WOMEN'S BASKETBALL PROGRAMS MIRROR MEN'S - - - SPARTANS ARE MUCH MORE LOCAL

You'd think those players in yellow jerseys with the word "Michigan" splashed across the front would actually be from the State of Michigan. At least many of them, right?

It's time to think again about those University of Michigan Wolverines. We just discovered that the UM Men's Basketball team has only one player from the Great Lakes State. That's "one" as in the number just above ZERO. Yet the Michigan State Men's Basketball team is made up of nearly 50% home-grown talent.

Then we checked the coaches, and lo and behold, it was just about the same picture. Michigan has one Detroit-born-and-bred assistant, but the head coach (Beilein) and the rest of his staff are outsiders, dropping into the Mitten just for this one job. First-time residents, you might say. But Tom Izzo and his entire staff went to high school in our home-state, and three of the four also attended college right here in Michigan.

So the discrepancy held up, as 55% of MSU players and coaches are local to our state, while only 16% of UM players and coaches came from around here. You have to wonder why they are called the "University OF Michigan", since so few of them are actually from Michigan.

But that's just the men's teams. In the spirit of Title IX, we expanded our view to the Women's Basketball programs at both schools. To quote the famous band Led Zeppelin, in that case, "The Song Remains the Same".

We found that eight out of 13 Spartan women went to high school in Michigan, a total of 62% of the team roster. But down in Ann Arbor, only five of 14 did so, a total of 36% of their team.

State of Michigan Players

5 out of 14 women's basketball players at UM = 36%

8 out of 13 women's basketball players at MSU = 62%

Some people may care more or less about these facts, but they are FACTS. The yellow-and-blue teams are assembled with players and coaches from all over the place, while the green-and-white teams truly represent the State of Michigan.

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