Tuesday Morning Brews: Shambala

Happy Tuesday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews. It’s good to be back, and I extend my thanks to Trevor for filling in for me last Thursday. This morning we have a non-revapalooza as we check in with Hockey, Women’s Basketball, Women’s Gymnastics, Water Polo, and Men’s and Women’s Tennis.

Keep in mind that we’re a little more than two weeks away from National Signing Day 2018 (Feb. 7). While the number of recruits who signed during the early signing period means that NSD won’t be quite the production of years past, there are still several high-profile names that Michigan is competing for - so keep an eye out for an increase in recruiting coverage from Maize n Brew over this home stretch.

Let’s get to it:

No. 12 Penn State came to town last weekend, and Michigan emerged from the weekend with its second straight sweep of a ranked team. After the weekend, the Wolverines have four-straight wins, something they hadn’t achieved previously this season. Michigan won the Friday game by the score of 4-0 and the Saturday game by the score of 3-2. Mel Pearson’s club is now 12-10-2 (7-7-2), which is good enough for third place in the B1G. Michigan will next travel to Columbus to take on the No. 2 team in the league, Ohio State.

Women’s basketball has continued its fast start as the Wolverines have won 17 of their first 21 games for the first time in program history. Following the team’s 86-42 win last Saturday, the team is now 6-2 in the conference. As usual, the Wolverines were led by Katelynn Flaherty with 27 pts. Hailey Brown contributed a double-double to the effort (17 pts. and 14 rebs.), as did Hallie Thome (13 pts. and 11 rebs.). Nicole Munger also recorded 14 pts. Michigan will be back in action this evening against Michigan State. That game will be televised on BTN at 7:00 p.m.

Michigan women’s gymnastics is continuing their success from last season. The Wolverines are off to a 3-0 (2-0) start. All three wins have been over ranked opponents, including No. 4 Alabama. Coming into the most recent match against Illinois, Michigan was ranked No. 3. The women will be back in action against Nebraska this coming Saturday. Men’s gymnastics has yet to start their season. Their first meet is against Oklahoma, also on Saturday.

Michigan water polo is off and running. After five exhibition games in the Collegiate Cup, the Wolverines opened their season at the UCSB Winter Invite. There, Michigan played its way to a 3-2 record. The Wolverines beat No. 21 CSUN, No. 19 UCSB, and No. 16 UC San Diego. Michigan lost to No. 5 Arizona State by the score of 5-2 and to No. 3 UCLA by the score of 5-4. Up next for the team is the Michigan Invite, beginning this Saturday. The teams involved will be UCLA, Pacific, Marist, and China (games involving China will be on an exhibition basis). Following the weekend, Michigan found itself ranked as the No. 4 team in the country.

After several non-scoring matches, both men’s and women’s tennis are off and running. The women opened their season by beating Kansas 6-1. Their next match is against Gonzaga this Saturday at 10:00 a.m. The men opened their season by beating Washington 4-3 and Boise State 7-0. Their next match it against South Carolina, also this Saturday. Last year, Brienne Minor captured an individual national championship for Michigan’s women’s program.