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• MGoPodcast 16.21: The Tubes Are Empty

  GoFundMes to support victims of the fires in LA who are part of the MGoBlog community: General Fund. Reader's mother-in-law Anne Cohen. Reader Chef Robert. Reader Josh Bishop-Moser. Reader Mike on behalf of Mika Yoshitake & daughter Sora. Readers Liberty and Mark. 1 hour and 9 minutes The Sponsors Thank you to Underground Printing 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. Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management, Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, The Sklars Brothers, the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded app, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, and Venue by 4M where usually record this. 1. Men's Basketball vs Rutgers Starts at 1:00 Brian returns after a week (or two) of trying not to die ala ice and norovirus. The Rutgers game was a weird game of two offensive-oriented teams not scoring much. Rutgers has 15 more shots than Michigan and still loses due to poor shooting. Michigan did a great job defending Ace Bailey. Rubin Jones made a two! Rutgers likely won't make the tournament but this was still a solid road win. Tre Donaldson is averaging 1.7 fouls per game, can't just pull him with two fouls. Things feel bad but Michigan has a tournament bid pretty much locked up if they stay the course.  2. Men's Basketball vs Penn State and Purdue Starts at 21:34 Penn State is the most Clingon team in college basketball. Tre Donaldson was the hero with 21 points, also the Vlad Goldin "empty tubes" game. Only nine turnovers was a great improvement against a team that forces a bunch of turnovers. Speaking of poop, the Purdue game! This was not a game from the start. Michigan can't handle Purdue's pace and then the second half is just coasting home for both teams. Every Michigan coach has to get their head caved in by Painter once. It was discombobulating to see Michigan so discombobulated. The final stretch of this schedule is a gauntlet, they're all quad 1 games (besides maybe Rutgers). If Michigan finishes .500 they'll be fine.  3. Football Stuff Starts at 41:23 Ross Dellenger got a leak of a portion of Michigan's NCAA response. Michigan is taking the route that the allegations are unsupported and should be level 2 allegations. In the past they've laid down and taken it for allegations. All the released texts about Connor Stalions within the program almost sound like they're annoyed with him. The portal has been pretty quiet recently, this might be it for the incoming wide receivers. All signs point towards Ty Haywood coming to Michigan. The NIL values you see are probably made up.  4. Michigan Hockey vs Penn State Starts at 56:09 Michigan is down to 14th in Pairwise and on the bubble. The remaining games are the hardest part of the schedule so they need to go at least 3-3 to try and get into the tournament. This is such a frustrating team to watch. In some years, the Michigan defense can do spectacular things while making mistakes, this year they just make mistakes. They're running out of time to figure stuff out.  MUSIC: "Alaska"—Maggie Rogers "Help Me"—Joni Mitchell "Don't Dream It's Over"—Crowded House “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra    

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• WTKA Roundtable 1/30/2025: The S.O.S.T.

  Things Discussed: Mostly we discussed the Dellinger Leak and Michigan's response to the NCAA re: Signgate. I'll have a UV later today on it. Michigan has a very—extremely—strong case that they did very little wrong. Most of the in-person scouting was for teams not on their schedule, all of the evidence for a coverup is flimsy: Sherrone deleted texts: Only off his phone, because he knew they had imaging, those were provided to the NCAA, and they were completely innocuous. Mike Hart was told that Stalions was "extra" which: yeah. That's it! That's all the evidence! Most of the report is just a glimpse into how sign operations worked—Stalions was sharing signs with Rutgers and Nebraska, who just used wristbands when they played Michigan. It also showed just how marginal sign-decoding was: Sherrone was told to change his signs before Ohio State and said he'll "think about it," Partridge yelled at Stalions about trying to use a team manager, etc. It has a name! Signal organization stupid thing, or S.O.S.T. NCAA's position is basically "We know we broke our bylaws and this isn't remotely just, but we need to humiliate you because look how mad all the Bielemas are." Michigan has requested a prehearing because the NCAA has at least one in-house source that refused to be identified, which we've just now learned is apparently against NCAA bylaws. No idea if the COI has to grant that prehearing The process is meant to be collaborative; it completely breaks down when the two sides have entirely different realities and goals. That's a big problem for Michigan because the NCAA's purpose here isn't to be reasonable or just. The fear here is NCAA's main motivation is relevance; they can't do anything about paying players, which has been their raison d'être, so this is the one field where they can demonstrate any kind of power. Legal challenge? Seems they'll go that route if things proceed as they seem to be. Guessing that's what the NCAA wants so they can placate the Bielemas by saying "it was the courts, not us." Seth: don't underestimate the difficulty of winning this case in court. Like the Tony Petitti thing, when it's not about constitutionality or the law, courts often default to whatever the agreement between parties is, and Michigan's agreed to be under NCAA judgment whether it's fair or not. With Tennessee: 1) It was their attorney general flexing power on behalf of the only thing his state cares about, which isn't who Dana Nessel is or how Michigan politics work, and 2) that was about paying players, which got into a constitutionality issue of denying the free trade of services. Guess how it plays out: NCAA goes overboard, Michigan takes them to court, court takes a long time, and when it's settled nobody cares because it's been too long and we all have more important things going on. Story Time: Just like 1928! Non-S.O.S.T. thing: Jim Knowles off to PSU for a lot of money! What does it mean? It means anyone who can is getting away from Ohio State fans.

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• Michigan HockeyCast 7.14: Spiderman Meme

  1 Hour and 23 Minutes With David Nasternak and Alex Drain This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul 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: Watchalong Collapse   Opener Scored Goals! Blown Lead #1 PK, Outshot, Goalie-ing Segment 2: Saturday Collapse   Gramme's Got Free Stuff Another 2 Goal Blown Lead, but the Extra Point! Old Friends and the League PSU Again   MUSIC NHL on ESPN Theme "Somebody's Watching Me" -- Rockwell Ice Hockey (NES) theme

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• WTKA Roundtable 1/23/2025: The Pantsless Chaxpions

  Watch Party: Basketball and Hockey tomorrow night.    Things Discussed: Lions: You can't hurt me. Oh they lost—we lost the DPOY and everyone else on the starting defense. They're taking our coordinators—when's the last time a Lions coordinator left for a head coaching job? Wink to Lions? Sounds like he's a tertiary candidate, most of the positions looking at him have been filled. Why aren't OSU's coaches candidates for better jobs? Brian Hartline only. Sam: Pro position coaches don't make more than college anymore (except Jim paid his guys to come with him); you go pro to get away from recruiting. Coordinators don't recruit as much anymore. Sherrone does a lot of the recruiting himself. If no Wink: the "internal" candidate is Doug Mallory. Les Miles's old coordinator, has recruited the SEC. Called the coverages vs OSU 2021-2023, called the coverages in the national championship. Waiting as DB coach for Ravens but might be the rare guy (older, played for Bo) who would retire here. Sam adds they'd be able to elevate someone to a "co-." Danger of losing Wink is he might pluck some of his guys. Good news is he's probably not going anywhere right now. Staff is pretty intact. Would like to establish some long-term guys. Wanted Elston to stay forever. Want OL recruits to be recruited 2 years by the guy who will coach them 4 years and still be here when they come back to visit in 4 years. Pantsless Championship: They want to call a 14-2 season the best ever? They're the worst champions ever. They went 1-1 against Oregon who had a better season. They lost their most important game, at home to Michigan. The commemorative ball has all the game scores on it. Sam's buying it. Playoff system: Can you imagine designing a system where Michigan and Ohio State are both happy at the end of the year? Hoops: Teams are learning to take away the roll. Minnesota game was a bit of a fluke—Goldin went 4/13 at the rim when he's been the best finisher in the B10 for the last month—but Northwestern went all in on it. Need to find ways to punish that, either with Wolf following Goldin into the lane or shooting an open three. Goldin: quietly Michigan's best player lately, despite 4/13. His threes open up the offense vs teams like Northwestern and their paint-bound truck driver. Purdue: Will be a different challenge because TKR can switch. Need defense to show up.

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• Michigan HockeyCast 7.13: Deja Vu

  1 Hour and 18 Minutes With David Nasternak and Alex Drain This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul 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: Friday Night Points!   Opener That Goal Fighting Back TJ Hughes Talk Segment 2: Saturday Night at Munn   Down in a Big Hole Non-Gameplay Discussion Old Friends and the League Badger Rematch MUSIC NHL on ESPN Theme "On Melancholy Hill" -- The Gorillaz Ice Hockey (NES) theme

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