The Director's Seat - Andy's Blog

I figured this could last at least two weeks. The next few Mondays I'll be traveling, so this is the last you'll hear from me for a while. Maybe somebody else will pick up the slack and throw something on the blog while I'm gone.

Entertainment

Arctic Monkeys - Library Pictures

The new Arctic Monkeys album is really good - certainly better than their last album, and in my estimation, better than their sophomore effort as well. This is one of the shorter, faster paced tracks on the LP, but the whole thing is worth a listen. It's streaming online here.

I've listened to a lot of other new music recently, including efforts from Bon Iver, The Vaccines, Givers, and Battles, but nothing has really captivated me, besides perhaps the new Bon Iver. It's not so easy finding new music you love every week.

The big buzz this past weekend was about the release of the Hangover II. I wasn't particularly blown away by the first edition, but it was funny enough, and so I watched the second installment with moderately high expectations. II is, and you'll hear this 100 times, the exact same movie in a different setting, and how you interact with this fact will color your viewing experience. Accept that it's the same movie again, remember that you enjoyed it the first time, and you'll have a pleasant enough time with the second. There are some classic Alan lines, and I laughed out loud more frequently than I did during the first movie, so there's that. All in all, worth a look.

The summer means your favorite shows are going on hiatus, but one you should be watching that will kick off a new season on June 23 is Louie, on FX. I don't know how it took me so long to get around to watching Louis C.K.'s show, but I watched the first season in a couple days, and it's really good. C.K. is hilarious, and a good third of each episode is just him doing standup, which is what he's known for and best at. The rest of the show plays on a down and out Dad theme, and as a sucker for self-deprecating humor, I'm a fan. You've got three weeks to watch the first season before the premiere of the second.

(Inter)national Sports

I hope everyone watched the UEFA Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United on Saturday afternoon (evening for me). Because it was dazzling. Barcelona dominated much of the first half but saw the score level at 1 after a glorious strike from Wayne Rooney. Barca came out and completely dominated the second half, and we were treated to some Lionel Messi magic. This will be at least the third place I say it, but it has been a privilege to watch Lionel Messi play football, and I will not soon forget this Barcelona team. After they shredded Arsenal in a much-mocked match in an earlier leg of the Champions League, I have to say I was rather pleased to see United suffer a similar, albeit less embarrassing fate. This Barcelona side will go down as one of the all-time great teams Europe has ever seen, and it's pretty special that we get to watch them. Highlights here, but sure to disappear soon.

The big story yesterday was the FINAL TURN collapse of rookie J.R. Hildebrand at the Indianapolis 500. I didn't see it live, so I know I've missed out on that special quality of watching it as it happened, but it's one of the most incredible things you'll ever see in sports.

There's just something special about live sports, and the sense that ANYTHING can happen and you could be witnessing history. I remember watching a bowling event earlier this year, and one guy had the championship all but sewn up, but inexplicably CRATERED on the last throw and lost. It was bowling, but my jaw was on the floor. Through the magic of the internet, here it is. Relevant portion around 9:20.

The NBA finals start tomorrow night, pitting Dirk and the Mavericks against the Miami Heat and its trio of stars. Better people than myself will preview this somewhere else, I'm sure. I just cannot get into the NBA playoffs. Dirk is a compelling story with his playoff feats, but I don't understand how anyone could be genuinely interested in the Heat. I don't like any of their larger than life superstars, and could not care less about whether or not they win rings. The nature of basketball - that one player can completely dominate a game - turns me off to it, especially in the star-driven league that is the NBA. Spare me the egos and theatrics, please.

Wednesday, however, brings us the Stanley Cup finals, pitting the Vancouver Canucks against the Boston Bruins. I'll be shocked if Lord Stanley's Cup doesn't belong to Vancouver at the end of this series - the Sedins are too good, and the Canucks roll too much depth for the Bruins to handle. Tim Thomas will have to be huge for the Bruins to have any chance, and I suspect Roberto Luongo will be equal to the task in net for Vancouver. This should be a fun one to watch on NBC, as long as Pierre's time is as limited as possible.

Michigan Sports

The biggest news of the past week was perhaps the worst kept secret in the Michigan sports world - that Michigan men's lacrosse would be making the jump to D-1 next season, with women's lacrosse to follow in 2012-13. Details here in the MGoBlue roundup. It's extremely exciting to be the first team in 30 years to make the jump to D-1 lacrosse, and Michigan's dominant varsity club side finally moves up to the top level. The next couple seasons expect Michigan to play in a hodgepodge of venues, but you can be sure that Dave Brandon is crafting a plan for a dedicated lacrosse facility to compete with the best in the nation. For an introduction to the team, watch this series of video blogs.

WCBN hopes to broadcast Michigan men's lacrosse next season when the facilities afford us a steady internet connection and power source.

That's going to do it for now. Thanks for reading, hope to see you again soon!

Live Blog: Michigan Women's Lacrosse @ Oakland University

0:00: Michigan picks up the 13-5 victory, improving to 9-2 on the season. The game story will be posted on the Michigan Women's Lacrosse Web Site.

0:22 One-timer from Kempner to Shekerjian! 13-5 Michigan.

1:09: Oakland is playing hard to the final buzzer as they add another goal to cut the Michigan lead to 7. 12-5 Michigan.

2:03: Kempner picked up a ground ball and turned it into a goal despite being tackled by the OU defender who picked up a yellow card. 12-4 Michigan.

5:21: Oakland finally gets one past Krato. 11-4 Michigan.

7:06: Krato comes up with yet another save off an 8-meter shot.

11:12: Becca Miller gets in on the action, scoring her second goal of the game. 11-3 Michigan.

14:34: Goal Oakland. 10-3 Michigan.

16:46: Both teams yelled "intensity!" coming out of the timeout. In my slightly-biased opinion, Michigan's "intensity!" cheer was more intense.

16:52: The motivational post worked as Jess Stanley adds a goal to Michigan's lead, resulting in an OU timeout. 10-2 Michigan.

18:24: Another save for Krato as she plucked the shot out of midair. Still 9-2 Michigan, no goals either way in the second half.

19:02: Michigan's taking its time setting up an offense and moving the ball around. So far the Wolverines haven't taken a shot here in the second half, very similar to the Northwestern game on Sunday...

22:50: The many different colored lines on the field have been giving both teams problems all game long resulting in a myriad of penalties. This time Golinske was called, giving OU an 8-meter. Great job by Krato to knock the shot aside, ball back to Michigan.

25:00: Second half underway. On the field for Michigan: Boehm, Lary, Pavle, Killian, Johnson, Relich, Baskind, Golinske, Miller, Dyner, and Krato in goal.

0:00: Halftime from Pontiac, Michigan in control 9-2. Goals from:

Lary (2)
Baskind (2)
Conroy (2)
Killian
Kempner
Pavle

0:09: Michigan with one last opportunity as Oakland threw it out of bounds...Goal! Rachel Killian scores with :05 left in the half. 9-2 Michigan.

0:54: Foul on OU gives the ball back to Michigan. Stanley bringing the ball down the field for the Wolverines...

1:17: Michigan turns it over so one last push for Oakland here before the half.

1:45: The crowd has started to gather in the "upper deck" here at Ultimate Soccer/All-American Lacrosse. There are probably about 40-50 fans taking in this game from the bleachers.

2:08: Goal for Oakland off an 8-meter. 8-2 Michigan.

3:57: Michigan ends their five and a half minute dry spell as Delaney Kempner scored giving Michigan an 8-1 lead. 8-1 Michigan.

4:40: Those last few entries had a ton of typos in it. Sorry, I fixed them. I now appreciate how difficult it is to keep a live blog timely.

6:50: Rachel Lary is out indefinitely as she cracked her toenail in half. She is currently recieving medical attention from Alexis Pavle. The injury does not appear to be season-ending

8:30: Some controversy at the scorer's table over the pronunciation of Amanda Schutte's last name. Despite Debbe Pavle's help, the Oakland University student doing the PA announcing doesn't believe that her name is pronounced "Shoot-ah." His response? "That's awesome!"

9:28: Good ball movement from Michigan as Amanda Schutte set up Conroy beautifuly for her second goal of the game. 7-1 Michigan.

11:44: Two in a row for Baskind as Michigan's lead is up to 6-1.

13:40: Shot missed but Michigan kept control. Pavle got an 8-meter but her shot was turned away by the goalie. Julie Baskind turned the rebound into a goal, her eighth on the year. 5-1 Michigan.

14:10: 8-meter coming coming up for Britt Boehm from the left hash

15:35 Make that 4-1.

15:45: Oakland's head coach can't keep up either. He just asked the scorers table what the score was, 6-0? Nope, only 4-0 for now.

16:06: I can't type fast enough to keep up with the goals. Michigan won the draw off the Lary goal and proceeded to score again, this time from the stick of Erin Conroy. Timeout, Oakland. 4-0 Michigan.

17:15: Oakland's defense fell asleep, forgetting about Rachel Lary. By the time she got the ball it was too late for the defense to recover as Lary shot high, scoring her second goal of the game and 16th of the season. 3-0 Michigan.

19:29: Two trips into the offensive zone = two Michigan goals. This one came from Rachel Lary off an Amy Johnson pass. Oakland is trying to hold the ball on offense and limit Michigan's posessions. Probably a good idea given that Michigan has held the ball for about 30 seconds and already has two goals. 2-0 Michigan.

21:35: Michigan didn't waste any time as Alexis Pavle scored on the Wolverine's first offensive posession. 1-0 Michigan.

22:24: First shot of the game is turned away by Scheidt. Oakland controlled the rebound and attempted another shot which Scheidt blocked as well. Michigan going the other way...

25:00: Starting Lineups are being announced. So far Oakland is off to a rough start with about 3 of the 11 Michigan starters' names being pronounced correctly. Michigan comes in with an 8-2 record while this is OU's first game of the season.

I wasn't expecting there to be internet so we won't have a radio broadcast tonight. Instead I'll give a live-blog for those who were unable to make the scenic drive to Pontiac, Michigan. Amy Santoriello will not play as she is still out with an injury. Fortunately her concussion did not effect her ability to navigate as we made it here more-or-less on time. This live blog will last throughout the game (or until my laptop battery dies). The newest updates will be at the top of the page.

UM LaX Makes Radio Debut

That's right! Tonight, during GOTW, we will be broadcasting an hour of UM Lacrosse from Oosterbaan at 8pm. I'll have the call as Michigan takes on Big Ten rivals OSU and PSU at 8pm and 10pm respectively. The weather is terrific outside, so walk over to Oosterbaan and come say "hello" to myself or Stu. Admission is free to Students and $5 for general admission.

You might be asking yourself, "Why broadcast Lacrosse?" Well, for one thing, Michigan is hosting the Big Ten Tournament so this is a pretty big event. Stu is giving us unprecedented access to the team, so the insight and commentary should be great.

...And for selfish reasons, I'm trying to keep up with Gus Johnson for the record of "Most obscure sporting events ever called by a single person." He's still got a pretty big lead on me with "Lions Pre-Season Football" and "UFC on CBS" all within the same month.

We'll have player and coach interviews throughout the night, as well as our usual GOTW coverage before and after the 8pm hour. Hope you tune in.

Quick Hits and a National Championship

Couple quick updates on some of the previous articles we have done on Maize and Blog:

The Udoh Saga Continues: A few weeks ago, we posted that Ekpe Udoh had thought about/decided to transfer from U of M because of reported differences with Michigan's style of basketball. To update the situation, Udoh released his choices for transfer schools earlier this week in the Edmond Sun, his hometown paper. Atop the list were local schools (Oklahoma, OSU, Baylor) and mid-majors Wichita State and Missouri State. The article also quoted Udoh expressing his displeasure for Beilein's offensive schemes (You don't say?!). I wouldn't be surprised to see him at OU or Baylor, both local choices which implement a sound post game on offense. Wichita has traditionally been a perimeter oriented team and OSU has a new coach with a new scheme that also would rely on jumpshots, neither a good fit for Udoh.

Simmons watch: I posted a story a few weeks ago about popular ESPN blogger/writer Bill Simmons in which I mentioned Simmons' ongoing battles with ESPN brass and how Simmons had created an alternate site for some of his old material. It wasn't known at the time that he would be posting regularly on this site, but it turns out that he has been regularly posting articles on this site, many of which were pretty well-written and entertaining. Check 'em out.

1st National Title in 4 years!.... OK, so what if it was in Men's Club Lacrosse. Some people might be quick to dismiss their success, but not me. I'll give the LaX team some much deserved credit. This is a team that, despite Bill Martin's repeated refusals to give them varsity status, has accomplished more than some varsity teams have in the past decade. Not only did they manage to win a national title, but they were also able to bring in top varsity talent to compete against during the offseason in order to draw interest and create a local fan base. (Michigan faced off against both Army and Johns Hopkins earlier this year in the Michigan Lacrosse Showcase on Elbel Field). The event drew an estimated 4,000 people. That's more than some Michigan Men's Bball games, regardless of the attendance figures the Athletic Dept. is putting out. Seriously though. Who are they trying fool by saying 10,000 people came to see Illinois and U of M when there are only 5 people sitting in the upper bowl? Congrats to the Men's LaX team and good luck in achieving varsity status next year. I know that's a ticket I'd gladly purchase after this season.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer. Sorry if the blogging has been light as I know many people have been busy, but we are finishing strong as the Spring season ends. Look for a Mail Bag post by the end of the week.