AUGUST 5, 2006 I received my season tickets today, and this is always a fun day for me. There were some major changes to the ticket format. First, the tickets are about 50% bigger than in the previous designs. Second, they put a new advertiser on the back of each game. Third, this year’s tickets are barcoded. The final change is the gloss. While the tickets are of high quality the borders of the tickets seem to be in a shade of purple or gold, depending on the game. This couldn’t have been the plan!
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Bracket Perfection a mere 65,000 to 1?
Ann Arbor News cites odds of perfect bracket, Webmaster cringes SALINE, MICHIGAN MARCH 18, 2006 The March 16, 2006 Ann Arbor News published a front page piece featuring local Saline resident and ESPN.com NCAA Tournament statistical guru Pete Tiernan. Mr. Tiernan has poured over NCAA tourney data for years and plugged it into his old school Apple PC. With a flick of the mouse, he has come up with all kinds of statistical trends that can be used to predict how the tournament field will fare. One troubling item in the Ann Arbor News piece: one of the stats under a table they called ‘Tiernan’s Tips’ said that “The chance of correctly filling out an entire tournament bracket is 1 in 65,636.” This was instantly troubling. For starters, I’ve been in the ESPN.com NCAA hoops tournament pool each year that attracts several million contestants and I don’t recall anyone ever getting it perfect. Last year’s winner on ESPN.com got 55 out of a possible 63. This 65,000 to 1 figure couldn’t possibly be correct. I thought it over, prayed on it, and decided to go to the source. MVictors.com contacted Tiernan, who immediately replied and stated that figure was incorrect. He didn’t give me an exact figure, but cited that if you treated each game as a 50/50 prop, the…
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Brent Petway Harrassed By Spartans
AirGeorgia@umich.edu – Brent Petway received all kinds of nasty emails from Spartan fans after the first game between these teams, stemming from a collision between he and Ager. Tormenting a guy on when he is on the court is one thing, but phone calls/emails to athletes is way overboard and should be considered a crime. I know it happens all the time but it is pretty sad. I’m not singling out Spartan fans; there have been several stories about Michigan fans sending hate emails to Chad Henne. Wondering how everyone gets the email address of these guys? No problem, for whatever reason Michigan publishes a link to its entire directory on umich.edu. Check it out. In many cases, the U provides not only university address, phone and email, but also home addresses and phone numbers.
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Not Worthy of NCAA Bid
Amaker and Michigan lose again, looks like it is back to Crisler for NIT SALINE, MICHIGAN MARCH 9, 2006 NCAA Tournament bid? Ha! Not for these guys. Michigan made lowly Minnesota look like the Pistons. Another Tommy Amaker team will be denied an NCAA Tournament bid due to a complete collapse at the end of the season ruined a promising season for the Wolverines. Michigan will be able to “redo” the Senior Night disaster against the Indiana Hoosiers last Saturday as Michigan will be one of the NIT favorites and play another game at home. The silver lining: the last Michigan play on the first Senior Day was Graham Brown doinking his desperation full court pass off of the Crisler Arena scoreboard. Funny, because I threw the TV remote at the television right about the same time. Now we’ll both get a chance to retrieve our dignity as the Wolverines prepare for a memorable NIT run.
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MSU, Izzo, Shows Who is Boss
Spartans coast after Hot Michigan Start SALINE, MICHIGAN FEBRUARY 18, 2006 Michigan State withstood a quick Michigan start and slowly crushed the Wolverines for their 9th straight victory over the Blue at Breslin Arena. Shannon Brown was the player of the game, epitomizing the gap in talent the Spartans have over Michigan. Brown tossed in acrobatic lay-ups and dropped deadly threes to keep the game out of reach. The struggling Blue now need an upset win over Illinois and/or Ohio State to be considered for a NCAA berth. This is shocking considering where they sat just a couple weeks ago, firmly planted in the Top 25. But loss to a very weak Purdue team and bad losses to Ohio State and Iowa have left the Wolverines wondering what could have been. For the Spartans, they have struggled as well but have enough quality wins to give Tom Izzo a lock on another NCAA bid. State seems to have the tools to engineer another solid tournament run if he can get consistency out of Brown and Maurice Ager. They certainly had it working today, as they rung up 90 on the defenseless Wolverines. Had they broke 100, that would have meant half-off big rigs at Paul Revere’s Tavern in East Lansing. More takes: Son, Clean up Your Act – For those…
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Malone, Herrmann Out at Michigan
Offensive and Defensive to have new leadership in 2006 SALINE, MICHIGAN FEBRUARY 12, 2006 It is confirmed that Terry Malone and Jim Herrmann are out as Michigan’s head coordinators. Both men will leave to take jobs in the NFL. Here’s what you won’t hear anyone admit, but they were basically fired. Coach Lloyd Carr has always provided little info when firing his assistants, and in this case, just basically said they were moving on to bigger opportunities. Sorry, but O and D coordinator at Michigan is bigger than one of the assistants on any NFL team. Carr huddled with both men after the season (and Herrmann is a close friend) and clearly told them it was time to move on.
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Matt Gutierrez Ends Michigan Career
BACK-UP TO HENNE WILL GO TO DIVISION I-AA IDAHO STATE SALINE, MICHIGAN JANUARY 8, 2006 Somewhat surprising news this morning as back-up Michigan quarterback and high school phenom Matt Gutierrez has announced he will leave the Wolverines to play for I-AA Idaho State. Basically his comments were classy but left a sense of frustration with his inability to get some playing time. Gutierrez was reported to say, “I feel like in my four years I’ve done everything I could have done and was asked to do to earn an opportunity. Unfortunately the opportunity didn’t come when I was finally healthy and ready to play.” One has to assume that Gutierrez expected some playing time after Henne struggled early in the season, probably after starter Chad Henne’s performance against Notre Dame. Or at least given a chance. Certainly that was the sentiment of the sports radio callers and many M fans around the country. One has to assume that Gutierrez has a desire to go to the NFL, and without significant playing time (even on Michigan) feels that he’ll need some guaranteed snaps. Memo to the guy that thought he was in line for the Idaho State QB job: sorry Charlie. So this leaves many questions for Michigan regarding the back-up role. Should Chad Henne falter or be injured next season,…
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Alamo Bowl 2005: Huskers Drop Michigan, Near-Miracle Final Play
Michigan surrendered another double-digit second-half lead and lost the Alamo Bowl to Nebraska 32-28 late last night. The game featured several twists, bad calls, and nearly one of the greatest plays in college football history. No matter how you look at it, this loss was reflective of a sad season that will sting throughout the winter, spring, and summer up until the 2006 Wolverines take the field. If Lloyd Carr doesn’t do something to stop this trend, Pam Ward will be calling Michigan games for ESPN2 next season. Here are the takes on this game: – Final Play. See the diagram above. Listening to the radio in the morning and reading both the Detroit Free Press and News in the morning, you’d think that the final play was not a big deal. ESPN, fortunately, thought otherwise, breaking it down several times after the game and today in between breaks. This really makes this one a bitter pill. After watching it several times on ESPN.com, it looks like Tyler Ecker thought he could turn the corner on the Nebraska defensive back and score. He was pushed out of bounds at about the 14. Stevie Breaston, who played a great game on special teams, was trailing Ecker the whole time begging for the ball. Had Breaston got the ball, M would have…
