Thursday Happy Hours Keeps Ellen Tressel's Recovery in Its Thoughts and Prayers

Maize n Brew gives you your daily (or semi-daily) rundown of all the Michigan Football, Michigan Basketball, College Football, and College Basketball news you need to get through the tedium of your boring desk job. For good measure we'll throw in a little irreverent information, comedy and commentary to help you salt away the time until the clock strikes 5pm.  We're on a Facebook and Twitter drive, so be our friend or follow us! If you don't know what that means, you're old. If you want Maize n Brew in 140 characters or less, follow us on Twitter! Or you can friend us on Facebook and become a fan of Maize n Brew on Facebook for more links. Here's What's ON TAP:

Stuff You Need to Read Right Now

Jim Tressel's wife has heart surgery - The wife of Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel is recovering from surgery to repair a heart valve. Norma Watson, Tressel's mother-in-law, tells The Associated Press on Wednesday that her daughter, 56-year-old Ellen Tressel, had the operation at the Cleveland Clinic on Tuesday in hopes of improving blood flow through the heart.

Man. In football rivalries tend to get overblown and people tend to take antagonistic approaches toward anyone dressed in colors that are different than their own. But when something like this happens, well, all that crap is meaningless. Over the last few years I've come to appreciate and respect Jim Tressel immensely. Having met him in person, he is a genuine human being and surprisingly funny. I cannot for the life of me come to understand what he is going through, waiting on the safe return of his wife from an opperating table. I have even less capacity to understand what Ellen Tressel is going through preparing to and having people operate on her heart. I know that if it was my wife I'd be lost and a complete, sobbing mess.

All of our prayers and thoughts are with Ellen Tressel, Coach Tressel, and their family as Ellen recovers from surgery. We look forward to seeing you up and around soon. And, because of the circumstances,

O-H....

Big Ten Expansion

Testudo Times Realignment Roundtable - Our buddies at SBNation's outstanding Maryland blog Testudo Times look at how Big 10 expansion could affect Maryland and the ACC. One of the best looks at the effects of Expansion on the East coast as a whole.

Big XII Rev Share Will Not Ruin Your Marriage Unless You Want It To - Black Shoe Diaries breaks down the actual Big XII payout numbers and finds that the revenue sharing issue is really, really overblown. Good Work by BSD.

Behold, The Worst Article Yet On Big Ten Expansion - The Tulsa World thinks Missouri would leave the Big XII conference because they're not competitive enough in conference athletics. This is a spectacularly misguided opinion. It's so spectacularly awful that BHGP employs the Jesus Facepalm.

Each Tiny Drip Of Expansion News Brings Pitt Closer To Oblivion - Brian Cook sadly dismisses Pitt's expansion chances:

Even though it makes no sense from any other perspective, the Big Ten Network is the ruthless driver of expansion logic. That's working to the detriment of Pitt and, frankly, everyone else. As always, this is Notre Dame's fault.

Would Syracuse Be Better Off In The ACC? - In a word, yes.

Oh, ACC expansion hasn't been that bad, has it? - The Doc takes a look at how the ACC's 2003 expansion will color the coming Big Ten Expansion proceedings. Once seen as the grandest of home runs, 7 years later the ACC's blockbuster move has lost a little luster. But, as the Doc points out, the ACC ain't complaining. 

As usual, you can follow our snarky coverage of Big Ten Expansion here.

Michigan Football

U-M coach Rich Rodriguez faces own sanctions - It's worth noting that the NCAA does actually have precedent for this. Kelvin Sampson. But here's the thing that pisses me off. Sampson was a repeat offender BEFORE the NCAA started slapping retroactive penalties on him. Here's my issue with this article: this is old news. It's worth noting just because of the coming May 24/25 announcements, but there's nothing new in here.

Michigan has no plans to stop playing ND - There's been a lot made of the fact that Michigan and Notre Dame haven't actually signed their rivalry extension. Both Notre Dame and Michigan have reaffirmed over and over again that they will play out their agreement.