Today’s High Five: Lions owner William Clay Ford told Tom Kowalski before the Saints game yesterday that COO Tom Lewand and acting GM Martin Mayhew will be back with the team next season, and any new guy brought in will have to fill one of the available “slots.” From what I’ve read, Mayhew could be [...]

Today’s High Five: Two weeks ago, Tigers fans wondered who would back up Dusty Ryan at catcher in 2009. Now, that’s a question for Toledo Mud Hens fans. After trading for Gerald Laird at the Winter Meetings, the Tigers are expected to announce that they’ve signed Matt Treanor to be his backup. Scot Shafer is [...]

Today’s High Five: The Tigers traded away OF Matt Joyce for Tampa Bay pitcher Edwin Jackson. Though Joyce just broke in with the Tigers last season and Jackson has been in the majors since 2003, Jackson is just a year older than Joyce — reminiscent of the Miguel Cabrera trade last year, when one of [...]

College basketball: Michigan 81, #4 Duke 73. Another program win for Michigan on a big day for the Big Ten, and suddenly everything looks different. The Wolverines look like contenders in the Big Ten, the Big Ten again looks relevant nationally and it looks like we can again resent Dick Vitale for his ACC-centric worldview. [...]

College basketball: Michigan 55, UCLA 52. I’m about to post Part III of my epic Mark Dantonio trilogy, which was inspired by MSU football’s “program win” over Wisconsin. Well, John Beilein’s U-M basketball team had a pretty significant program win of its own last night, toppling #4 UCLA 55-52 at Madison Square Garden in the [...]

I’ll have an MSU football post tomorrow to tide us over during the bye week. But today, briefly, some links: College basketball signing day: MSU gets two ESPN Top 100 players, Derrick Nix and Garrick Sherman, both centers ranked among the top 10 centers by Rivals. State went big to replace outgoing frontcourt seniors Goran [...]