What a classic basketball game today as Beilein and hoops recover from the tough Wisconsin loss to get their first conference win, 74-64 over Illinois. It certainly wasn’t a must win, but losing the first two Big Ten games at home would have caused a bit of a shiver. On hand for the game was once again coaches Carr and Rodriguez, each with their wives. BTN color man and Buckeye Jimmy Jackson couldn’t help but admit that he was sorry that Lloyd Carr hung up his whistle, saying as a Buck, Carr was his favorite coach. Some forget that Carr crushed the Buckeyes early in his coaching career and despite the struggles against Tressel was 6-7 lifetime. But he certainly finished on a down note and Jackson’s comment would be excusable if Carr and his wife Laurie weren’t sitting right next to him on the end of the press table. Come on man. But I thought Jackson did a good job for BTN and today, and man, was he awesome at Ohio State. When they panned over to Fab Fiver Jimmy King chilling in the tunnel JJ talked about some of their battles (Ohio State won two during the regular season with Michigan winning in the NCAA tournament). I was at the game at Crisler his senior year and Jackson…
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Witnessing Horrific History at Lambeau
As we conclude Wildcard weekend today, I thought I’d offer one back look at the miserable Lions. A friend of mine, Paul, made the trek to Green Bay last weekend to witness a bit of history as Detroit failed to prevent what’s widely considered the worst season in pro sports history. I asked him to send me a few takes and photos from the trip, enjoy: We didn’t have any issue getting tickets, but because every game at Lambeau is sold out for years to come we had to go to StubHub. We bought very nice seats that had a $62/face for $106. We drove in for the game and it was a mess getting to the stadium. It took us an hour to travel the last five miles. As far as the tailgating environment, they have a bunch of special tents set up around the stadium and around Brett Favre’s steakhouse. There were folks tailgating where they parked but they really don’t have large parking lots around the stadium. It was a lot of car dealership lots, truck stops, car pool areas, and malls. Lambeau looks like they took Spartan Stadium except it’s painted yellow instead of white. Similar press box, ramps, scoreboard. They really don’t have any advertising inside the stadium except for on the scoreboard. The…
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Big Will Style – Campbell Headed to Ann Arbor
Just announced – dig it: Update: Sam Webb explains what was going on with the commitment, decommitment, not going to Michigan, and finally, commitment ping pong.
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Baseball Complex Donors Madoff’d
Hat tip to the Ann Arbor Chronicle, it appears as though the primary donors to the new (& very well done) University of Michigan baseball and softball complex were stung a bit by Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Ouch. Bloomberg.com compiled and published a list of foundations that invested with Madoff and included the Wilpon Family Foundation. Thankfully it’s not clear how much the family invested and lost with the shmuck Madoff. Related: The WSJ has been all over the Madoff story, read Stephen Greenspan’s essay this weekend, Anatomy of Gullibility: Why We Keep Falling for Financial Scams.
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For the Utes
Despite playing an Alabama that team that either wasn’t ready to play or didn’t care, Utah looked impressive last night, and hats off. It seems ages ago when the Utes visited Michigan for Rich Rodriguez’s debut and took down the Blue 25-23. Utah led 25-10 at one point and Michigan could have tied the game on had they converted a two pointed conversion. I ran into a gaggle of Utes at Conor O’Neill’s pub on Main Street that evening, all in good spirits of course, and very friendly. I talked to a guy for a little bit and having traveled far for the game he clearly was a big fan. In the wake of this win, he was genuinely excited about the prospect of an undefeated season, with the primary obstacle being then-ranked BYU (who they later dispatched 48-24). I don’t care how disinterested Alabama was at the beginning or even throughout the game, Utah looked impressive. I probably wouldn’t vote them ahead of USC or Florida at this point, but I’d sure like to see them play.
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Memories…Michigan Rose Bowls
To help get through this tough bowl season, how about few select items from the MVictors Vault featuring Rose Bowl-related items throughout the years. My favorite? Probably the photo of above from Fielding Yost & company’s trip to the first Rose Bowl football game in 1901. The team is on a trolley heading around town and the photo is featured in Bo Schembechler’s Tradition, available from Amazon.com. Runner up may be the lighter from the 1948 tilt. Want to own your own piece of Michigan Rose Bowl history? There’s a few solid eBay auctions out there right now: * 1981 Rose Bowl Glass * 1965 Rose Bowl Ticket Stub * 1948 Rose Bowl Program * 1998 Rose Bowl Seat Cushion
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Happy New Year!
Thanks to all Michigan fans and readers of this site for all the support this year. Best wishes to you and yours and look forward to some quality stuff in 2009. I’ve already got some solid interviews/stories lined up for January and expect more of the same coverage of history via eBay Watch. Cheers and let’s hope I’m drinking posting from somewhere warm this time next year in anticipation of our game.
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Big Ten Bloggers, Feed
I recently joined the collective Big Ten Bloggers and added a feed listing recent posts by my conference comrades on my left sidebar and a new set of BTB links just below the feed on the left. Check out some of my prestigious colleagues in the Big Ten nerdosphere: Illinois The Quad Paint the Town Orange Indiana Hoosier Report Iowa Black Heart Gold Pants Michigan MGoBlog MVictors Varsity Blue Michigan Sports Center iBlog for Cookies Maize’n’Brew Maize & Blue Nation Maize’n’Brew UM Hoops Michigan State Enlightened Spartan Ground Zero EL Sparty MSU Spartans Weblog Minnesota Daily Gopher From the Barn Buck Bravo Gopher Football Northwestern Lake The Posts Ohio State Around the Oval Buckeye Battle Cry Eleven Warriors Men of Scarlet & Gray Buckeye Blog Penn State Block Shoes Diary Happy Hour Valley Nittany White Out Run Up the Score Nittany Line No Name on my Jersey Zombie Nation Purdue Boiled Sports Off The Tracks Wisconsin