Listen: Highlights of Last Night's Classic at the Joe

A new chapter was added to college hockey's fiercest rivalry last night, as Michigan and Michigan State fought to the finish at Joe Louis Arena. After State took a 4-3 lead with four unanswered goals, Michigan had six minutes to save their season...

Listen to the highlights from WCBN Sports!

Slightly Different Times...

The only real difference between the current Michigan secondary and the 1997 Michigan secondary is that Charles Woodson could catch passes, run punts back for touchdowns, intercept passes, and win the Heisman. Aside from that, everything is the same.

Highlights: Michigan Hockey Home Opener

Check out highlights of WCBN's call of Michigan Hockey's home opening victory over the Niagara Purple Eagles.

Final Score: Michigan 3 - Niagara 2

Next Home Game: Nov 6 vs. #1 Miami

Highlights Link: YouCastr

Listen: Highlights of Michigan - Iowa Heartbreaker

Click HERE for WCBN's highlights of Michigan's tough loss at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa. Highlights include...

- Warren's 40-yard interception return for a TD

- Tony Moeacki's 2 TD Receptions

- Brandon Minor's 2 TD Runs

- All 3 Daniel Murray FGs

- 4 of Michigan's 5 Turnovers

- Denard Robinson's TD Run

- Andrew Goddeeris' thoughts on leaving Forcier on the bench

- The end of the game

Highlights: Eastern Michigan at Michigan

Click HERE to listen to highlights of WCBN Sports' call of Michigan's third win, which matched the Wolverines' win total from one year ago.

Listen: Highlights of Notre Dame - Michigan Classic

Listen to WCBN's call of Michigan's biggest win in the Rich Rodriguez era, as the Wolverines come-from-behind to beat Notre Dame 38-34. Click HERE for all of the highlights.

Huge Weekend for Michigan

#23 Michigan 74 Illinois 64

Let's start with the huge 74-64 win for #23 (for a few more hours until the new poll comes out) Michigan (11-3, 1-1) over Illinois (13-2, 1-1) on Sunday. It was a game that Laval Lucas-Perry said Michigan "needed to win" and they did just that to get to .500 in Big Ten Conference play. If Michigan wants to go dancing, they need to beat tough teams like the Illini on their home court. Illinois came in receiving votes in the polls and with a RPI of #18. With the way they've looked all season, I'd expect them to be around the top 25 at the end of the year.

Michigan trailed by one at the half but battled back and eventually pulled away in the final minutes to earn the ten point win. After playing man-to-man for most of the game against Wisconsin, the Wolverines spent much of the Illinois game in their 1-3-1 zone. While Illinois only turned the ball over eight times, the zone was effective in hiding Michigan's lack of size down low. There were still a few times where Beilein had four guards in the game and Bruce Weber exploited that size advantage for a few easy buckets by his big men but I like Michigan much better defensively in that 1-3-1.

Michigan used a balanced scoring attack as Harris lead the way with 16 but Sims, Perry, Novak, and Gibson also reached double figures. Novak earned his second start of the season and played well in the first half, scoring all of his 11 points on 5-6 shooting, 4-5 from beyond the arc. For those keeping track at home, that makes Novak 8-11 from beyond the arc (or 72.7% if you prefer percentages to fractions as I do) in the two games he's started - I'm disregarding the desperation three that he shot at the end of the Wisconsin game. Novak was neutralized for much of the second half by an Alex Legion elbow that left a trail of blood from the far basket all the way to the tunnel and required six stitches above Novak's left eye (see picture above).

Zach Gibson played above the rim, showing signs of athleticism that caught everybody, including Gibson, off guard. I know Gibson wasn't expecting himself to dunk because he couldn't stick the landing on his first slam, falling straight on his tailbone. Gibson jokes aside, he had a monster game for Michigan with the fast break dunk, a huge block on a Brock layup, a three pointer, then beating Tisdale off the dribble for his second dunk. His three pointer gave Michigan a lead that they would not surrender. The win improved Michigan's RPI 13 slots to #39 while dropping Illinois just one spot to #19. Michigan will next be in action on Wednesday night at 6:30 at Indiana with the game televised on the Big Ten Network. Now, moving on to recruiting...

Michael Chandler Commits to Michigan...and Lousiville?
After the Michigan win over Illinois, they won a verbal commitment from Michael Chandler, a 4-star, #4 ranked 6'10" Center in the 2011 class. This commitment seemed to come out of nowhere so I decided to do a little digging to find out about this Michael Chandler. ESPN's Scouts Inc. grade him at a 96 and said this about him:

If you want to see him play, you better get to the JV game at Lawrence North High School. He runs the floor extremely well, he is active on both ends of the floor and he rebounds very well. He is very coordinated for a kid his size and his age. He oozes with potential and is certain to attract a lot of attention as he gets older and continues to develop as a player.

Did scouts inc really send someone to watch this kid's JV game???

Chandler apparently has offers from Duke, Michigan State, Kansas, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio State, among several others. The strange thing? Of the three recruiting sites I checked out (Rivals, Scout, and ESPN) Scout was the only one that even listed Michigan as a possible interest!

Better yet, tonight Rivals posted their own article saying that Chandler committed to Lousiville today! Scouts and Rivals need to get together and figure out whats going on, or better yet, they need to stop covering high school sophomores in their JV games. Who's willing to put any amount of money that this kid actually puts on a maize and blue jersey in three years?

William Campbell Commits to Michigan...Again
During the third quarter of the Army All-American Game, Cass Tech's 5-star Defensive Tackle Will Campbell announced his commitment to the Wolverines (wait, hadn't he already done this...?) Campbell who seemed to be enjoying the recruitment process way too much faked for the LSU hat before donning the block M. Earlier in the week, Campbell had told the media that Michigan as no longer under consideration...so much for that, I guess. Campbell is the only 5-star in Rich Rod's 2009 class and plays a position where Michigan will be extremely thin next year as the entire Defensive line minus Brandon Graham (if he stays) graduates.

We'll leave you with some WCBN percentages after the weekend's events. Feel free to argue them in the comments section :

• Chance Michigan hoops makes the NCAA tournament: 75%
• Chance Zach Gibson ever has two dunks in a game again: 10%
• Chance Alex Legion's mom hears another prophecy from God about her son's basketball career and Legion transfers to University of Detroit Mercy: 17%
  
• Chance Will Campbell signs with Michigan: 90% (He's supposed to enroll classes and start on Wednesday)
• Chance Michael Chandler ever wears Maize and Blue: 20%
  

For the audio highlights of Michigan's win over Illinois, click HERE

Michigan vs Duke Highlight

The much anticipated Michigan/Duke highlight has finally arrived. Click here to relive the monumental upset!

Michigan-Wisconsin Game Available Online

What a game! You can re-live the Michigan win on the WCBN Sports Stream.

Or, if you prefer you can listen to the highlights by clicking here.

Michigan @ Notre Dame High (Low)-Lights

Here they are, listen to 'em and weep

Miami Game Highlights

Here are the highlights of Michigan's 16-6 win over Miami University from last Saturday

Highlights from Michigan's Frozen Four Loss

After sleeping off the loss, here are last night's four Michigan goals:

Chad Kolarik scores Michigan's first goal
Matt Rust scores 15 seconds later
Kolarik pokes one in from behind the net
Carl Hagelin ties it up in the third period

and here's the highlight mix set to our favorite song from the Frozen Four:

Notre Dame 4 Michigan 3 OT

Michigan Softball Sweeps Illinois

Michigan picked up a pair of shutout victories on Sunday over Big 10 foe, Illinois. Michigan took the first game 8-0 in five innings and then rode the arm of Freshman, Jordan Taylor to a 5-0 win in the second game. Taylor and Nemitz were both outstanding in the circle as each threw complete game shutouts allowing just two hits. Taylor was dominant as she struck out a career-high tying 14 batters for the second day in a row. Here are some highlights from both games. *Note we do not have a highlight of Maggie Viefhaus's mammoth homer in the first game because somebody forgot to hit the record button. How's it going Jeremy?

Game #1
Roya St. Clair's 2-run double
St. Clair's RBI Single

Game #2
Dorian Shaw's RBI Single
St Clair's RBI Double
Nikki Nemitz RBI Double
Taylor's 14th Strikeout

Taylor's 14k's to come...I've gotta get to class

Ok, I'm back and here are Taylor's 14 Strikeouts set to Cheap Trick's "Surrender"

Michigan Hockey Highlight from NCAA Regionals

Click here for the much anticipated highlight from this past weekend's regional games!

Destination: Denver!!!

Michigan will face off against Notre Dame at 9PM EST on Thursday, 4/10

thanks for the photo, Greg

Michigan Baseball Sunday Doubleheader vs. Iowa

The second day of the Big Ten schedule for the Michigan Wolverines features another doubleheader, as the Iowa Hawkeyes look to avoid a sweep after losing two to Michigan at the Fish yesterday. You can listen to the WCBN crew LIVE on MGoBlue.com. Continue to check here for updates on the game and live in-game highlights.

Mike Wilson starts for the Wolverines today against Nick Erdman.

A Nate Recknagel single down the left-field line has plated Kevin Cislo and given Michigan their first run. They now lead 2-0 after a 6-4-3 DP off the bat of Zach Putnam scored Derek VanBuskirk. Click HERE to hear Stu Zaas' call of the Recknagel RBI single.

Michigan now leads 5-0, with VanBuskirk singling in Chris Berset and Recknagel doubling in Leif Mahler and Kevin Cislo.

Web Gem nominee here from Ray Fisher Stadium courtesy of SS Leif Mahler as he flashes the leather turning the 6-3 double play.

We apologize for the lack of live blogging, but we only have Mike and I in the booth, so we're relegated to the broadcast. Michigan won the first game of this doubleheader 6-3, and we are about 5 minutes away from game time of game two. Go Blue! Listen to the audio recap of the game by clicking HERE.

Michigan and Iowa are tied 2-2 in game #2 of this Sunday doubleheader against the Iowa Hawkeyes. Travis Smith, the freshman starter, gave up 2 runs in the 1st but has settled down since. Alan Oaks drove a 3-2 pitch over the right-field wall to tie the game off of Tony Manville in the bottom of the 4th, and we now head to the 6th after a rain delay tied at twos.

Michigan wins! Nate Recknagel singled in Leif Mahler to give Michigan a 3-2 lead in the 7th and Ben Jenzen made it stand, providing three innings in relief of Travis Smith, with Jenzen picking up the win. Go Blue!

Michigan Takes on Iowa in Michigan's Big 10 Baseball Opener

Listen to the Michigan baseball doubleheader against the Iowa Hawkeyes with the WCBN crew LIVE on MGoBlue.com.

Zach Putnam is on today as he has tied a career-high by striking out 10 Hawkeyes through five innings of work. Here are a few of the strikeouts

Strikeout #6
Strikeout #7
Strikeout #9

And Putnam's career day continues from the plate as he just parked one onto the softball field, giving Michigan a 3-0 lead. Adam Abraham followed hitting the next pitch off the "Brick" Monster out in left field for a double.

Putnam's Solo Homer
Abraham's Double
Strikeout #11 (sets career high)

Putnam lost the no-no on a 7th inning single by Justin Toole, and after three unearned runs crossed the plate in that 7th inning, Michigan found themselves in a brand new ball game.
Michael Jacobs' day is done, after going 7.1 IP, giving up 3 runs (2 earned), 7 hits, 2 Ks, and zero walks on the day. Jacobs is responsible for Nate Recknagel, who singled with one out in the bottom of the 8th. Putnam is now up with Andrew Porter pitching for Iowa -- 1 on, 1 out, 3-3 ballgame.

8th inning

Zach Putnam's fantastic day on the mound is over as he is replaced by Tyler Burgoon here in the top of the 9th inning. Here is the line for Putnam:

8 IP 3 H 3 R 0 ER 0 BB 12 K

Michigan was unable to push across a run in the 8th after a 1 out single from Nate Recknagel. Kenny Fellows came in to run for Recknagel and has stayed in the game as a defensive replacement, with Derek VanBuskirk moving over to 1st base.

9th inning

Tyler Burgoon continues the dominance of this Iowa Hawkeye lineup as he sets them down 1-2-3 with a called third strike to end the inning.

In the bottom half Jeremy predicted another game-winning home run from Alan Oaks (see Vanderbilt in last year's NCAA Regional). Unfortunately Oaks came up about 15 feet short as he flew out to left. On another note, with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th inning Chris Berset has drawn the first walk of the game, and he has now advanced to second on a wild pitch before being replaced by Nick Urban as a pinch runner. After a seven pitch walk to Ryan LaMarre Kevin Cislo has beaten out an infield single, and Derek VanBuskirk will bat with the bases loaded and two outs. Unfortunately VanBuskirk popped out to second. Extra innings here we come.

10th inning

1-2-3 in the top half of the inning, as Iowa should be used to this by now, as they have been set down in order for the 9th time in 10 innings so far.

Kenny Fellows leads off the inning with a strikeout, however third-string catcher Kody McManis can't hold onto the pitch and Fellows reaches first safely before advancing to second on a wild pitch. Jeremy thinks Putnam should lay down a bunt here, but Zach has never laid down a bunt at Michigan and I think Jeremy is a little crazy, and I am vindicated as Putnam smashes a double off the Blue Monster to drive in the winning run, capping off a fantastic game for him as Michigan takes game 1 4-3 in 10 innings. Game 2 will start in about half an hour, and we will work on getting game 1 highlights up for you. GO BLUE!

Here's the highlight of Putnam's game-winning double.

The second game is underway -- click on the link at the top of this blog post to listen to Matt Boyer, Stu Zaas, Jeremy Kreisberg, and Michael Tobin call Chris Fetter's first home start of the season.

Iowa is up 1-0 in game 2 on a Hoef triple, followed by a Cataldo sacrifice fly. Fetter has settled down since, striking out three of the last five batters he faced, including this one on Matt Mossey.

Iowa now leads 3-0, as Chris Fetter balked in a run and Justin Toole hit a sacrifice fly to score two runs in the 3rd inning. Michigan looks to be going through the motions so far in this game, and, in a 7-inning contest, they'll have to turn it on soon if they hope to win the 2nd game of this double-dip.

Michigan has tied it up here in the bottom of the fifth so it's a case of de-ja-vu as we're tied 3-3 again.

WOW! Zach Putnam has given Michigan the 5-3 lead with a no-doubt home run onto Alumni Field. His monster day continues ashe now has two homers for the doubleheader.

Michigan wins 5-3 and sweeps the doubleheader on the first day of Big Ten action at the renovated Fisher Stadium! Go Blue!