The Days of Future are Passed.
What only the most McLuhans amongst us might have discerned on that first day of September back in ’07 is the Now.
The medium is the message.
And more.
On that day on the nascent and curious wager that was the Big Ten Network debuted. App State upset the Mighty Wolverines in the Big House.
Only the prescient knew then what would be wrought.
Certainly not, one must suppose, Jolin Zhu, age 12, then residing in her homeland of China.
But she is also part of the coalesce that
has changed college sports forever.
She is the May portion of the merger with December Larry Ellison, 47 years her senior and the sixth richest human on the planet according to Forbes real time tracker.
A 2012 graduate of the University of Michigan, Zhu is by most accounts a huge Wolverine fan, a Medici-ish patron of sports in Ann Arbor.
* * * * *
Michigan, a school whose athletic department has a moral compass that makes LSU flinch, member of the richest conference, the league with the richest TV contract and hundreds of thousands rabid alums with deep pockets, is the NCAA men’s basketball champion.
Joining cross country mate UCLA, which captured the ladies crown.
And Indiana, which followed Ohio State and, Go Blue, winning the football title, making it three in a row.
And Wisconsin which captured the women’s hockey crown.
And Washington which grabbed the men’s soccer brass ring.
And wrestling, and field hockey . . . you get my point, I hope.
Current #1 in baseball, two of the quartet in the Frozen Four.*
Thanks to some guy on Twitter who listed all those.
Get it?
Money, money, money, money.
Big Ten has the most.
Its members seem to be spending it well.
* * * * *
As for the hoops:
UConn cleverly turned the title game into a herkimus jerkimus grinder.
It was the Huskies only chance to overcome the Wolverines’ size and superiority.
They held the Victors to 68 points, more than 20 under their tourney average.
The Hurleys only scored 61.
There were but seven minutes or so before May’s guys scored on anything but a paint layup or FT. 61 of their 68 were one or the other. That J from the circle and a couple of late triples.
* * * * *
Michigan’s gonna be a playah for awhile.
They hit the jackpot with former IU manager Dusty May. (Lots of moodiness and blues in Bloomington and Louisville over the could woulda shoulda on that.)
They got the moolah.
The most bracing video of the night for me — OK one of ’em — came during the post game victory hugathon. There was Aday Mara — who can return along with Cadeau and Johnson Jr. — high fiving a reserve as tall as he is.
“Holy shit, who’s that huge guy,” I wondered?
Malick Kordel. An actual freshman who came from HS, Bertha-von-Suttner Gymnasium in Oberhausen, Germany.
Another Goliath warrior to go along with their massive war chest.
The Michigan Wolverines celebrated a Night in White Satin.
It’s not hard to envision more.
— c d kaplan
