WTKA Roundtable 1/15/2026: Bad Idea Transition Takes

Thing Discussed:

• Portal: You can't make an OL in the portal—keeping Guarnera and Sprague was huge. Wide receiver room is night and day from before. They put a secondary back together. Concern over LB and don't have an impact DT.
• Seth: After all that everyone is back where they were. Lucky for Michigan that everyone's a free agent but this is a terrible way to run the sport.
• Why does everybody forget Chase Taylor? You're going to learn his name this year.
• DT: Sam says PalePale was getting talked up during bowl prep. Put Crippen down a few times. Question is conditioning.
• Hoops vs Wisconsin: What happened? They got five-outed, pulled Mara out of the paint which was a key to how they were playing two-point defense, which is mostly drop. Played a lot more hedge vs Washington.
• Discussion on 3-point randomness. NBA studies prove the efficacy of closeouts. It's not totally random; what really matters is preventing open shots. No correlation between first half and back half three-point defense.
• Seth: Washington can't get to the rim and Wisconsin has guys who can take advantage of that. These European shootin' bigs are going to be a problem. Michigan is like Florida last year: they're big and they play fast. Slow them down and pull them outside and win a luck game. Response is to hedge more.
• Brian: We sometimes see Michigan playing live ball tactics that don't make sense against the team they're playing; the hedging was practicing for Illinois and Nebraska.
• Rebounding (especially vs PSU): Needs work. Big Ten doesn't officiate shoves in the back or the Wisconsin step-under, so you have to really focus on practicing rebounding in this league to be any good at it, and it's not the focus of this team.
• Hockey: Was it a cheap shot? If Notre Dame wasn't a goon squad we'd say no, but they've seen this guy run a goalie and Notre Dame is notorious for causing injuries—they knocked out M's best defender earlier in the year.
• Same referee was there for McGroarty's injury, Hallum's injury, and no calls on either of those either.
• Big Ten does not care about hockey, the officiating is atrocious. They don't know the game, and they're getting players hurt because of it. Can't self-regulate because there's no fighting so you need officials to do it, and they don't care.