Friday, April 11, 2014

Basketball Transfer, Princess Lacey and About That Spring Game

Basketball Wrap and….Uh-Oh

Before I officially hang up the MMPG hat, there’s a couple of things you need to know:
Under the heading of Whiskey – Tango – Foxtrot:  Horford has applied for and received arelease in order to transfer…See all the details at mgoblog.com.  My reaction – I don’t get it.  They guy is blossoming in this offense, has one season of eligibility left, and wants to leave what could potentially be a Final 4 team next year to go where….Florida?  Good luck and godspeed…I guess….
Princess Lacey - Rest In Peace:  I have to admit that even an old, hardened Maize and Blue Heart was greatly saddened when I learned that Adrien Payne's friend passed away on Tuesday...Payne and his journey with Lacey that was very well chronicled on the BTN made it hard for me to not root for the Spartans a little in their Championship run knowing they were trying to help make her dream come true, also.  This one's tough....



 
I think a brief summary of the Monday night National Title game is in order.
Kentucky Lost.  Yeah!!!!!

Congrats U-Conn.  Both Men’s and Women’s.  And the women beat the domers, so there’s kind of a double bonus in that. 
With respect to everyone declaring and the NBA draft status and all that….I’ll hope that Robinson and McGary get less than stellar ratings.  And wish Stauskas the best of luck.
Spring Football
I’ve now seen the Spring Game more or less in its entirety as I was not able to catch it in any single session.  And I can say this:
I’m nervous.

In years past, a lousy spring game with KNOWN commodities on the offensive and defensive side of the ball didn’t bother me at all; in fact, I used to think that coaches were purposefully not giving anything away to the competition by making Michigan look as atrocious in the Spring Game as they possibly could.  You know, kind of a reverse psychology thing.  “Here’s our tape from the Spring Game!  You don’t have to worry about us!”
But, in this case, with a completely re-vamped O-Line and – No, that’s not the right word – with an offensive line that was more or less a fire-bombed Studebaker (yeah, those ARE the right words!) I was hoping to see some serious running from the line of scrimmage that resulted in positive gains down field.  I didn’t see much of that.  I was also hoping to see schemes from the New O-Coordinator that would give Gardner options and people to throw to…Didn’t see a whole lot of that, either.

What I did see were a couple of underthrown passes (Okay – the broken toe thing and I’m sure he didn’t see a ton of practice time) and some otherwise mediocre play…
I guess after last year’s complete train wreck there’s little reason to look forward to anything this season…But it can’t get much worse…Can it?  I mean, we already HAD our 2008.  We shouldn’t have to suffer through that again….But I was hoping for improvement.  The offensive line is one of the most difficult units on the field to coordinate and coach correctly and right now, I’m not seeing it.  I hope Nussmeier recognizes this and starts to figure things out and decides quickly whether or not they have the right individual coaching that unit…Borges couldn’t hack it….

If you have watched the spring game, you probably also noticed that it seemed like the BTN was kind of…well…like a pre-teen ADHD sufferer that forgot to take their Ritalin.  The cameras were all over the place.  I was frustrated to the point of almost changing the channel after I had set aside time to actually take in the game.  I don’t know if they figured fans simply didn’t care about actual play on the field or we just wanted to see “who’s there” with a litany of cut-aways to coaches and former players. And cutaways in the middle of or during plays are kind of a pain in the ass….
10-11-14  Under the Lights
The PSU Kitty Kats will be back in the Big House for “Under the Lights” this season on October 11.  Based on seasons past, it’s either going to be really cool….Or really cool.  The Triple OT game against Sparty started out sunny and near 70 but had dropped about 30-35 degrees after the sun went down and as the fans left the stadium on that cool October evening…Well, I’m glad we won so we didn’t really feel how cold it was.  By the way, don’t forget to re-new your season tix.  Deadline is April 15th..

Logos
Well, in case you haven’t heard, the Florida State Seminoles have sealed their fate by messing with history….Eastern Michigan dumped the Huron Logo and mascot from its athletics and has literally been in athletic no-man's land ever since... Now, right after winning a Football NC, FSU has “Changed” Chief Oceola’s look and added “Florida State” on the feather….Personally, I could care less. However, FSU fans are vocally stating their overall “pissed offness” with the change and for good reason:  Everyone probably bought the old logo on a hat or T-shirt during FSU’s latest run.  And now to be “right” they are going to have to buy the new….

And when you do a little investigating, guess who was “pushing” the new design? Yeah…Nike.  They not only coughed up the money to do the deign but also put some money into the coffers of FSU to help get it approved…Just to sell more merchandise.
So, if I’m you’re an FSU fan and when things go bad next time around, you’ll have a handy point of reference as to what happened

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