Spring Preview Part 2: Technically Still a Preview

Truth be told, most of these seasons have happened too much to fully call it a preview, especially wrestling. The other two aren't as bad. So its not not a preview. We'll jump write in.

One quick housekeeping note: the Delaney Cup, my all-sports Big Ten Championship modeled after the Learfield Director's Cup, has a perma-page now.

All Blue Stickers

The first batch of All Blue stickers going to paid subscribers is in the mail! If you are a paid subscriber and would like a sticker check your email. If you'd like a sticker, become a paid subscriber or drop $2 in my tip jar. I am very close to reaching my Year 1 goal of being able to switch to an annual subscription to my host, Ghost.

Wrestling

Last Year/So Far: Last year, just one year after breaking a nearly-50 year Big Ten Championship drought, Michigan finished fifth at the Big Ten Championship. That seems like a precipitous fall, until it is paired with a sixth place finish at the NCAA Championship. Like many sports we've previewed in this space the bottom line is: damn this conference is good.

Michigan's roster has one massive loss (literally and figuratively) and a handful of NCAA qualifiers who have graduated:

• Mason Parris ended his historic heavyweight career with an individual NCAA Championship, and later in 2023 would win bronze at the World Championship. He will more than likely be in this summer's Olympics (especially given the recent news that Gable Steveson is focused on WWE, I had harbored some fear/excitement that he'd challenge Parris for the US heavyweight title and the Paris berth).
• Matt Finesilver was a Duke graduate transfer who ended up coming in third place at the NCAA at 184 pounds last year.
• Jack Medley fell in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at 125 pounds.
• Cole Mattin fell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at 141 pounds.

Obviously your headliner is Parris, and Michigan's other two 2023 All-Americans remain on the team.

Wrestling starts in November with a brief fall schedule that culminates in the Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas, then takes a long December break before returning two weeks ago. Michigan is 5-2, 3-1 in Big Ten play. Their lone non-conference loss is to South Dakota State, ranked #15 at the time but now up to #10.

Michigan dispatched Maryland and MSU before running into their first huge weekend of the conference season. On Friday January 19th #11 Michigan hosted #1 Penn State, and there's a reason Penn State's #1. That Sunday, they welcomed #13 Rutgers and got a big 23-10 win, with Michigan winning 7 matches to Rutgers' 3.

Wrestling had a venue change this season. For the first time they're hosting all matches at Crisler Center, where they used to host most at Cliff Keen Arena. A sign of growth for the program for sure.

Roster Outlook:

Michigan lost one All-American in Parris, but returned two more:

• Senior Cameron Amine has taken fourth place at 165 pounds at the NCAA Tournament the last two years. The cousin of Olympian and Wolverine Myles Amine, Cameron is 4-2 so far this season in dual meets and picked up 4th place at the Cliff Keen Vegas Invite. Amine is ranked #10 at 165 lbs nationally.
• Will Lewan is in his sixth year, and is also coming off two straight top-8 finishes at the NCAA Tournament at 157 pounds. Will Lewan is 3-1 this season, and is currently #14th nationally.

Michigan has four other wrestlers ranked in the top 10 nationally in their weight class. Dylan Ragusin (Jr., 166 lbs) pinned Penn State's Aaron Nagao last weekend, taking his #4 ranking away from him in the process. The other three are all grad transfers: #6 Austin Gomez (149 lbs) by way of Iowa State and Wisconsin; #4 Shane Griffith (174 lbs), who won the 2021 National Championship at 165 pounds while at Stanford; and #4 Lucas Davison (Hwt) out of Northwestern. Jaden Bullock (Jr., 184 lbs) has also climbed to #15 with a 4-2 record in his first season as a full-time starter.

Schedule Highlights:

• @ #7 Ohio State, Fri. Jan. 26 (tonight), 7p, BTN: Wrestling's last ranked foe before they hit the Big Ten Tournament, an upset could put Michigan back in the top 10.
• Iowa, Fri. Feb. 2, 8:30p, BTN: Senior night in Ann Arbor and the last home match of the season.

Mid-season outlook: Overall, things are going pretty well. Michigan lost the match it was supposed to, went 1-1 in the toss-ups against SDSU and Rutgers, and has handily beaten all other comers. With 4 wrestlers in their national top 10s, there's a path to Michigan matching its 6th place finish at last year's NCAAs, but there's also a path to a basically successful season falling just short of that.

Water Polo

Last Year/So Far:

If you look at the late history of former Water Polo head coach Marcelo Leonardi, the pattern becomes clear: Michigan almost always beat worse teams and almost always lost to better ones. Granted, that's true of many tenures, but Michigan had sat juuuust outside the top tier of Water Polo long enough that a change was made. Enter Harvard assistant Cassie Churnside, completing the trade that sent Michigan WBB assistant Carrie Moore to the top job for the Crimson.

If the season 1 task for a new coach is less "make a step forward" and more "don't take one backwards", we'll give Churnside the win. Michigan went 23-10 including 9-1 in conference before taking a loss to Churnside's old colleagues at Harvard in the conference tourney. The CWPA is typically a one-bid league, so that was the season.

Michigan certainly lost some scoring in the offseason with the departures of Erin Neustrom and Ava Morrant, who were 2nd and 3rd in goals last year, with Neustrom being named all-conference. Otherwise, most of last year's power returns.

Michigan was ranked #13 in the preseason but is now #11 in the first in-season poll, this two spot rise happening despite an 0-3 weekend at Fresno State. However, Michigan took #4 Hawai'i to OT and lost 11-10 to #5 Fresno. This weekend they're in Ann Arbor, with 4 matches at the Wolverine invitational, including #22 LIU.

Roster Outlook:

• Michigan's other all-CWPA player last year was Kata Utassy, who returns for her senior season. Utassy led the Wolverines with 83 goals, almost doubling any other Wolverine's output. So far she's kept it rolling, with hat tricks in all three opening-weekend games, including 6 goals against Hawai'i.
• Senior Lola Ciruli trailed only Utassy in assists last season, tallying 36, as well as being second on the team in steals. She had herself a four point weekend in the openers, with 2 goals and 2 assists.
• The Wolverines are backstopped once again by Alex Brown, now in her fifth season. Her 17 saves against Hawai'i are two short of a career high.

Schedule Highlights:

• @ #9 Princeton, Sat. Mar. 2, 3p: This is Michigan's first matchup against the only team in the CWPA ranked higher. The next day the Wolverines will take on #17 Harvard, also at Princeton, and then they'll repeat the one-two punch on April 6th at Bucknell.
• v. #8 Long Beach St., Sat. Mar. 23, 3p: As of right now Long Beach is the top team coming to Ann Arbor this season. If you're going to get to a game, this might be the one.
• v. #16 Indiana, Sat. Apr. 20, 11a: Michigan hosts this year's edition of the annual tilt between Michigan and the only other Big Ten school (for now, hi California) with varsity Water Polo. They do not play in the same conference in this sport, but I did once meet Jim Harbaugh at one of these.

Bottom Line: Michigan opened the season by showing it's here to compete with the big dogs but isn't quite a big dog themselves yet. They have a relatively soft schedule between now and conference play that they can use to establish a rhythm. Ultimately, the CWPA Tournament may be the season for the Wolverines. Leonardi's teams made the NCAA Tournament almost every year and then was clinically removed from said tournament in an early round. If the Churnside experience is to be an improvement, showing out in the NCAA Tournament will be where they prove it, and they're going to have to win the CWPA tournament to find out.

Men's Gymnastics

Last Year/So Far:

Let's play a game. How many schools sponsor varsity men's gymnastics? Think of a number. Not Big Ten schools, schools, all of them. Got a number?

It's fifteen.

That's it! But Michigan is one of them and they're quite good at it. Michigan is coming off of a national runner-up season and last finished outside the top 4 in 2018. While Michigan finished second, Fred Richard, then just a Freshman, won an individual all-around national championship.

Last year's extremely roster remains largely intact, with just Markus Shears, Virgil Watkins, David Willett, and Adam Wooten gone out of the 15 Wolverine gymnasts who competed at the national championship, and among those only Wooten competed in multiple events. On top of that, Michigan returns Paul Juda from injury, putting the last two all-around individual champions on the same roster.

Michigan has swept their competition and sit at #4 nationally (every team is ranked). Their toughest test was #5 Illinois, who they edged at the Windy City Invitational after trailing going into their final rotation on the high bar. They've only participated in 3 events, but list their record at 7-0. They came first in a season-opening home tri-meet, came first of 3 varsity programs in Chicago, and beat Army at home.

Roster Outlook:

• Last year, 2022 all-around individual champion Paul Juda was out with a couple of injuries and took a redshirt. Despite missing the 2023 college season, late in the year he was able to become the US champion on floor exercise and then help the US take bronze in the team-all around at the World Championships. He'll be back for his senior season while preparing for the Olympic trials.
• The defending all-around national champion, sophomore Fred Richard, joined Juda at the World Championships. Richard nabbed the bronze medal at worlds, solidifying his case as a contender in Paris. First, he'll try to repeat.

Landen Blixt is also a highly touted sophomore, coming in 10th in the all-around at last year's NCAAs and earning all-american honors on the floor. Javier Alonso carded a career-high 15.10 on Rings. So far, freshman Wolfgang Pierce and junior Rithik Puri have been handling all-around duties.

Schedule Highlights:

• USA Gymnastics Winter Cup, Fri. Feb. 23-Sun. Feb. 25: Not strictly speaking a college event but it is a qualifier for the 2024 US Championships. No matter how you slice it, a major portion of this college gymnastics season is Olympic prep and this is one stop on that train.
• v. #1 Oklahoma, Sat. March 2, 1p: Michigan will host the #1 team in the country for their biggest clash of the regular season. The last time Oklahoma came to Crisler, the #3 Wolverines knocked off the #2 Sooners weeks before the season's abrupt end in 2020.
• v. #7 Penn State, Sun. Mar. 17, 4p: Senior night in Ann Arbor and one of Michigan's two biggest conference clashes. The other will occur a week earlier in Columbus with #6 Ohio State.

Bottom Line:

In his third year in the head job, Yuan Xiao has the recipe to win a national title. There's roster continuity and the desire to get the taste of "runner-up" out of their mouth. Michigan has been just shy of the mountaintop for a number of years. One of these year's they'll hit on the most important day of the season, and there's no reason this can't be the roster that does it.