Woooooooo

I have no other sentiments for the time being, just wooooooooooo.

Dragged through the mud: The Ray Small edition

I don't know Ray Small. Not in a personal sense or any other. If you had said "Ray Small" to me three days ago, I'd recognize the name, but I wouldn't think blinding hatred and rage. Because I don't know who Ray Small is. The internet tells me he's a former Ohio State wide receiver that made 61 career catches and was frequently in Jim Tressel's dog house.

But Ray Small is a terrible person. I know that because every Ohio State fan, blogger, and player (current or former) is going out of their way to drag his name through the mud and make him sound like a pedophile that just happened to have the ball skills to suit up for the most successful college football program of the last decade.

I'd feel bad for him if he wasn't such a crappy human.

What did Small do to draw such ire? He told a newspaper that he committed the same NCAA infractions that the Tatgate crew did, and that most other Ohio State football players did the same. Nevermind that the NCAA has already caught five players taking part in this scandal, or that Small would have intimate knowledge of what he did while at Ohio State, or that the FBI and NCAA are currently investigating countless cases of misdeeds by a local car dealership which may or may not have sold Ohio State players cars at unreasonable prices, or the amount of circumstantial evidence that says Ray Small was just truthfully answering questions asked of him. He's full of shit, at least according to all of his former teammates:

There are a lot more where that comes from and Ramzy at Eleven Warriors took great satisfaction in compiling all of them. Which makes you wonder: What is this brotherhood that Ohio State fans and players keep clammoring about and why is it so pissy? You might remember Kirk Herbstreit who went through a similar onslaught just a few months ago after criticizing how Tressel runs the program. It appears that the undying bond of Ohio State football players is unbreakable, at least until you stop falling in line behind Jim Tressel. But isn't that what got the school in this predicament in the first place?

This reminds me of when Toney Clemons spoke to the Detroit Free Press about Practicegate. A similar situation: a "disgruntled" player speaks about the improprieties of his former program. Except Clemons left Michigan in search of greener pastures, and even he rescinded his comments, saying they were taken out of context. Small, despite his low stature on the Tressel Hierarchy stuck with the program throughout his college career. Small isn't Clemons, obviously, but sorry if I find trouble seeing the Disgruntled Pissy Former Player angle that the Ohio State internets are selling like Girl Scout Cookies.

But maybe he is a bad dude. Maybe he had a bone to pick and he's lying through his teeth. It's a quality you might expect from someone coming out of Tressel's program. Then again, I tend to think that people are mostly trustworthy, and if we've learned anything over the last few months, it's that Ohio State football players always tell the truth on the internet.

Red Wings and NHL playoff overtime performance

Not Michigan-related, but, you know, it's May 5.

So after yet another overtime loss, the Red Wings find themselves in a 0-3 hole to the nemesis San Jose Sharks. Last night's game was not unlike any of the other overtime losses the team has suffered in the last decade, but it was enough to finally make me ask, Just how bad are the Red Wings in playoff overtime games? So I decided to do a little digging and see whether or not my beliefs (that the Wings simply cannot get it done in overtime) actually align with reality.

NHL.com has the result of every game dating back to the 2003-2004 season*. I was hoping to look at games beginning in 2000, but only to make numbers round and aesthetically pleasing. The following are individual teams' overtime record by year, followed by their composite record over the time span.

	2003-2004	2005-2006	2006-2007	2007-2008	2008-2009	2009-2010	2010-2011	Totals
Anaheim		2-1	4-1		1-1		0-1	7-4
Boston	2-0			1-1	1-1	2-1	4-0	10-3
Buffalo		5-1	1-3			0-1	1-1	7-6
Calgary	5-2	1-1	0-1		0-1			6-5
Carolina		4-3			3-1			7-4
Chicago					3-2	3-1	1-1	7-4
Colorado	3-1	3-1		1-2		1-2		8-6
Dallas	1-1	0-3	1-2	3-1				5-7
Detroit	0-2	1-1	2-2	1-1	2-2	0-1	0-2	6-11
Edmonton		3-1						3-1
Los Angeles						1-1	0-3	1-4
Minnesota				2-1				2-1
Montreal	0-3	1-2		2-1		1-1	0-3	4-10
Nashville			0-1	0-1		0-1	2-1	2-4
New Jersey		0-1	2-0	1-0	1-1	0-1		4-3
NY Islanders	0-1							0-1
NY Rangers			1-1	0-2			0-1	1-4
Ottowa	1-0	0-3	2-1			1-1		4-5
Philadelphia	2-0	0-1		2-1	0-1	3-2	1-2	8-7
Pittsburgh				2-0	2-2	1-1	1-0	6-3
San Jose	1-3	0-1	1-1	1-3	1-0	3-2	5-0	12-10
St. Louis	0-1				0-1			0-2
Tampa Bay	3-2		0-1				1-1	4-4
Toronto	0-2							0-2
Vancouver	1-1		3-3		1-1	1-1	2-2	8-8
Washington				0-2	1-2	1-1	2-1	4-6

So... yes, the Red Wings are very bad in overtime playoff games. The team is 6-11 over the time period, which is a .353 winning percentage. During the regular season over that time period, the Wings are winning at a .613 clip.

Other observations:

• The Sharks have played in more playoff overtime games (22) than any other team. The next closest is the Wings with 17. Unfortunately, the Sharks are 12-10 and the Wings record is... what it is. Then again, heading into this postseason, the Sharks were 7-10 in such playoff OT games.
• With the exception of Nashville (2-4) the Wings have the worst playoff overtime winning percentage of any team that has played in more than 5 playoff OT games. The gut wrenching feeling you get every time the Wings go to OT is a valid one.
• Boston has the best playoff OT record of any team that has played more than 5 games, clocking in at a scorching 10-3.
• As you can tell (and as you might expect), most teams hover around the .500 area.
• Also as you may have suspected, the Stanley Cup winner, at worst, holds its own: 2010 Blackhawks (3-1), 2009 Penguins (2-2), 2008 Red Wings (1-1), 2007 Ducks (4-1), 2006 Hurricanes (4-3), and 2004 Lightning (3-2)

The question is whether or not specific play styles lead toward a better or worse OT record, but that's something I don't have the time or resources to investigate. In any case, you can feel safe saying that the Wings are an awful playoff overtime team, especially when you take into account their record, seeding, and likely the lesser competition they're playing in those games.

*The 2004-2005 season never happened because of the NHL lockout.

Darius Morris to enter the NBA draft

In spite of Michigan fans' wishes and scout near-consensus that Darius Morris should spend another year in college, the Wolverine's best player will be headed to the NBA draft and forgoing his final two years at Michigan. First things first: Best of luck to Morris in the NBA. It became clear about halfway through his freshman year that Morris was a special player with NBA-caliber talent. We all knew this day was coming, we just hoped it would come 365 days from now.

To that end, Morris emphatically did things the right way with regard to the process. There wasn't a rift between he and Beilein (or at least one that was ever made public), and his exit was both frugal and professional. He thanked the program, spoke highly of everyone at Michigan, and exited in the fashion in keeping with his on-court persona and talent. Moreover, Morris went about this the right way insofar as retaining his eligibility and maintaining the possibility to return to Michigan. In the end, he made the decision that he thought was best for him.

But was that the right decision? Honestly, I'm inclined to say yes, for a number of different reasons. The first is simple: make that money while you can. If we've learned anything in the last few years, it's that professional sports careers can crumble at the drop of a dime: a bad fall, twist of an ankle, an unfortunate car accident, etc. Morris is a player who has likely aspired to play in the NBA for most of his life and has done all the right things to assure that happens. He deserves to play in the NBA and deserves whatever spoils come his way because of it. It's smart to get in while he can, start making money, and hope that turns into a long and fruitful professional career. Don't fault him for that.

But the difference in money between being a late-first-round/early-second-round selection and a lottery pick--which is where Morris is projected to go, and where scouts think he has a chance to land if he returns to Michigan, respectively--is significant, you say. Sure, but confidence that he'll find himself drafted in that range is probably enough to force his hand. The primary knock against Morris is his shooting ability. Whether or not he's able to improve his shooting over the course of the next season is speculative, and with a solid draft projection in a weak draft class, it's tough to convince anyone to return to college on the off chance that he'll rise a few spots in the draft.

I'm split on what this means for Michigan in the long run though. Obviously the on-court production will suffer next year, but this may be a huge boost for recruiting. One if the knocks against Beilein, in the minds of recruits, is that he can't get them to the League. If Morris goes in the first round, that idea should be thoroughly debunked. Because the D-league Rookie of the Yearing that DeShawn Sims did and the spot minutes Manny Harris saw for the woeful Cavaliers does little to dissuade recruits of this notion. Then again, recruits want success at the college level as much as they want to get to the pros, and if Morris' exit does as much harm as it potentially could, recruits won't even both giving Michigan a look.

Regardless, best of luck to Darius in the draft and the NBA. He's a player whose progress I'll be following intently.

Tressel's singular demonstration of deceit

Now that the NCAA Notice of Allegations has finally dropped on Ohio State and Tressel, we have actual, concrete evidence that this is going to be bad for the Senator. How bad is yet to be determined, and nearly everyone is throwing out his opinion as to what the university should do with its maligned leader. Popular opinion is that Tressel should be fired yesterday, and the school should lick its wounds and try to recover in the coming NCAA-sanctioned years. One place you won't find that is the delirious Eleven Warriors, which I usually really like but has been off its rocker with Tressel coverage. Basically every day, we're treated to a new diatribe about the wonders of Jim Tressel and the idea that this is all some giant ESPN conspiracy to destroy the university because Look, even Kirk Herbstreit has been poisoned by that well.

Even though Michigan recently went through this NCAA violation process itself, it pales in comparison to what Ohio State is about to endure (though the media scrutiny was probably stronger in Michigan's case given the widespread hatred of Rodriguez). I imagine that for Eleven Warriors, Tatgate is a bit like an 8-year-old watching his parents divorce: denial, crippling fear, and the desire to find a way to fix all of this. Unfortunately, what's done is done, and when they stumble out missives like this...

As you sit at your computer, bleary eyed and fuzzy headed, you might have fleeting thoughts that the inanity of yesterday might've just been a dream. Maybe, just maybe, the avalanche of opinions and commentary about what was essentially a non-story continuation of what we already knew didn't really happen. Maybe for once people took a reasoned approach to what was nothing more than a letter from the NCAA saying "Okay fine. See you in August." Maybe instead of reading fatuous articles by people with no real knowledge of the situation, Batman gave you the keys to his cave, and you and Alfred hosted the best Spring Break party Bill Bellamy ever saw.

But I am here to tell you that you're wrong. All of those articles and interviews happened. People really did go nuts. And Alfred is way too old to party (so is Bill Bellamy, for that matter).

... it's almost depressing to read their paranoia and delusion.

The arguments in favor of Tressel have changed. A month ago, Tressel was a Good Guy with a good track record, but now that the other shoe has finally dropped, the argument has become, "Well, this happens at every school." The problem is, I don't think it does, and if you do, your view of college football is far more pessimistic than mine.

The argument that this happens everywhere is missing the point: sure, players sell memorabilia at schools--this, I bet, happens almost universally at major institutions--but a coach with actual proof of it that lies to the NCAA? That doesn't happen everywhere. So while coaches might "know"/assume that the sale of jerseys et al happens under their watch, they know in the same sense that high school teachers know that their students are probably copying each others' homework; so long as it doesn't come to anyone's attention, they're not going to take the initiative to dig it up. And frankly, turning the other cheek for something so erroneous doesn't bother me.

However, what doesn't happen at every school, is a coach with full knowledge of these transgressions willfully and repeatedly lying to the NCAA and school administrators while divulging information that he said was confidential to a bunch of boosters. Over the last 12 months, Tressel has dug his own grave, on his own accord. This doesn't happen at every school because there aren't many coaches that are this conniving. Bite the bullet, admit your players did wrong, and live to fight another day. Tressel decided he was better than that and because of it, he's going to lose his job.

Frankly, there's no real argument that he shouldn't. Tressel has repeatedly skirted NCAA sanctions for improper benefits, and when the case finally got big enough that it would seriously harm his program's on-field production, he did everything in his power to make sure it never saw the light of day. Tressel spent hours calculating and mitigating this risk, and in doing so, committed the cardinal sin in the NCAA. And for a man who has so frequently avoided the NCAA's punishment, comeuppance is going to be severe, and most importantly, deserved.