five minutes. They found guys they can use in ways other schools wouldn't have thought about. Knows how to put a roster together, which is critical in an age when you have to remake your roster every year. * Why you have to rebuild your roster every year: The portal system isn't good for anyone. It's unfair to blame Dusty May (Tom Izzo!) for recruiting over Tre Donaldson because that's the game right now: they needed shot creation and went and got it in the portal. But this sucks for fans who lose the excitement of players getting better, sucks for schools that have to be constantly recruiting their own guys and everyone else's, and sucks for the players who have to transfer all the time. * NCAA needs a holistic reboot based on contracts, and rewarding schools—perhaps with greater NIL cap space—for retaining and graduating their players. * Are fans losing interest? They say they are, but it hasn't shown in the metrics yet. Maybe that's what has to happen? Craig: They need a collective bargaining agreement, and there's nobody to bargain with, and that's more than a year or two away. * Michigan 2025-26: They have guards, need at least one more center and probably want to add another bench shooter (says Brian) or a starting four (Seth) because Johnson has a high foul rate. Depends which center they get and if he and Johnson can be on the court at the same time. Have Goodman to play some four, Grady to be that guy off the bench possibly. * Nimari: Played very well down the stretch, was creating a bit as well. * Big Ten Coaching Carousel: Think we won, think it's weird that everybody ended up in not the spot they were going. This time nobody made a bad hire: Nedved is a good fit for Minnesota, DeVries makes sense for Indiana, we like Buzz Williams (kind of a Harbaugh). * Want to play at Penn next year to say hi to Fran and the Palestra. * During the break: Craig grades all the NCAA Tournament officials. * Football: Wide receivers got larger, McCulley sounds like he's going to be WR1 and nobody else is close. Still looking at a 6'5" guy in the portal. * Need contested ballers and TEs this year to take pressure off Bryce Underwood. * OL may be dodgy; they moved Link to LT and El-Hadi to LG. Like all the assistant coaches they added, hoping for a big 5th year from Crippen. Babalola? He might be a next-year guy because he's pretty raw. * Defense: I need to make the Groves thing clear: I'm excited about Falcons on the roster but it's mostly a bit, and I don't want people to think my excitement over these guys is just that. Mangham is getting mention as a starting safety. Rod Moore's injury is holding him out in spring, which makes me nervous, but that could just be a precautionary thing. * Quietest spring ever? The reporters are focusing on recruiting.

1 Hour and 59 Minutes With David Nasternak and Alex Drain This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul [http://www.michiganlawgrad.com/] is the guy with the C you want skating next to the ref and pleading your case. He's also a good guy to sit next to at the hockey games. Segment 1: NCAA Tournament Debate   * No Goal...ies for OSU and BU * MSU Conundrum * What Does Minnesota Have to Show? * Allentown and Friends Segment 2: Let The Grading Begin   * Two Second Lines * Two Fourth Lines * Goalies and Genres * Roster Breakdown   MUSIC * NHL on ESPN Theme * "I'm So Tired" -- Fugazi * Ice Hockey (NES) theme

1 hour and 46 minutes The Sponsors Thank you to Underground Printing [https://undergroundshirts.com/custom-t-shirts?callout=mgoblog] for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com [http://undergroundshirts.com]. Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management [http://peakwm.com/mgoblog], Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender [http://www.realtorandlender.com/], Ann Arbor Elder Law [http://www.annarborelderlaw.com/], Michigan Law Grad [http://www.michiganlawgrad.com/], Human Element [https://www.human-element.com/], Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning [http://sharonsheating.com/], The Sklars Brothers [http://www.supersklars.com/], the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded [http://link.ag.fan/mgoblog] app, Champions Circle [https://givebutter.com/thosewhostay?utm_source=mgo&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=cfp-championship-mgo&utm_content=keep-team-together], Winewood Organics [http://winewoodorganics.com/], Community Pest Solutions [http://www.pestfreemi.com/], and Venue by 4M [https://www.experience4m.com/venue/] where usually record this. 1. Men's Basketball vs Auburn - Sweet Sixteen Starts at 1:00 It's times like this that make you think of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias which has a passage about "when you're leading by 9 points with 12 minutes left don't give up a 20-2 run". Michigan made Auburn as dumb as Michigan for a half and then Auburn remembered they were the #1 overall seed. Michigan gives up 1.04 ppp overall. Turnovers were tied but Michigan was obliterated on rebounds. The season-long issues with the front court came to light in this game. This ended up being what you would expect in a game of Michigan vs Super Michigan. We'll miss Vlad Goldin, Craig has some nits to pick.  2. Looking Back on the Season Starts at 21:51 Dusty May comes into a roster with Will Tschetter and Nimari Burnett, most of his FAU squad doesn't follow him (besides Vlad Goldin). But he assembles this motley crew of a team. The question coming in was "can he assemble a good roster or did he just have one good recruiting class?" Turns out he can assemble a good roster. Brian hoped this could be a 6-seed coming into the season and people thought this was crazy. They probably should've been higher than a 5-seed. This season earns an A for exceeding all expectations, not an A+ but an A. Dusty May was the better choice over Niko Medved.  3. Hot Takes and Looking Forward to Next Season Starts at 42:43 Takes hotter than whatever Craig is about to say. Michigan loses Rubin Jones, Jace Howard, Vlad Goldin, Justin Pippen, and probably Danny Wolf, You now have a roster cap of 15, they can be scholarship or not. They'll be looking for centers in the portal. Get ready for an L.J. Cason glow up. Looking ahead to Trey McKenney as a freshman. If Sam Walters was going to hit the portal, wouldn't he have done it by now? There appear to be a lot of high quality centers in the portal. Transfer portal targets, Brian wants Magoon Gwath. What's the ceiling for next year? They'll finally have some continuity on the roster. Just find a guy who's 7 feet tall and put him on the roster.  4. Michigan Football Spring Practice and Hockey Starts at 1:26:08 The only QBs available are Bryce Underwood and Jadyn Davis, Mikey Keene is injured. Otherwise we're not hearing much of anything. Shamari Earls is supposedly turning out and is Charles Woodson sized. There will not be Jeremy Clark slander. Michigan hockey had a disappointing end to the season, how will they bounce back? How much will Michigan pay for hockey after football and basketball? What does the rest of the Big Ten look like? MUSIC: * "Cradle The Pain"—Morgan Nagler * "Back to Earth"—Manplanet * "I Wish"—Skee-Lo * “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

Things Discussed: * Auburn: They're Michigan if Michigan was everything they wanted them to be. No turnovers, extremely high efficiency. * Michigan's turnovers are mostly still Michigan's. Lately the first 5 minutes of every game they're on pace for 60 TOs and then they are not a high-turnover team the rest of the game. * UC San Diego: Michigan was a terrible matchup for them. Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones is their top scorer and he was useless against Danny Wolf. They had a good shooting day and Michigan had turnovers to make it close. * Texas A&M: Michigan put their effort into rebounding. A&M saying they couldn't score at the rim in the 2nd half but they've been a bad shooting team all year and the only thing that was working was Payne physically dominating. * LJ Cason: Go ahead young fella! Dusty admitting he should have played him more during the season, but Cason wasn't very playable until recently. Gives Michigan a different attack because nobody's been able to attack the rim since Gayle's shooting issues began. It's also the way to break A&M, which wants to have one bad defender on the court for scoring purposes and can get away with it if you have an offensive weak spot on the court. * Gayle: What a game! Not just the shooting; he was making big plays on defense and creating for others as well. But the shooting is the thing; he's been slowly getting his shot back, and that opens up all kinds of offense because letting him sit alone at the perimeter was the way defenses took away Area 50->1. * Why didn't Nimari play much? Because he's not a rebounder and you're playing Texas A&M. Rubin Jones was a key player on the boards. Cason and Gayle were doing a good job of boxing out. A&M's rebounding isn't just the bigs; they get wings heavily involved and keeping them outside was key. * Goldin tired? Put all of his breath into rebounding; flopped three times against Payne—as soon as Payne got tired A&M had no way to score points. * Michigan scored 30 points in the last 10 minutes of that game. * AUBURN: They're 8 seniors and a 5-star freshman who chased Tre Donaldson out of there. Maybe one of the best basketball teams the Tournament has seen in many years because they have these up-transfers who got a few years to play together and an extra season to improve their skills. * Do we have a chance? They're an excellent team. They're better Michigan. They let off the gas a little against A&M and gave up 24 ORebs because Auburn had already clinched the SEC; before that their only losses were overtime vs (two-big) Alabama and at Duke. * Brian says Michigan needs to use A&M's strategy—win a lot of rebounds and get 17 extra shots?—and shoot 40% from three. Seth thinks the key is make them pull Dylan Cardwell because the switching is forcing him to be an offensive nexus, and then have Goldin score on Johni Broome, who's more of a finesse center.

1 hour and 34 minutes The Sponsors Thank you to Underground Printing [https://undergroundshirts.com/custom-t-shirts?callout=mgoblog] for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com [http://undergroundshirts.com]. Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management [http://peakwm.com/mgoblog], Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender [http://www.realtorandlender.com/], Ann Arbor Elder Law [http://www.annarborelderlaw.com/], Michigan Law Grad [http://www.michiganlawgrad.com/], Human Element [https://www.human-element.com/], Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning [http://sharonsheating.com/], The Sklars Brothers [http://www.supersklars.com/], the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded [http://link.ag.fan/mgoblog] app, Champions Circle [https://givebutter.com/thosewhostay?utm_source=mgo&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=cfp-championship-mgo&utm_content=keep-team-together], Winewood Organics [http://winewoodorganics.com/], Community Pest Solutions [http://www.pestfreemi.com/], and Venue by 4M [https://www.experience4m.com/venue/] where usually record this. 1. Sweet Sixteen Vibes Starts at 1:00 Oh hey! We didn't expect to be here! Roddy Gayle just made more threes in one game than during Michigan's entire Big Ten schedule. He has risen from the dead and Michigan out-rebounded the best rebounding team in the country so here we are! Michigan got hosed by the selection committee but made it to the 2nd weekend anyways. Brian 'Roddy Gayles' the sponsor read. Going into next year, Dusty May needs a center and a backup center but should otherwise be set. 2. Men's Basketball vs Texas A&M Starts at 15:26 Nobody expected this game to go the way it did. Michigan started 1-7 on threes and then started hitting a lot of great shots against a top 10 defense. Michigan got a lot of un-contested rebounds which was weird considering that's Texas A&M's thing. Goldin was probably getting more tired than usual, he got pulled early. L.J. Cason was a game-changer in this one, he could be special next year. Why did Nimari only have 13 minutes? All of Goldin's energy went towards rebounding, his performance would've been very memorable if it wasn't eclipsed by Gayle. Just don't pass to Patrick.  3. Hot Takes and Men's Basketball vs UC San Diego Starts at 37:20 Takes hotter than RODDY GAYLE. UC San Diego is such a weird team. Brian still can't pronounce their star's first name who fouled out in 25 minutes. Michigan should've had the bigs dunk at the rim but UCSD defended them well. Roddy Gaye and L.J. Cason played important roles, not quite as big as in the TAMU game. Michigan's shot parity is only -2 which is good enough. If Wolf played better then maybe Michigan walks away from this one. They hit the Kenpom spread exactly. How well will we remember this game years from now?  4. Previewing Men's Basketball vs Auburn Starts at 1:01:34 Michigan has drawn the #1 overall seed in the tournament. Auburn's greatest strength is shot making and are the 2nd best offense in the country (1st is Florida). They have some super seniors from the Covid year. Auburn has a similar Bigs setup to Michigan so they can handle Goldin+Wolf. One of their biggest weaknesses is that they foul a lot. Personnel wise, these teams are very similar and both coaches will likely match each other. Jahki Howard might be the worst teammate in the country. Auburn will want revenge against Danny Wolf after last year's Yale game. Everyone was watching the Michigan game on Thursday since most of the first round games were uneventful. This Auburn offense is 8 efficiency points better than the 2013 Michigan offense.  MUSIC: * "Where Do We Go From Here"—Charles Bradley * "Monstera Escalito"—Ciao Ciao Marigold * "What do You Like"—Tommy Richman * “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra