Tuesday Quick Hits: Jibreel Black Commits to Michigan

• Ohio defensive end Jibreel Black committed to Michigan over the weekend.  Black originally committed to Indiana and later switched to Cincinnati before eventually deciding on Michigan.  He has offers from those schools as well as Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, Minnesota, NC State, Purdue, South Carolina, Wake Forest, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.  He is a 3-star on Rivals and ESPN and a 4-star on Scout.  Overall it seems like he has a lot of upside as a defensive lineman and is somebody who can contribute early on in his career.
• With Black on board, Michigan’s recruiting class technically now has 27 players.  It’s probably actually 26, though.  There is no official news on Tony Drake’s status yet, but Scout has already removed him from Michigan’s list of commitments.  Assuming he will not be part of the class and there will be no decommitments or non-qualifiers (that’s a big assumption), Michigan’s class is filled up.  However, there are still two big recruits out there who have yet to choose a school — Sean Parker and Rashad Knight.  Michigan would definitely make room for them if they want to commit, but as it stands right now I believe that would mean another commit or two would have to grayshirt.  There’s no point in speculating just yet, as you never know if the entire class will make it to signing day or if Parker and Knight will even pick Michigan, but it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. (Demar Dorsey ended up committing to Florida State, by the way.)
• Kelvin Grady has returned to the basketball team.  He approached John Beilein about returning, wondering if he could do anything to help the team.  Beilein saw that he could be a big help in terms of bringing quickness to the scout team, which is where he will likely spend most of his time right now.  It isn’t expected that he will get into a game unless injuries force him to play, because Beilein doesn’t want to burn a year of eligibility this far into the season in case Grady decides to become a two-sport athlete and continue to play basketball in the future.
• Michigan followed up Friday’s impressive win over Ferris State with a crushing loss in Big Rapids on Saturday.  There wasn’t a ton of action during the first period, but Ferris State led after 20 minutes thanks to a soft shorthanded goal.  Bryan Hogan simply whiffed on the weak shot from a pretty good distance out, letting the Bulldogs go up 1-0.  Michigan answered back in the second period with a power-play goal, but the Bulldogs retook the lead before time expired to go into the third period up 2-1.  Just like the second game of the series against Alaska, Michigan waited and waited but eventually did tie things up with less than two minutes left.  Against FSU on Saturday Michigan went on the power play and Brian Lebler scored on an awesome tip in off of a nice pass from David Wohlberg.  Unfortunately Michigan took a bad penalty (it seemed to be a makeup call more than anything) right after it tied things up.  Ferris State put on the pressure, and following a terrible turnover by Chris Summers in his own zone, the Bulldogs scored with only 24 seconds left to eventually win 3-2.

  This was a tough loss to take considering Michigan was so close to going to overtime and getting a tie.  The fact that Michigan did lose, though, makes this coming weekend’s series with Michigan State all the more important.  MSU has been struggling a bit as of late, and if Michigan could avenge the Spartans’ sweep from earlier this season with one of its own, suddenly the Wolverines’ tournament hopes would be in pretty good shape.  I would settle for a win and a tie and a split at worst.  Another sweep by MSU, though, could be a knockout blow for Michigan’s season.

• Erin Andrews will be in Ann Arbor for tonight’s game against Michigan State.
• Purdue’s Chris Kramer and Matt Painter were whining about elbows again on Saturday during the Michigan game.
• Lost Letterman interviewed Cazzie Russell.
• Four former Michigan players (Mike Hart and Marlin Jackson for Indy; Adrian Arrington and Jonathan Goodwin for NO) and two former coaches (Terry Malone and Mike Mallory for NO) are going to the Super Bowl.
• Tai Streets and Desmond Howard played in Curtis Granderson’s celebrity basketball game on Sunday and were asked about Rich Rodriguez.  Jalen Rose and Jimmy King also played in the game, and Lloyd Carr was one of the honorary coaches.
• Urban Meyer’s leave of absence didn’t last long.