The Pressbox

Michigan’s basketball team finally seems to be catching on to the system run by new coach John Beilein’s system.

The Wolverines have won three in a row and were very impressive Sunday against Ohio State.

Manny Harris has played well all year and fellow freshman Kelvin Grady has made tremendous strides as a point guard. Analyst Clark Kellogg called sophomore DeShawn Sims one of the most improved players in the country and freshman Anthony Wright is developing into a decent scorer.

With only two seniors on the roster, things could be looking up for the Wolverines the next few years.

I must admit that I didn’t know much about Rich Rodriguez before he was named the new coach of the University of Michigan football team.

Of course, I’d heard the name mentioned as a candidate for some top jobs in recent years and I knew that he had put together a solid program at West Virginia.

But I’d never heard him interviewed and didn’t know much about his coaching style.

I like what I’ve learned about him in the past few days. He seems humble and humorous. He showed plenty of respect during his press conference Monday to the traditions at Michigan and former coach Lloyd Carr.

Rodriguez is taking some heat for the way he left West Virginia. It does trouble me a bit that this had to happen before the Mountaineers played their bowl game. I don’t see where waiting a couple more weeks would have caused that much damage. U-M athletic director Bill Martin and Rodriguez saw it differently.

But it is not an assault on the integrity of college athletics as the governor of West Virginia seemed to suggest. It’s just the way college football works these days.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes Rodriguez to put his stamp on the Wolverines. He will have to figure out the best ways to use the athletes at the school. They might not fit his system. Will he adapt to their talents or try to force them into his scheme? My guess is that he his a good enough coach to tinker with his system to find something that works.

The biggest test case will be quarterback Ryan Mallet. He is a classic drop-back passer in the Jim Harbaugh-Tom Brady mode. His skills don’t seem to suit a spread offense. It will be up to Rodriguez to make it work.

What a miserable weekend it was for sports fans in southeast Michigan.

Two frustrating Detroit Tiger losses were combined with a humiliating loss for the University of Michigan football team.

It might have signalled the end of championship hopes for both.

Michigan still has a lot of season to play, but teams that lose to Appalachian State don’t generally win national championships.

As for the Tigers, the weekend summed up how frustrating the season has become.

They made a nice comeback to tie Oakland in the ninth inning Friday night, only to lose in the 10th.

Then on Sunday, they built a 7-0 lead only to let it slip away in a 10-inning loss. It was a golden opportunity to gain ground on the rest of the teams in the playoff hunt with the Yankees, Indians and Mariners all losing.

The Tigers finished a six-game road trip to Kansas City and Oakland - two teams out of contention - with a 2-4 record. That’s not how you launch a playoff run.

I guess we’re just lucky the Detroit Lions didn’t play Sunday to add to the misery.

I was happy to see former Michigan basketball coach Tommy Amaker land on his feet at Harvard. That seems like a good fit for the cerebral Amaker.

I always liked Amaker as a person, but he just could not generate any passion from the Michigan players. I hope he fares better at Harvard.

Michigan now has a new basketball coach on the job with John Beilein replacing Tommy Amaker.

I like his track record and the respect he gets in the coaching community. He might not have been the most sexy choice, but he should be a solid coach.

What do you think? Can Beilein get the job done in Ann Arbor and make Michigan basketball relevant again?

The stakes were raised in Michigan’s search for a new basketball coach when Minnesota hired Tubby Smith away from Kentucky Thursday.

Now there is another outstanding coach in the Big Ten. That will make winning and recruiting more difficult.

Michigan athletic director Bill Martin needs to make a good choice to show that the Wolverines are serous about basketball.

Michigan’s basketball team has been left out of the NCAA Tournament again.

And the sad thing is that they really have no case to make. The national shows did not even list them as one of the bubble teams that just missed.

It’s sad that the program has sunk so far.

On the other hand, Tom Izzo guided perhaps his least talented Michigan State team in a decade to another tournament berth. This was prehaps his finest coaching job.

Tuesday night’s game against Michigan State was a must win for Michigan and Tommy Amaker.

The Wolverines’ impressive victory kept their NCAA Tournament hopes alive and may have saved Amaker’s job — for the moment.

But they probably still need to upset No. 1 Ohio State Saturday or make a good run in the Big Ten Tournament to make the tournament and keep Amaker in Ann Arbor.

Senior guard Dion Harris says the Michigan basketball team lacks toughness but says the problem is with the players, not head coach Tommy Amaker. Player accountability is great, but Amaker needed to blow up at his team last week when it blew a 14-point second-half lead against Iowa. His demeanor was the same as it is after every game — calm and soft-spoken. We don’t need a Bob Knight in Ann Arbor, but an embarrassing performance by an underachieving team demanded something more.