Tuesday Morning Brews: Dissonance theory

Happy Tuesday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews. My thanks to Trevor for filling in for me this past Thursday. Winter sports like wrestling, women’s basketball, and hockey have all started their seasons and had busy weekends.

Let’s get to it:

Wrestling opens season with a win. New coach, new season, same old Michigan? We’ll see how the rest of the year goes, but so far Sean Bormet’s Wolverines are doing well. No. 5 Michigan dominated Central Michigan this past Sunday in the team’s first meet of the season. The Wolverines benefited from strong performances by Stevan Micic, Logan Massa, and Myles Amine—all returning All-Americans—en route to a 35-12 victory. The team will be back in action this Friday against Lehigh.

Men’s soccer drops Big Ten Championship game. Men’s soccer bested Wisconsin on Friday to earn a spot in the Big Ten Championship game, but alas the Wolverines were themselves beaten in that match. No. 2 Indiana scored in the 7th minute and cruised to a 3-0 victory over Michigan to claim the title. However, the Wolverines’ strong showing and 12-5-2 record on the year were good enough to earn an NCAA Tournament berth. Michigan will play Princeton in the first round this Thursday.

Field hockey exits second round of NCAA Tournament. Field hockey began NCAA Tournament play this past weekend with a win over No. 10 St. Joseph’s. The Wolverines jumped out to a 2-0 lead over the Hawks, before holding them off down the stretch for a 3-2 victory. On Sunday, Michigan was up against No. 1 UNC and wasn’t able to pull off the upset. The Tar Heels took a 3-1 lead into halftime and then cruised to a 5-2 victory. Michigan finished the season at 14-7 (7-1).

Women’s basketball opens season with a win. Kim Barnes Arico’s squad opened the season this past Friday with a resounding, and entirely expected, win over Mount St. Mary’s. Coming off a 84-38 exhibition win over Findlay, the Wolverines hung 88 on the Mountaineers who only mustered 40 points. Michigan was led by Hallie Thome (25 pts), Hailey Brown (14 pts), and Nicole Munger (12 pts). Thome also recorded her first double-double of the season by grabbing 10 rebounds. The team will be back in action against Western Michigan this Thursday.

Another weekend, another split series for Michigan hockey—though this one came against last year’s National Runners-up, the No. 6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish. In a rematch of last year’s Frozen Four, Michigan and Notre Dame faced off on Friday and Saturday. The Wolverines took the first match, 2-1, while the Irish took the second match 6-2. Mel Pearson’s squad is now 5-4 (1-1) on the season. They’ll be back in action with a weekend series against Penn State starting next Friday at 7:00 p.m.

Following last week’s relatively tame CFB games, we have another set of projected CFP rankings from Jason Kirk over at the SB Nation mothership. There are no surprises here; his Top-4, Bama, Clemson, Notre Dame, and Michigan mirror last week’s rankings. However, Kirk says of the Michigan/Notre Dame question, “I’m giving up on my resoundingly booed idea that Michigan could jump Notre Dame on Selection Sunday.” It looks like, at least in Kirk’s mind, that Notre Dame will have to take a loss for Michigan to move up from the No. 4 spot and a likely first-round matchup with Alabama should the Wolverines win out.