Greg Mattison broke some hearts when he decided to leave the Michigan Wolverines for the Ohio State Buckeyes and become a member of Ryan Day’s staff. In another example of how cruel and mercenary-like this business could be, he surprisingly does not have good things to say about his former employer on the recruiting trail.

According to Allen Trieu of 247Sports, four-star offensive lineman J.C. Lathan says that in his contact with Mattison, the message has been quite clear on how he feels about the Wolverines.

“When I first went to Ohio State back in the spring time for practice, [Coach Mattison] was the first guy I talked to because I knew him right off the bat,” Latham told Trieu. “He was telling me how different Ohio State’s program was and how their facilities, practices, culture, all that was a lot better at Ohio State than Michigan. He was really telling me at their school, it’s a business and they ran it strict to a T. He was telling me, ‘if you’re here, I can see you getting developed ten times better than I could see at any other school.’ So he was kind of really just breaking the ice with me when I first visited.”

Some of the things Mattison told him probably are not inaccurate and might be more qualified than most to speak on the differences between the two programs, but this should be a surprise to nobody. Michigan must find a way to close the gap somewhere in this rivalry to at least cut back on some of the negative recruiting against them.

Then again, the easiest way to do that might just be to find a way to get a win. But it will be harder to get the win without results on the recruiting trail.

Truly a chicken or the egg debate.

Things continue to go poorly for John Beilein in Cleveland

John Beilein deserved and earned the right to pursue NBA opportunities after what he did in his career as Michigan basketball’s head coach, but things have not gone all that well for him in his debut season with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

With stories coming out in the first few months of the year about players being upset about his coaching style, what he has not needed is any other brushes with controversy that might alienate his team, but unfortunately another chapter in his time with the Cavs has been written.

Beilein had to call his players individually to apologize on Wednesday after allegedly inadvertently referring to his players as “thugs” during a film session.

“I didn’t realize that I had said the word ‘thugs,’ but my staff told me later I did and so I must have said it,” Beilein told ESPN on Wednesday night. “I meant to say slugs, as in slow-moving. We weren’t playing hard before, and now we were playing harder. I meant it as a compliment. That’s what I was trying to say. I’ve already talked to eight of my players tonight, and they are telling me that they understand.”

Beilein never had an incident like this at Michigan and this truly feels like this is out of character and a slip of the tongue from him, but this is not what he needed to deal with as his team currently sits at 10-27 on the season. Fingers crossed that he can right the ship down there, but this was a tough look.

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