This week I sat down with Pete Tiernan, founder of bracketscience.com, a website with a comprehensive database that allows subscribers to slice and dice historical NCAA tournament data. Tiernan also provides statistical trends, charts, tips and strategies for busting up your pools. Over the past several years he’s contributed a column to ESPN.com insider$ and in 2009 will be featured at CBSSports.com. Tiernan holds two degrees from Michigan and taught for a while within the English department. His ties to the M basketball program run deep as his dad, ‘Boom Boom’ Tom Tiernan, laced them up for the Maize & Blue back when they played at Yost Field House in the early 1950s. We met in downtown Saline at the excellent Brecon Grille and over a few pints, he was kind enough to answer questions about Beilein, Michigan, tourney trends, the selection committee and more. We close with a cool story about his son who played for the Grand Valley State team that shocked Michigan State at Breslin last year. Enjoy: MVictors: Michigan basketball is becoming relevant again thanks to John Beilein. Let’s cut right to it, how does Beilein’s tournament coaching record stack up? Tiernan: Michigan made a very good choice. John Beilein is the top overperforming active coach of the modern tournament era. There’s a statistic that I have…
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Rich’s Arse (YouTube)
Check out this guy
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Shades of Yost: Is Rodriguez a Meechigan Man?
Rich Rodriguez isn’t the only West Virginian to walk the sidelines for a Michigan football team. Many of you may know that the great Fielding H. Yost was born in West Virginia. A quick scan of Google maps determined that the old coach’s birthplace of Fairview is a mere four miles down the road from Grant Town, where Rodriguez was born. [Ed 11/28/08: Per John U Bacon, Bo’s Lasting Lessons author, this is completely false. I read this in several places but apparently, Rodriguez was not born in Grant Town. Bacon interviewed Rodriguez, here’s a note from Bacon to a few folks that challenged Bacon’s assertion of RichRod’s correct birthplace: No matter how many sources list Grant Town as Rich Rodriguez’s place of birth, he was born in Chicago, and raised there until the middle of second grade. (I’ll take his mom’s word on that.) His family did leave their home late at night, and suddenly, and Rodriguez had not heard of West Virginia until they were leaving for the state that night, as the article says. Yost brought so much to this University, from starting a legacy of dominant football to building Michigan Stadium. Fans of great Michigan announcer Bob Ufer may know that Ufer referred to the Wolverines as “Meechigan“, a tip of the hat to old Yost…