NCAA Basketball, 2014-2015

[grumbler]

Let's start with a feel-good story.

Michigan recruit Austin Hatch from Indiana committed to play for coach John Beilein  on Jun 15, 2011 as part of the 2013 class.  Eight days later, he suffered massive brain damage in a private plane crash that killed hos father and stepmother.  He had previously lost his mother and both siblings in a plane crash in 2001.  Beilein could easily have transferred him to a medical scholarship and taken another highly-rated recruit, but didn't do so.  Instead, he stuck with Hatch, who could not even walk or talk, because he knew that playing for Michigan was a life's dream for Hatch, and he believed that, once Hatch committed, so had Michigan. 

The Today Show recently became aware of the situation because Hatch (re-classified as a 2014 recruit) just played his first game as a Wolverine, and did a nice story. http://www.today.com/video/today/55915447#55915447*

Belein has turned out to be the best Michigan coaching hire since Carol Hutcheson (the softball coach) twenty years ago.  He gets what being a Michigan Man is all about in a way that makes you feel for poor Rich Rodriguez, who never did, even though both came from WVU.  Some day, someone should write a dissertation on why Beilein was able to succeed so wildly where RR failed so spectacularly.

There is no basketball coach in the country (or world) I'd rather see at Michigan than Beilein.

*NSFMoV:  There are references to God here, so Marti and Viking should not click.

[CountDeMoney]

Ohio State would've had the kid euthanized.

NSFMoV

Europeans and their religion hang-ups.

[CountDeMoney]

Eight days later, he suffered massive brain damage in a private plane crash that killed hos father and stepmother.  He had previously lost his mother and both siblings in a plane crash in 2001. 

And somebody needs to tell the people he loves to stay the fuck away from airports.  Get a train ticket or something.

[alfred russel]

Prediction: in a few years grumbler is going to be posting another "feel good" story about how the Michigan community is rallying around its team of walk ons after the real team is killed in a plane crash.

This guy is cursed. He needs to jump over the side of a ship with a cannonball like the dude in Master and Commander.