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Westsider Rider

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Back to your regularly scheduled programming

You could say I've gone a little overboard on the Kobe/Lakers posts but you can't fault me considering we're seeing some amazing stuff night in and night out. So while the Lakers get the rest of the week off until Friday night's home game versus Golden State we'll get back to some more Michigan content. Well not before we discuss the Ron Artest for Peja Stojakovic trade that just went down. For the Queens they get the head case that is Ron Artest and I guess considering how bad they are right now any change would be for the better. In addition, Stojakovic is a FA at the end of this season so it works out for them in that sense. Artest will step right in at the 3 spot that Peja occupied for them and provides more all around game than Peja's catch and shoot. Stojakovic will be happy to know he's headed to a playoff team with a good cast around him. Having Jermaine O'Neal on his team will be better for him than Brad Miller considering O'Neal is more of a post player and will draw more double teams leaving him alone for more open shots. I say this is a good move for both teams.

Update: Minutes after I posted this entry we now learn Artest is more messed up than we thought and says he doesn't want to play in Sacramento so the trade is now off.

Now onto the Michigan front, with two visitors this past weekend Jason Kates and Nick Stephens who we thought both had good visits but one not good enough as Stephens committed to Tennessee yesterday which definitely makes us very thin at QB leaving Henne with Forcier and Cone on the depth chart so 07 we must definitely get a top flight QB, if not two. Kates had a good visit and we are in good shape for his commitment, definitely can't hurt adding more depth at DT.

Onto news spreading from other visits over the weekend from remaining recruits Steve Schilling got down to USC for his visit and I guess he saw what I saw when I went to visit USC and saw what a dump it was because he has eliminated them now and it is a 3 horse race with California, Michigan and Washington. Michigan and Washington are rumored to be the two leaders but we shall see, I feel much better about going head to head with Washington as opposed to USC but we know how difficult it is for kids to turn down their home school as the last time I remember we went heads up with Washington was for Reggie Williams, who ended up staying home.

The other recruit still on the board that took a last minute visit was Jonas Mouton who decided to head to Austin to check out the National Champion Longhorns. I didn't really consider them much of a threat considering they got into the game so late coupled with the fact they already have 25 verbal commitments meaning he would be an oversign, if I remember Texas' class correctly but there are two other factors that come into this as it turns out his mom is a Texas grad along with one of his brothers living very close to Austin. I'd call this a 3 team race now with us taking on SC and Texas which doesn't make me feel very good. Hope he can provide a surprise for us maybe we can hear him say "I went to bed a Trojan/Longhorn, but woke up a Wolverine."

Huge two games for the BBall team as they take on State and Wisconsin the next two games at home, at the very least we must get a split and it will only be tougher since Lester Abram's ankle is still pretty bad and probably will not play tomorrow. As much as I love being back home in the warm weather of Southern California the downside is I have to miss these games and just follow along online which gets extremely frustrating at times. We need to pull one of these two out and would love for it to come tomorrow. Go Blue!

One last time just because:


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