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MGoBlog: The MGoPodcast
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MGoBlog’s channel featuring the very professional, very visual, podcast with Brian Cook, Seth Fisher, David Nasternak, and Alex Drain, plus The Teams history podcast with Seth and Dr. Sap, The Michigan Hockeycast, the MGoBlog Roundtable on WTKA.
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WTKA Roundtable 5/28/2026: Only in Monroe
1w ago01:18:27Tap to summarizeThings Discussed: Pre-Show: I came on early to discuss the U.S. Senate's NCAA bill. Proposal: A provision that every game that's broadcast is available for free. You can put it on a streaming network but not behind a paywall. The guys say it's impossible for the people to get anything out of a bill, but I argue this might have enough juice with the public that a senate candidate (we know you're an MGoBlog reader, Abdul) could get some run out of it. Proposal: Michigan Coney Dog Playoff, with Only in Monroe's host as judge. Fun fact: Jim Abbott's dad invented the Flint-style Coney. Fears returns, which was the way to go; he's a college player through and through but a denuded Draft was the time to test his value and jack up his return cost. MSU vs Michigan next year: MSU fixed their frontcourt but have a ceiling in their shooting, Michigan's ceiling is higher but they need big steps from Trey, Cadeau, and someone at the three to offset their frontcourt losses. Cadeau growth potential is real. What we see from Reed (caveat: healthy). Opportunity to grow the threes while he's healing, but the ability to add another 6'10" forward down the stretch makes M an elite D. Football recruiting: Feels like competency. Feels like a Lloyd Carr class juiced by NIL. Some guys are really underrated; Seth likes Xavier Muhammad and Tavares Harrington, who's that tall nickel the defenses running switch coverages want; the football equivalent of giving Dusty May a 6'10" guy at the three. Lundon Hampton is also underrated: Hassan Haskins but Fast. Runs very upright but he's supremely agile and a tackle-breaker with breakaway speed.
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WTKA Roundtable 5/21/2026: To Survive the Normans
2w ago00:50:51Tap to summarizeThings Discussed: Marcus Moller is cancer-free! Comps? Uh...develop and see, but Chet-ish. Not expecting to see him this year as he needs to bulk up for a year. Ricky Liburd: ready to go? Maybe a 14-15% usage guy but defensive force, Grady leaving is a sign Liburd was better. Costello/Liburd/Cosby at the three: Dusty likes that size on the court. Imagine if Beilein had this flexibility at the three. Will Wade: Will it work? Oppositional defiance disorder. How else can I piss people off? Ed O as the LSU basketball coach! 24-team Playoff? Pettiti's only principle is make money. You want to stop this: make it an issue this fall in all of the regents/trustee elections. How many garbage pail kids can I get in my athletics department? Chipping away at the value of college football. Reason for it this time is ESPN has the CFP and Fox gets inventory if they go past 14. That's it; that's the entire reason for this. Seth brings back the Showcase idea to replace conf championships. New idea: Play the bowl games in August! (saving this for a hot take later). Brian goes off on the conference commissioner class.
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WTKA Roundtable 5/14/2026: The Sixth Jackson Five
3w ago00:52:46Tap to summarizeThings Discussed: VALIANT! Craig shares the story of the nadir of Michigan basketball: Northwestern-Michigan. Combine: Michigan rosters do not lie: Bare feet measurements were the real measurements. Meanwhile Alabama is adding 4 inches. Brandon McCoy—needs to make free throws but he's going to lead the B10 in steals. Quinn Costello: remarkable shooter, is a true jumpshot. Does he have a left hand? Does he have any post-up game? Skinny right now. Jalen Reed is VERY interesting. Fluid at 6'10, can defend and shoot and should be healed after a year from an Achilles. Will Wade just invents new ways to be the villain of CBB. Football: Zack Marshall and four OCs in four years. Bryce in the offense: Going to use his legs more than his arm. Should create more explosives because you're taking away a free hitter from the defense. Will also feature the tackles in space more. To run this you have to beat what stops it, IE Don Brown man defense. JJ Buchanan could be a breakout guy. Is that the way to get 5-star QBs? No, but maybe you should be looking to the portal nowadays.
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WTKA Roundtable 5/7/2026: Go Be Great
May 700:51:40Tap to summarize(No Brian today) Things Discussed: Dusty: Are the Magic a threat? Is the NBA a threat? Eventually. If they come at him like the Chargers came at Harbaugh, but May isn't there, has zero indication he wants to leave now. Sam shares how the whole Juke Harris thing went down. Shares Xavier Stanton was coming to Michigan at one point. Michigan's admissions policy: Get the best. Standing on 60 credits as THE LINE between academics and not. During break: Skyler Bell's recruitment relived. He was right to stay at UConn. Bryce concern: Overblown. Spring game was hardly representative. Some concern, though, because it's important to develop him and he looked like he lost a year of development. Passing game needs to be better. If he's not a better passer they're doomed in 2027.
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WTKA Roundtable 4/30/2026: Never Made a Bracket
Apr 3000:51:01Tap to summarizeThings Discussed: Jalen Reed, longer and switchable. Thiam: Shot selection is abominable. He's mobile, not fully a switch guy, can hedge. Offensively intriguing, takes fadeaways but was 48% away from the rim. VERY strong—gave as good as he got against Krivas—but didn't post up very much. His left hook looks more natural than his right hook. Closer to switchable than Mara. Craig: four guys on the roster not playing. Reed: Think as the season progresses he is going to make a difference, because he can give you a lot of different things. A 6-10 guy who can guard guards: yes please! JP Estrella: Noticeably positive impact as an offensive rebounder on the #1 OReb team when he was rotating with offensive linemen. Sam wants Trey to watch Late Michael Jordan the post player, which will make him more dynamic in the mid-range. Cadeau is the guy who gets you good shots, McKenney is the guy who makes your bad shots. Swing guy: McCoy. Shooting is questionable but instantly project him to a Roddy role. Gets downhill, has that wingspan. Could be the starting three: Yaxel-like ability to guard up and down the roster. Ceiling? If Reed can be healthy for a season they're another 1-seed, otherwise 3-seed? Think other basketball teams have gotten much better. Quinn Costello: Year as a bench shooter, needs that year to learn to play defense. This is the least popular idea in sports history. NOBODY likes it except the major conference commissioners who've never filled out a bracket in their lives. Hockey: no updates, except Denver picked up a defenseman. Michigan preseason #1 likely, except voters just vote the order of last year's F4. There will be guys on the 4th line who are like 3rd round+ picks. Cockamamie ideas for renovating Yost.
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Michigan HockeyCast 8.26: Super Reload
Apr 2801:15:32Tap to summarize1 Hour and 15 Minutes With David Nasternak and Alex Drain This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul is the guy with the C you want skating next to the ref and pleading your case. He's also a good guy to sit next to at the hockey games. Segment 1 Enjoy your retirement, Anže Kopitar. Kopitar was one of the most consistent and underrated players of his era. The Avs swept the Kings but lets recap some closer NHL matchups (NOT Sabres vs Bruins). The Oilers are underperforming with their star power, there are some fundamental issues within the program. Anyways, who's back for Michigan? Is Hage the favorite for the Hobey Baker award? There will be so much talent and you hope everyone can find their own niche because there's only one puck. Perron's still on the spreadsheet until he isn't. Garrett Schiftsky is going to be a dude going into next year. Slot Cole McKinney in as your 4th line center. Jack Nesbitt and Cameron Reid are coming in from the OHL. Expect JP Hurlbert to come in from the WHL. All four lines have depth and competition opportunities. Segment 2 Projecting the 2026-2027 defensive roster. Need Henry Mews to take on a huge role, but can he be an elite defenseman? Ben Robertson, Asher Barnett, Dakoda Rheaume-Mullen, and Drew Schock will give the team an unusually high amount of depth. Michigan might add one or two more players on defense to round out the roster. Expect Jack Ivankovic to remain the starter at goalie but Stephen Peck has at least earned some starts. This team should be stacked going into next season, but this time with more maturity. MUSIC NHL on ESPN Theme "We'll Meet Again" -- Vera Lynn Ice Hockey (NES) theme
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WTKA Roundtable 4/23/2026: Listen to Me Now and Believe Me Later
Apr 2300:50:28Tap to summarizeThings Discussed: Spring Game standouts: Hiter obviously. Buchanan, Tatum looks like a safety, Patterson, Edokpayi, and Palepale. Concern about Bryce? Nah, the situation was not conducive to seeing what Bryce can do; if you play Cov2 back all day for real we'll run like 2021 Washington. It was a better situation to show off what Carr can do. QB run game: rehash last year's issues: tactically it was there; strategically they hadn't run it so they screwed it up). Hoops transfers: Juke Harris or John Blackwell? For this team: Harris. Needs work on defense but Juke makes his own shots. Craig: how do the pieces fit together? Craig thinks Juke is a three. Is he coming? Sam was close to a gut feeling, but why have things dragged out? NIL numbers? Tennessee numbers embellished. Is it a bidding war? Don't know. Sam thinks Liburd is good enough that they don't need all their eggs in that basket. Thiam? Going against Pitino for him so that's big boy battle. Rez: Opt-outs might be moving him up the Draft; the Florida guys coming back has bumped him. If he's in the teens he's in the Draft for sure. Landon DuPont: first-ever status (can play younger) player in CHL, #1 overall potential, Denver/Michigan battle. Michigan hockey summer: Hage is coming back.
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Michigan HockeyCast 8.25: Apple, Banana, Caffeine
Apr 2201:37:42Tap to summarize1 Hour and 37 Minutes With David Nasternak and Alex Drain This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul is the guy with the C you want skating next to the ref and pleading your case. He's also a good guy to sit next to at the hockey games. Segment 1 Which NHL match-up are you most excited for? Ottawa vs Carolina is intriguing. Avs vs Kings will probably be non-competitive and un-watchable. Evaluating the offense: TJ Hughes - Hobey Baker level season. Jayden Perron - Dramatically exceeded expectations. Led the team offensively in the post-season. Nick Moldenhauer - Previously minimal production, huge breakout season. Michael Hage - High-end playmaker, season cut short due to injury. Malcolm Spence - Up-and-down freshman season, started hot. Adam Valentini - Limited in size but played a bigger role as the season progressed. Cole McKinney - Strong in faceoffs but underwhelming offensive production. Will Horkoff - Highly productive, highly streaky. Aidan Park - Depth freshman, lacked consistent impact. Keenan Draper - Praised for role mastery, leadership, and penalty-kill value. Josh Earnesty - Depth player who improved on offense and defense. Kayson Musket - Exceeded expectation in limited minutes. Teddy Spitznagel - No meaningful playing time before leaving the program. Segment 2 Evaluating the defense and goalies: Luca Fantilli - Unexpected breakout senior year. Became a reliable leader. Tyler Duke - High effort and physical despite his size. Took too many penalties. Ben Robertson - Dependable, steady presence on the blue line. Garrett Shifsky - Elevated his game late in the season, gets a special shout out. Drew Schock - Limited as a freshman, grew throughout the season. Dakota Raemel - Inconsistent with turnovers. Asher Barnett - Excellent as a freshman. Everyone else didn't contribute enough to get a fair grade. Jack Ivankovic - Delivered high-level all season when not hurt. Steven Peck - Exceeded expectations as a backup. MUSIC NHL on ESPN Theme "One Thing Leads To Another" -- The Fixx Ice Hockey (NES) theme
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MGoPodcast 17.34: Involuntary Running Back Noises
Apr 2002:54:37Tap to summarize2 hours and 54 minutes The Sponsors Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com. Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management, Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, The Sklars Brothers, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, The Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, Venue by 4M where record this, and Introducing this season: Radecki Oral Surgery, and Long Road Distillers. 1. Spring Game - Offense Starts at 0:51 Seth has a hypothesis that you can define running backs by the sound you involuntarily make when they carry the ball. You can practice this in the shower. Ohio State had a high scoring spring game, also a lot of rain. Bryce's play was concerning. He didn't look comfortable in the pocket and scrambled a lot. The defense wasn't allowed to do anything fancy or blitzed, they mostly played in a Cover-2. That said, not ever having the starting offensive line together does not help the quarterback. Tommy Carr was able to sit there and do some three step drop stuff, which are throws that Underwood didn't throw. He doesn't have the arm strength but he was making better decisions. Who would you compare him to, Tate Forcier? Dylan McCaffrey? Alex Smith? Did Michigan lose a year of Bryce Underwood's development? Kyle Whittingham has a track record of developing good running quarterbacks, so maybe what we saw in the spring game was not super relevant. Maybe Bryce is like a freshman Cam Newton or redshirt Freshman Vince Young. Even if they don't have a great passing game they can still run a good offense with the running tools they have. Some of the scrambling may have been a result of pass rush and playing against Cover-2. Poor Jordan Marshall getting ruled down after four yards. Savion Hiter is absolutely going to be the real deal. It was an up and down game from the wide receivers but they also didn't get many opportunities. There has never been an elite wide receiver who has worn #3 at Michigan. Browder had a ball bounce off his face mask but then got a nice catch later. Hogan Hansen has barely been able to play football for the last year and a half. The gang argues over fullback snap counts. Guys getting wrecked against defensive tackles is fine because we want to see progress from the defensive tackles (in the spring game). 2. Spring Game - Defense Starts at 43:54 It was generally encouraging that the defensive line beat up the offensive line. Sprague lost to Edokpayi a couple times. Cam Brandt beat Frazier at one point. Nate Staehling hasn't been available at all so there's still some hope that he'll be really good when he arrives. All the linebackers are defensive backs right now. Palepale really stood out. Benny Patterson was a defensive end to keep an eye on. What did we see from the linebackers? Uhhhhhh. Taylor Tatum might be a real safety? Corner has four names for three spots which is a good spot to be in. A kicker missed a 29 yard field goal, they should've faked a field goal for the game winning touchdown since they weren't trying to block kicks. 3. Hot Takes and Basketball/Hockey Portal Starts at 1:06:36 Takes hotter than the Kitchener Rangers GM after the Michigan hockey team stole from them. The portal has been slow enough to include both basketball and hockey. The roof of Yost fell off to conserve the vibes of the roster. Perron remains the only question mark. They're also about to get the top two picks out of the CHL. The roster is pretty much done, they don't even need to go to the portal. This team should be the #1 team in the pre-season poll next year. Michigan men's basketball turns its attention to Cincinnatti center Moustapha Thiam. A 7'2" rim defender who could replace a likely Mara departure. Apparently there is a situation with a handler from Senegal. It's looking more like Mara is gone and Morez is back. Is there a chance Mara returns? Probably not, but he needs to make a decision. Brian doesn't want to throw the whole bag at Juke Harris. Overall it's been quiet and they need to start making some moves. 4. Gimmicky Top Five Moments of Basketball Season Starts at 1:48:33 Everyone's top five moments of basketball season, plus Seth's 74 honorable mentions. Elliott Cadeau going 2-15 and controlling the Arizona game, undefeated on the road, and Dusty sitting in front of the Michigan State bench. They didn't just boat race those teams in Vegas but they broke the point system. Oscar Goodman thunder dunks. Scooping up confetti is like the fan version of raising a banner. Jeremy Fears kicking a Minnesota guy in the balls signified that it was not just a Michigan thing. Then Izzo fouling Michigan for ten minutes and complaining about Michigan getting more free throws. The Arizona win stamps this season as "one of the best teams of the last 25 years." You can just sit on a couch in a certain way and piss off Michigan State fans now. McKenney's mid-range jumpers in Breslin were the coldest mid-range jumpers ever. What have been your favorite tournament blowouts? Michigan's mascot should be Mitch McGary in an oversized Mitch McGary suit. MUSIC: "Spring Game"—Biz Markie "Going Shopping"—The Srokes "Baby Steps"—Olivia Dean “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra
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WTKA Roundtable 4/16/2026: It's Supposed To Be Harder
Apr 1600:49:52Tap to summarizeThings Discussed: Best Michigan team ever? Seth: This team would destroy any previous Michigan team. The game gets better, the training gets better, the strategy gets better. They played together like they were together four years. Championships are not easy. This team vs Fab Five: Fabs had to score at the rim, and you can't do that against this team. 1989 team? The way Rice was shooting they could beat anybody, and they had more shooting. 2013 team? They were so good offensively but they'd need a ridiculous shooting day from the backcourt. Remember they didn't let Terry shoot threes, but perhaps he developed that in the NBA. The refs hated the Fabs so much more than this team too, and they didn't really have a developed post game until Juwan was a junior. But imagine if you could put college C-Webb on a modern team, making him a switchable five? Oh man he'd be so good now. This is the next evolution of hoops: consistent twos are better than threes, because threes will die on you. Hunter S. Thompson: Sports journalist. Loy = Morez? No. Program golden age? They're going to continue to be very good, but this year will be among the best. It took a lot of luck to have a guy like Mara going unused by Mick Cronin and have a guy like Yaxel who's the best player of last year who wasn't in the NBA this year. It gets harder to rebuild this team, because even Izzo is in the portal for rim protectors. The market at the rim has gone way up after they saw this team. JP Estrella will help them on ORebs: he was one of the best on that team of bears. Break: Our what-might-have-been team: Sam's is Kelly Baraka, Seth's is Antonio Bass as Rich Rod's 2008 QB. Football: Hiter hype is off the charts. Sam thinks he's going to be an amazing zone runner. Reliving Najee Harris: there were two flights; he was sitting next to Tua Tagovailoa on the other one, so you can't criticize him too much. Sounds like a really good OL: Sam takes his Frazier victory lap. Gwar and Sprague and Norton, LG is Link, Efobi or Gach. How much will they run the QB? 1) They flipped an Illinois commit, and 2) Whittingham's an Urban Meyer assistant.
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