Wolverine Wednesday: New DB Commit

We know Coach Whitt can recruit.  He had to recruit his current roster to stay in Ann Arbor and he and the staff brought in a strong Portal class.  What we hadn't seen yet was a high school commit to the new Wolverines staff.   That is until Tuesday, when Darrell Mattision from Chicago announced his decision for the Wolverines.  Darrell is a 6'0 foot 160 pound 2027 4-star Safety who had offers from the likes of Illinois, Iowa, Mizzu, MSU, PSU, Stanford, Vandy, and Ole Miss.   If he has a Stanford offer, its clear he gets it done on the field and in the classroom.  

Welcome Darrell! 

Other breaking news is that North Carolina is moving on from Hubert Davis which means they will be targeting Michigan head coach Dusty May.  Hey Warde, wake up! 

Dusty was also on the LeBatard Show yesterday.  They of course had fun with Dusty who spent many years down in South Florida with FAU.  

Michigan Tuesday: Whitt is Going All In on His Staff

With NIL and recruiting being so important to a program's success, the Michigan Football Staff and Operations have become just as important off the field as on the field.  

I first started noticing that when Jim was here and now Coach Whitt is taking it to another level. 

In the last couple days:

• Ron Bellamy is back as the Director of Recruiting Relations
• Alayna Williamson was hired as Chief of Staff (was at Utah as well)
• Natalia Hilton Director of Football Operations
• Ben Redell Executive Assistant to the Head Coach/Director of Logistics
• Evan Roka Assistant Director of Operations
• Chris Pettit hired as an Assistant General Manager, who was the long time Director of Scouting for the NY Giants.

Michigan is a week into Spring Practice.

Michigan Monday: That is the Team I Know

I personally haven't liked how the Wolverines have been playing since the start of the Big Ten Tournament.  To me they looked tired and not really interested in playing to their full capacity 3 games in a row.  That seemed to continue in the 1st half of game 1 in the NCAA Tournament.  

That wasn't the case against a very talented St. Louis team that runs the exact same action Michigan does.  Now, STL doesn't have the talent or size Michigan has and that was clearly the difference in the 2nd half.  The 1st half was again close but I thought Michigan was focused and was ready to step it up a notch after some halftime adjustments. 

Michigan now can find it legs with nearly a week off and get prepared to face a football rival in Alabama.  Chicago hasn't been very kind to the Wolverines in the last few weeks, so lets hope the Windy City is welcoming to the Wolverines next weekend.  Tip is 7:35 on Friday on Tru TV.

• In the back of my mind, I always wondered if the new staff would find a role for Ron Bellamy if he didn't find another job.  Coach Whitt and staff did just that and re-hired Ron to a recruiting role.  If your paying the guy anyway, might as well give him a job!  This will help in state recruiting and mostly in the Motor City! 

• Congrats to the Women Wolverines who also are heading to the Sweet 16 after going 2-0 at Crisler this weekend. 

• Congrats to the Michigan Hockey team after wining the Big10 Tournament and heading to the NCAA Tournament as the #1 seed. 

• RIP to former Bo assistant coach Jerry Hanlon.   Rest in Power coach and enjoy a cold one with Bo and Elvis today.

• Iowa impressively beats reigning National Champion and #1 seed Florida last night

• Nebraska vs. Vandy might have been one of the best college basketball games I've ever watched. 

Michigan Friday: A Bit of a Funk

101-81

When you look at the final score and winning by 21 or knowing Michigan was up 30 at one point.  You might think, "no problems here".   That really didn't tell the story of the game, did it?  Michigan wasn't focused or playing hard in the first half and found themselves up only 4 points at halftime.   Like the Wisconsin game in the the Big 10 tournament, Howard had to do 2 things to win this game, shoot the lights out from 3 and not turn the ball over.   In the first half, they did both and drained 10 three point shots.  

In the 2nd half, they couldn't do either very well and lost the game by a big margin.  Both Duke and Michigan came into Thursday thinking they were going to have a cake walk, instead they got a pie in the face.  

The box score was also interesting:  Rez Johnson led the team with 21 points and 10 boards (offically was 8-8 from the field), Mara had 19 in a dunk-a-thon, Burnett had 15, and Gayle added 14 in front of family and friends.  The names you don't see is Yax who had 9 and Cadeau who had 5.  

Happy for Rez who had a terrible trip to Chicago and Gayle who preformed well in front of his fans.  Tschetter did add 6 points but continues to struggle with defense and turnovers. 

Michigan has to play better defense for the entire 40 minutes of the game.  These teams can play and most of them have shooters.  Michigan does have an advantage in the low post but that doesn't mean they can let 3 point shooters take wide open 3's all day and just hope they miss. 

Michigan in Chicago and now in Buffalo looks like a tired team to me.  Working on rest & recovery and focusing on defense will do this team very well in the next 24 hours.   

You know what also doesn't hurt and is the perfect tonic for what ales the Wolverines?  this quote:

"I hope we smack the crap out of them (Michigan) worse than we did Georgia." East Lansing native Cam Hutson got to play in his first NCAA Tournament game for St. Louis tonight.