Deshawn Sims 3 for 5 from three range. Really. I know Belein requires threes, but watching him last year would give little hope that he'd shoot 5 from three, much less make 60%.
The Ann Arbor News is reporting tonight a deal on Beilein's buyout. According to reports, he's paying 1 million less than the contract specified. WVU will receive the first of five consecutive $300,000 payments in April 2008. The WVU contract required that Beilein would pay $500, 000 for every year remaining on his contract, but didn't specify when the payments would be made--there were five years remaining on that contract. While the payments are $1 million less than required by the contract they are actually even less than that. Assuming a 5% return on money, the present value of the 5 payments is actually $1.23 million. Beilein is making 1.3 million annually at Michigan. Even if it is less than 1 year's salary, it's' still a lot of money.
Luke Loucks is a 6-5 swing man from Georgia. He was strongly considering WVA before Beilein left. He's now considering Michigan. A couple of quotes from his local newspaper make it look like we are very much in the hunt for him:
There are hordes of basketball coaches jumping in on the Loucks sweepstakes. The latest? Minnesota's Tubby Smith, who called Loucks Wednesday night. The intriguing one? Michigan's John Beilein, who Loucks built a relationship with while Beilein recruited him while coach at WVU.
But, as Loucks said, in making a decision like this, you can be impressed with a campus and facilities all you want. But "you're basically picking a coach."
Chad Henne wins the first award of his senior campaign (err, the other senior campaign). Congratulations, Chad, on the College Big School Player of the Year award. Does this foreshadow a more well known award given to the best "big school college player of the year" for Chad? Mini me says . . . Yes.
SCCHHHHWWWEEEEEEET!
The women's hoops assistant coach from Grand Valley won a national championship last year. Not sure how that escaped me. Anyway, B-Bo and she go way back, and she is totally in love with B-Bo. Let's call her P-Bo. Oops, sorry, can't do that. How about Coach Sweet? That'll work. By the way, that's two national championships among the hoops coaches, one for B-Bo and one for Sweets.
Early Times and Early Returns
Kelvin Grady not only stays committed, but offers the scoop that his big brother may not be as badly injured as previously reported. Given his comments to the Daily, it's conceivable KG will be back this year:
But Grady’s brother, Kelvin, told the Michigan Daily that Kevin had torn his left ACL and that the injury wasn’t as serious as everyone originally thought.
“He should be recovering more quickly than they expected,” Grady said during a phone interview.
4 Year Olds
You've heard, no doubt, of the terrible twos. From my experience the terrible twos happen (at least to my daughters) after they turned 3 and before age 4. But my four year old daughter will tell me she wants go outside and play and 30 seconds later is crying because she can't stay inside and play with Itty Baby. She asks to drink milk with her cookies, and changes her mind -- juice please (she is polite!) She wakes up and wants to play soccer, but will cry when its time to leave. Fortunately, she will grow out of this in another 6-10 months. At least her 6 year old sister did. What you ask, does this have to with this Blog? Good question. The answer, of course, is that some people, especially those coddled and sucked up to their entire lives never outgrow this nasty trait; e.g. Alex Legion. Recall that he committed to Michigan. Then he opened up his recruiting again. He again committed to Michigan several months later. He then asked to be released from his LOI because Amaker departed. Now he is apparently considering us again and intends to visit Michigan on April 28.
What the #*$?!
Why do you need to take yet another VISIT? How many have you had? How many times have you gone to a game not counted as a visit? How many times have you talked to the coaches (Amaker and Beilein)? Now, I know this kid is only 18. But, c'mon!
Why can't you just make a decision? (throat clearing -- Tim Green). Which brings us to the:
Bubblin' Crude
Sing that tune to the following lyrics and you have the Allen Academy fight song as written and directed by Tim Green "Backs":
Come and listen to a story 'bout kid Leg-ion A poor kid from Inkster, with only mama 'Nette Then one day Al was shootin' up some hoop When came Tim Green with the promise of a fool.
AAU hoop that is, influence and cash.
Old Tim, don't you know, was just a lyin' cheat, He told young Al to move away from here Said UCLA is the place you ought to be They'll pay, both me and the Acad-emy
Hansomely, that is. Wads of cash and strippers.
Time for Al to go and for Green to take his cash, But ole' mama 'Nette, she finally smells the rat She quick calls Keener and Beilein to do some droppin' in Now Al's again thinking 'bout this locality But without heapin' helpin' loads of Green's hospitality.
'Til next time that is. When he'll be back. AAU style. "Can't get rid of me now, y'hear?"
As I mentioned last night, the "AAU game" is slimy. It's also significant. Legion is obviously seriously affected by his AAU coach/guardian, whatever and whoever he is. Mom confirms the Green factor in an interview with Freep. While I can, with a straight face, compare Legion to my four year old daughter, Alex apparently does not have the luxury of people that actually care about his best interests surrounding him. Alex Legion's mother told the Freep:
"I want to make it clear, Tim Green is not part of this process," Williams said Tuesday. "I'm tired of him trying to persuade my son against the University of Michigan and his family."
Green, principal of Allen Academy in Detroit, refused comment Tuesday.
"I've been quiet for four years, but Tim Green does not speak for my son, and I'm tired of him trying to make decisions for my son," Williams said. "Mr. Green wants my son to go to Connecticut or UCLA, but my son will go to neither institution."
"I really like what I'm hearing about Beilein," she said. "I really want to thank coach Keener, who has talked very positively about my son to coach Beilein. We just needed to get rid of Tim Green."
Legion's coach at Oak Hill (named Keener) appears to be straight. Beilein has met with him. Keener had this to say. From the Freep:
"Even after Alex's departure [from Oak Hill Academy], I still have a good relationship with him and the family," Keener told the Free Press. "It wasn't that he left on bad terms or anything. When this whole thing with Michigan started to unravel, I knew Annette didn't have the support system she needed, and I've been through the recruiting wars and she could bounce things off me."
Keener said Legion is "a good young man. He's had some poor counsel and misguidance from AAU people in his past."
Hmm. I wonder if Green has a commitment from UCLA and Connecticut for donations to his AAU Hurricanes and the Allen Academy?
With the exception of Jay Bilas, and Alex Legion, everyone else is praising the move by Michigan to hire Beilein. An interesting selection of comments about the coach:
"I think Tommy Amaker inherited one of the most difficult programs certainly that we've had at Michigan. I think he conducted himself well. He's a first class individual, and a guy that I think will have outstanding success before he's done. I think he brought the program a long long way. I think he brought kids in here that represented the university well. So I think John is inheriting a program that is not far away. If you look at some of the things that Tommy has done, and the guys that are here, some of the young kids that are returning, and hopefully be able to keep the three commitments that Tommy had – I think that he's walking into a program that is much much stronger than it was when Tommy came in." -- Lloyd Carr
I had an opportunity to talk with John last Friday and I've watched his teams over the course of the last two or three years, and I think he brings an outstanding enthusiasm to the game. And certainly what he's been able to do in his career, he's got a great background, and from every source, he's a great teacher of the game. I think he's going to do a great job here." -- Lloyd Carr
Sports Illustrated named Beilein as the 11th, 12th or 13th top NCAA men's basketball coach in Stewart Mandel's ranking of the top 10 college coaches. The list of the top ten and "just missed" includes Izzo, Matta, Beilein and Bo Ryan -- that's 4 of the top 13 coaches from the Big 10. The next closest number of coaches for any one conference is two.
One of the paid recruitniks really likes Beilein a lot. The guy interviewed covers West Virginia recruiting. By these comments, you'd think he might be related to Beilein:
He's the best coach in America. His legacy is this: For 25 years there's been no basketball [in West Virginia], except for one Sweet 16. For 20-25 years you lost a generation of fans. He did a good job with attendance. He built up the schedule, played UCLA and Oklahoma. He's had more trouble versus teams who've played his style . . . He's probably the best shooting coach in America. He rebuilt the fan base and the interest level. People loved his team. There never was a hint of impropriety. His weakness is that he's too hard on himself. . . . The media say he's too tight. He's completely honest and sometimes his team is uptight . . . .He's the same type of coach as Wisconsin's coach (Bo Ryan) . . . He'll be very much like Tom Izzo, John Thompson III and Bo Ryan.
And, he says Beilein will recruit well:
He saw an opportunity at Michigan. A national school filled with doctors and lawyers. He can consistently get great players at every position. There's a lot of concern about him recruiting Flint and Detroit. He'll go to Catholic schools in Detroit and Chicago and be able to recruit regionally. He's gotten kids from the Northeast and New Jersey and Washington D.C. He was beating out Maryland and Georgetown. He had a fairly good base in Florida. At West Virginia he didn't touch junior colleges. He didn't play the AAU game."
The nets and papers are full of comments that Beilein runs a very clean and very ethical program (he does sit on an NCAA ethics board). It's not too surprising, then, that he didnt' play the "AAU game" at West Virginia. The "AAU game" is pretty slimy. It's also pretty significant. It may even be more significant to Alex Legion, whose guardian was also his AAU coach, Tim Green. I'll have some more comments later about AAU and recruiting in general, but in the meantime check out this must read from mogoblog regarding Legion from last year.
I was feeling optomistic when I promised a tune if we kept Manny, Kelvin and Legion. I haven't given up hope yet. I'm not feeling quite as confident now after Legion has been formally released from his LOI. Alex, it's really a good tune, you may want to hear it.
In my estimation, Beilein is a very good hire. Congragulations to Bill Martin on an extraordinary job 1) keeping the search quiet, 2) getting the guy he apparently wanted all along, 3) coming up with the money to pay Beilein a competitive salary, and 4) not paying his buyout (apparently). As glad as I am to have Beilein this search bodes well for what will be the most important decision facing the athletic department in more than 10 years when Lloyd eventually retires. Brian at mgoblog.blogspot.com has several fine posts about Beilein (which anyone reading this has probably already read, and if you haven't you should).
I am concerned about this year's recruiting class, however. While thing looked good in comments from Udoh and elsewhere regarding Harris and Legion, this Harris quote from the Detroit News cannot be good:
"I'm opening up my recruiting," Harris said. "I'm not looking at one or any school in particular. Michigan is still a school I'm looking at."
Perhaps as concerning is a quote from Alex Legion's mother from the DetNews indicating that the issue with his decision is not so much about his game, or the team's style (within which he would fit perfectly) but about who else he is playing with:
"Al talked with him (Beilein) for an hour on Wednesday," Williams said. " When you have a ballplayer like Al, it's not about him. What's important are the players you have around him."
I take this to mean that if Harris leaves, Legion leaves. Ouch. Coach B. has some hard work ahead of him in the next few days.
Hopefully he and Harris both come to the realization that Beilein's addition to UM will add to the attractiveness of Michigan, and make them far better players in the long run than TA ever could have. There is certainly still hope, as Legion stated:
"We watched films of his teams at West Virginia, and he told me what his teams were about," Legion said. "He seemed very knowledgeable. His teams like to shoot the 3(-pointer) and run that 1-3-1 defense. That offense suits my game."
How great is it that Beilein is already out there doing far more public appearances than TA did in an entire year? This may very well be the biggest long term advantage in recruiting that Coach B will have over TA. There will a stark contrast between coach B and TA, and one that will certainly help Michigan in recruiting and player development.
On the other hand, how disturbing is it that TA actually required players to make appointments to come see him?
Michigan 72, Brown 57 
