Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Basketball Fan Night November 7th at Crisler

From mgoblue.com:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan men's and women's basketball programs will host "Fan Night" on Friday (Nov. 7) at 7:15 p.m. at Crisler Arena. Both squads will be introduced, and men's coach John Beilein, women's coach Kevin Borseth and each program's captains will address the fans in attendance.

The event is free of charge. Fans will enter Crisler Arena through either Gate A or E beginning at 6:45 p.m. All Wolverine fans in attendance will be directed to the blue seating on the east side of the arena for a Wolverine rally.

Following the rally for the U-M teams, the men's and women's players will be made available for photograph and autograph opportunities on the Crisler Arena east and west concourses. Beilein and Borseth will also be available for fan autographs on the Crisler Arena floor.

Throughout the evening, Maize and Blue basketball fans will have opportunity to play on inflatable games on the Crisler Arena floor and receive a free sno-cone or cotton candy on the concourse level. There will be raffle prizes during the night and an opportunity for U-M students to register to shoot and win books for a semester.

Parking, including handicap parking, will be made available in the Blue Lot for the event.

The event will be the second of three nights of hoops activity at Crisler Arena, with exhibition games scheduled for the other two evenings. The men's team will play its only exhibition of the season the night prior on Thursday (Nov. 6) against Saginaw Valley State at 7 p.m., while the women's team will play its only preseason game on Saturday (Nov. 8), facing Northwood at 7 p.m.

Recruits at Michigan/Michigan State Football game on Saturday

According to michladyballers.com, Michigan hosted a number of recruits at Saturday's football game:
According to reports, recruits Taylor Johnson '10 (Comstock Park),Ondrea Hughes '10 (Kalamazoo Loy Norrix), Jasmine Bracey '11 (Detroit Community), Leah Scott '11 (Detroit Community), Crystal Bradford '11 (Detroit Community), Amber Deane '12 (Country Day) plus many more will be in Ann Arbor this weekend to check out the Michigan - Michigan State football game.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Courtney Boylan

From mgoblue.com's "Meet the Newcomers" article about Courtney Boylan:
• What made you want to come to Michigan? There were a lot of things that made me what to come to Michigan. First, I love the coaching staff. Everyone on staff is friendly and dedicated to making this program better. Second was education. By choosing to come to the University of Michigan, I knew that I was going to graduate with a degree that truly had meaning. Third, I love Ann Arbor. When I came for my visit, I know that I loved being close to a major airport so that I could still go home, but the actual city of Ann Arbor reminds me a little of Minnesota.
and
• What impresses you most about Coach Borseth and his staff? What impresses me most about Coach Borseth and the rest of his staff here at Michigan is their enthusiasm about the game of basketball and how dedicated they are to our basketball family. Every day that I go to practice they come fired up and ready to go and this gets me fired up! I have only been here for a couple of months now, and I already feel like a part of the family. They get involved in your life, which shows they truly care about each individual on the team.

Big Ten Media Day

Michigan was picked to finish sixth by the coaches and eighth by the media at Big Ten Media Day.

From the Michigan Daily:
... with Borseth at the helm, the squad notched Michigan's first winning season in six years with a 19-14 record, and earned a ticket to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament. The Wolverines won two games before a heartbreaking overtime loss in the quarterfinals to in-state rival Michigan State.

“He’s done a wonderful job setting a culture of, ‘This is the way we do things’,” Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein said. “Once you’ve created that culture, it feeds off of itself. That’s just what (Borseth) is trying to do.”

For Borseth, that means finally giving his team the tradition and identity it has lacked.

“We don’t have any tradition,” Borseth said. “And we need to build that tradition to really succeed as a program. You don’t just get that over night.”


From the Free Press:
"We have five seniors this year, which is great in terms of experience," Borseth said. "We have kids who have been there and who understand the game. We are better than we were last year at this point, spirits are high, and the kids have high expectations."

From mlive.com:

"At this point, we're better than we were last year," said Borseth,whose team finished 19-14 last year. "Does it mean our record will be better? No. Do I think we'll be better? I think we will be."

More importantly, Michigan's players have bought into Borseth's confidence, providing a higher expectation level than ever before.

Also mgoblue.com and the Detroit News.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Coach Borseth Interview

Can be found here at mgoblue.com.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Veronica Hicks

Mgoblue has a blog entry/article up by Veronica Hicks:
This past weekend was our first official days of practice. As a team we have been collectively conditioning and individually working out since classes began, but this past weekend we got to put it to the test. It was time to make first impressions and show how much we have really worked over the summer. We have been waiting so long for this season and any lack of preparation would be less than unacceptable.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Cheryl Burnett

Former Michigan coach Cheryl Burnett has returned to Missouri State, this time in marketing position to help promote the teams move to a new arena:

Burnett is working with the marketing department to help sell Lady Bears season-ticket packages and to develop other promotions. MSU president Mike Nietzel said she also would be involved in fund-raising for the entire athletic department.

Nietzel said he has not thought about whether Burnett's three-month, part-time contract will be extended when it expires in mid-November.

She is apparently no longer interested in coaching:

Burnett said she is not interested in returning to coaching. She retired as a coach in March 2007 after four seasons at Michigan and has been a consultant to women's basketball coaches and programs since.

"I feel blessed to have coached for 30 years, and I felt it was the best life one could have," Burnett said last week. "But it's a life where you're working seven days a week, 16-hour days, 365 days a year. I loved it, but now I want to leave that part to someone else."


Update: Apparently Cheryl Burnett's name is being mentioned in rumors about the Athletic Director position at Missouri State:
The next director of athletics at Missouri State will be someone capable of wearing several hats. So, it's probably a good thing, MSU President Mike Nietzel said, that the school can take its time filling Bill Rowe's position.

Rowe, 68, announced Thursday that he is retiring, effective in June, after 27 years as director of athletics.

Nietzel said a national search would begin in October and a replacement will be named next spring.

Some names, including former MSU women's basketball coach Cheryl Burnett, have been circulating. Burnett did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

And from an interview with Jackie Stiles:

Q: Cheryl Burnett has been mentioned in the local rumor mill as a potential candidate for the athletic director position. Do you think she would be a good candidate?

A: "I think, basically, she can be good at whatever she chooses to do in the next phase of her life and career. There is not a harder worker. She works so hard and is so dedicated to whatever it is she's doing. She's very smart, so she could be successful at whatever she chooses because she's going to outwork everyone."


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Carmen Reynolds

The fourth in mgoblue.com's "Meet the Newcomers" is up, this one profiling Carmen Reynolds:

• You came in with several other freshman as well as transfer Lauren Young, how have you guys bonded? Right from the get-go, we four freshmen got along GREAT. We were with each other all summer, so we became pretty close. When Lauren joined us she fit in perfectly. We all get along great and love hanging out with each other!

• You're from Ohio and your brother plays lacrosse at Ohio State, how much of a hard time have people been giving you? I have been given a hard time from everybody since the day that I verbally committed to come here. However, I don't mind it because I know that I picked the better school!

• What are you most looking forward to being a member of the Michigan women's basketball team? I'm most looking forward to being a part of continuing to turn this program around. I'm really looking forward to winning and I want to be a part of starting the tradition in the Michigan women's basketball program.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Crisler Arena

umhoops.com has some photos up of the updated court at Crisler Arena.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Expectations increase under Borseth for Michigan women's basketball team

More from media day, this time mlive.com:

Expectations were tempered for the first-year coach.

He inherited a past-its-prime program. He inherited a roster stocked with nothing but holdovers from an underachieving legacy. He heard from pretty much everybody that it would take years before he had the talent to compete.

It took about three games for Kevin Borseth to drown out those voices. Borseth led the University of Michigan women's basketball program out of its wilderness and into one of the biggest one-year turnarounds in the country.

Now it's time for his encore.

Media Day

Yesterday was media day and mgoblue.com has audio of Coach Borseth up as well as quotes from Borseth and many of the returning players:

Michigan Head Coach Kevin Borseth

Opening statement... "Thank you for coming out. It's nice to see friendly faces, faces I've seen in the past, which is good and I think you guys are trying to help out as much as we are trying to build a program as well, we really appreciate that. It's that time again -- basketball season. We have been building up, getting ready for this Friday night and this Saturday when we start practice and we are excited to get the season going. We have five seniors this year, which really bodes well for some sense of continuity. We're excited about that. The seniors are good kids, they are working hard and we are hoping we can make something positive out of the season. If you take a look at our schedule, it's a very difficult schedule. Not only in terms of the teams that we play, but there are two games that we play where the turnaround time with the travel is really difficult. I think that in a 10-day stretch we travel to Duke and USC and we play three other games around that and the three games we play around that are real difficult. I think that is probably the most demanding part for us, not only are we playing good teams but the travel around it as well. We have to find a way to make something positive out of it and win some games; that's probably the biggest thing."

Also coverage from the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Jamillya Hardley

From the latest in the "Meet the Newcomers" series at mgoblue.com:

• What made you want to come and play basketball at Michigan? The coaching staff really sealed the deal for me. They made me feel right at home when I came for my visits and Michigan showed the most interest in me out of all the other schools that were recruiting me.

• What impresses you about coach Borseth and his staff? They are high-energy. They come in each and every practice intense and ready to work us hard. I always get high energy from the coaching staff, which is great.

Girls Basketball Clinic November 9th

From mgoblue.com:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan women's basketball team will host the fifth annual Girls Basketball Clinic in Crisler Arena on Sunday, Nov. 9. The clinic -- open to girls in grades 3-8 -- will be conducted by current U-M coaches and players.

The cost of the clinic will be $10 and each participant will receive a season-ticket pass for all home Michigan women's basketball games along with a clinic T-shirt. In addition, participants will receive a membership card for the "Get To Know Her Club" -- an incentive-based reward program for attending women's basketball games throughout the year. After the clinic, participants will also have an opportunity to get player autographs.

The session for girls in grades 3-5 will be from 3-4:30 p.m., while the program for girls in grades 5-8 will run from 4:30-6 p.m. Check-in will begin 45 minutes prior to the start of the clinic and will take place at the Junge Family Champions Center.

To register, contact Katy Jackson at (734) 647-1261 or katjacks@umich.edu. The deadline to register is Thursday, Oct. 30, at 5 p.m.

Contact: Katy Jackson: (734) 647-1261

Friday, October 10, 2008

Sporting News Preseason All Americans

From girlsbasketballrecruit blog, Michigan recruits Nya Jordan and Rachel Sheffer have been named honorable mention All-Americans.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Janell Smith

The second of mgoblue.com's "Meet the Newcomers" is up - this time they're featuring Janell Smith. A couple of quotes:

• What was it like putting on your Michigan jersey for the first time on photo day? When I put on my Michigan jersey for the first time, I was proud of myself because all of the hard work and time I put forth finally paid off. I'm finally playing intercollegiate basketball and seeing my name on the back of my jersey was breathtaking. It made me realize that I was really here at the University of Michigan playing college basketball.

• Who is the funniest person on the team? Roni (sophomore Veronica Hicks) is the funniest person on the team because she is just so funny in general. She always has a joke or a funny story to tell. Roni keeps you laughing and your stomach is always hurting when you're around her because she is just that funny!