Archive for the ‘Michigan’ Category

2-sport star Harris headed to Michigan State

Published by Source on June 28th, 2012

2014 basketball and football standout Drake Harris hopes to play both sports in college. On Wednesday, the rising junior announced that his college future will be at Michigan State. Harris picked State over Michigan and Notre Dame.

The 6’4″ Grand Rapids (MI) prospect is both a shooting guard and a wide receiver, but as of now is more highly-touted as a hoops recruit. Michigan State, probably the only “basketball school” in his final group, is getting a top-50 guard for Tom Izzo and a tall, athletic wideout for Mark Dantonio.

Being a success on both the hardwood and gridiron is a rarity in college athletics, but Harris has the talent to be a star on each team. Harris has said that Izzo is okay with him playing football and actually came to watch him on the field this past season at Grand Rapids Christian.

Harris took an unofficial visit to East Lansing last weekend that sealed the deal for him. He cited the close proximity to home, the family atmosphere and the promise of being able to play both sports as major reasons why he chose Sparty.

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Monte Morris (2013) to Iowa State

Published by Source on June 27th, 2012

Flint Beecher senior-to-be Monte Morris has made his college decision. The Michigan-native will take his talents to Ames to be an Iowa State Cyclone. The news comes on Morris’ 18th birthday.

Morris, a 6’1″ point guard ranked in the top 100 by all the major recruiting services, made the announcement in front of an audience in his high school gymnasium. He put ISU assistant coach Cornell Mann on speaker phone so that he could hear the news at the same time as everyone else.

According to MLive.com (article linked above), Morris averaged 19.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists in his junior season with the Beecher Buccaneers. There is a connection between Ames and Flint: the Cyclones were led in the 1980s by a pair of Flint products in Barry Stevens and Jeff Grayer.

The final three schools for Morris were Iowa State, Illinois and Butler. He was recruited by a number of other B1G schools, including Indiana, Michigan and Michigan State, but did not report offers from any of those programs.

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2012 B1G/ACC Challenge Match-ups Announced

Published by Source on May 14th, 2012

The match-ups have been announced for next season’s B1G/ACC Challenge. There will be twelve games featuring all twenty-four teams in the two conferences. In what will be the 14th annual event, the B1G will attempt to win its 4th straight after losing the first 10.

ESPN’s preseason #1 Indiana Hoosiers will host the #11 North Carolina Tar Heels in one of the two headlining games of the event. The other features an up and coming #6 NC State Wolfpack team traveling to Ann Arbor to take on the #8 Michigan Wolverines in what may be an early season top-10 match-up if the preseason rankings hold. Both of those games will be on Tuesday, November 27. The following day, the headliner is surely the #5 Ohio State Buckeyes at the #15 Duke Blue Devils. Coach K’s squad will be looking for revenge after getting destroyed in Columbus this past season.

Here are all 12 match-ups:

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LeVert a late addition for Wolverines

Published by Source on May 11th, 2012

A former Ohio University commit has made the decision to cross state lines and become a Wolverine.

2012 forward Caris LeVert (Pickering Central, OH) has committed to the University of Michigan after visiting the campus last weekend. Apparently the decision was made right after that visit, but no official announcement was made until this Friday.

LeVert, a friend of current Wolverine point guard Trey Burke, chose UM over Xavier, Dayton and Purdue. He was originally let out of his letter of intent at Ohio U after head coach John Groce left the school to take over at Illinois.

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B1G Transfers and Returns

Published by Source on April 16th, 2012

Several B1G players have announced that they are leaving or returning to their respected programs in the last 24 hours. Below you can find a list of the most recent moves:

* Ohio State sophomore J.D. Weatherspoon will be leaving the Buckeye program. The forward is a Columbus-native and played high school ball with OSU teammate Jared Sullinger. Weatherspoon played just 6 minutes per game this season and averaged 3.0 points and 1.1 rebounds.

* Purdue junior John Hart announced that he will use his final season of eligibility at another school. Hart will graduate at the end of this season and will be immediately eligible to play at any out of conference school if his graduate program of choice is not offered at Purdue. The guard has seen his minutes decline in each of his seasons with the Boilers and he averaged just 1.6 ppg in 5.3 mpg as a junior.

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Indiana All-Stars Roster announced

Published by Source on April 9th, 2012

The annual Indiana/Kentucky All-Star games will be held this year on June 8th (Louisville, KY) and 9th (Indianapolis, IN) and the Indiana team is loaded with Division-1 talent. The 13-man roster will play two exhibition games on June 4th (Seymour) and 6th (Pendleton Heights) against the Junior All-Stars before taking on the Kentucky seniors. Below this the roster, complete with college selections for each player:

INDIANA ALL-STARS:

* Gary Harris (SG, Hamilton Southeastern) – 6’4″ / 208 lbs / Michigan State

* Yogi Ferrell (PG, Park Tudor) – 5’11″ / 165 lbs / Indiana

* Kellen Dunham (SG, Pendleton Heights) – 6’5″ / 180 lbs / Butler

* Ron Patterson (SG, Broad Ripple) – 6’3″ / 195 lbs / Indiana

* Jeremy Hollowell (SF, Lawrence Central) – 6’8″ / 210 lbs / Indiana

* Ronnie Johnson (PG, North Central) – 6’0″ / 160 lbs / Purdue

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Trey Burke returning to Michigan

Published by Source on April 9th, 2012

After an incredible freshman season, Michigan point guard Trey Burke declared for the NBA. While he did not immediately hire an agent, it was reported last week that the young guard had made the decision to move to the next level. Trey’s father disputed these claims, saying that his son had not made a decision and was still enrolled at the Ann Arbor campus.

Monday, the University announced that their starting point guard will in fact be returning to school next year for his sophomore season. This is incredible news for John Beilein and Michigan basketball, as losing Burke would have severely hampered their chances at another B1G title. With their star point guard back and an incredible recruiting class coming in, the Wolverines should open the season as one of the favorites in the conference and perhaps a top-15 or even top-10 team nationally.

 


Michigan lands late 2012 PG commitment

Published by Source on April 7th, 2012

With the news that Michigan starting point guard Trey Burke may be gone to the NBA, head coach John Beilein went in search of a new point guard to bring in next season. It appears he has found that player in Spike Albrecht, a point guard currently finishing a prep season at Northfield Mount Vernon (MA). Albrecht, who is originally from Crown Point, Indiana just over of the IL/IN border, becomes the fourth member of a Wolverine 2012 class that includes Rivals150 players Mitch McGary, Glenn Robinson III and Nick Stauskas.

The NCAA spring signing period starts on Wednesday, so Albrecht will be able to sign with his new team as early as next week. The commitment came during a visit to Ann Arbor on Friday night on which Beilein offered the point guard a scholarship. Beilein has landed a number of players from “The Region” of NW Indiana, including seniors Stu Douglass and Zack Novak, as well as 2012 commits McGary and Robinson, both of whom come from the same AAU program (SYF Players) as Albrecht.

There are conflicting reports as to whether or not Burke will be back to the Wolverines next season and there is no doubt that his departure will be a tough loss for the program. Burke emerged as one of the top point guards in the conference and shared B1G Freshman of the Year honors with Indiana’s Cody Zeller. The NBA stock is high for Burke now, but he may decide that another year in college would improve his position and NBA-readiness. Albrecht would also benefit from playing with such a talented point guard for a season or two, but will have to be ready to go right away if Burke is in fact off to the pros.


Indiana Junior All-Stars Announced

Published by Source on March 22nd, 2012

The junior teams, both the core squad and the two regional squads, were announced Thursday and feature several notable recruits. Indiana Junior All-Stars play against the Indiana Senior All-Star team in two exhibition games leading up to the seniors’ match-ups with the Kentucky All-Stars June 8th and 9th. The core team, six players who will play in both exhibition games, will team-up with the regional teams, six players each representing the North and South, to make a 12-man squad. The full rosters are below, with college commitments where applicable:

CORE ROSTER:

VJ Beachem (New Haven) – University of Notre Dame

Devin Davis (Warren Central) – Indiana University

Collin Hartman (Cathedral) – Indiana University

Zak Irvin (Hamilton Southeastern) – University of Michigan

Demetrius Jackson (Mishawaka Marian)

Tony Wills (Ben Davis)

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Revisiting My Preseason Predictions

Published by Source on March 21st, 2012

With the regular season finished and postseason tournaments in full swing, it is time to take a look back at the predictions I posted the day before this college basketball season began. I went game-by-game to predict wins and losses, tallied them up and listed the teams from 1-12. Needless to say, I did not do that well.

The first thing that jumps out is that the B1G really beat up on each other in conference play, with a lot of teams at the top of the standings losing to teams at the bottom. No team dominated the season the way that I (and many others) expected Ohio State to do.

It was not all bad, though, as I was pretty spot on with my non-conference records. For most teams, I only missed 2 or 3 non-conference games (I missed 4 for Penn State, but was perfect for Minnesota and only missed 1 each for Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin). Below, you will see a couple different lists. The first is the side-by-side of my predicted conference standings and the actual conference standings. Next, you will see a team-by-team breakdown of the records I predicted so that you can see how wrong/right I was. NOTE: I do not include conference tournament games, as those would have been impossible to predict before the season. NOTE 2: 3-way tie in actual B1G standings, but I listed the 3 teams in the order they were seeded in the conference tournament.

PREDICTED:                       ACTUAL:

1 – Ohio State                  T-1 – Michigan State

2 – Michigan                   T-1 – Michigan

3 – Wisconsin                 T-1 – Ohio State

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