Michigan
March Madness picks: Predictions, schedule, odds, lines for South region; Michigan trying to avoid 5-vs.-12 upset
The stat was making the rounds after Auburn didn’t make the championship game of the SEC tournament: No team has lost three of its past four games before the NCAA tournament and won a national championship.
And yet, Auburn still was a somewhat surprising pick as the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament.
Auburn stumbled late in a very tough league, which might open things up for the other teams in the South region. Auburn will open the tournament against Alabama State, which took down St. Francis 70-68 on a thrilling final-second layup off a tipped full-court pass in the First Four at Dayton on Tuesday. (We’re also waiting to see if San Diego State or North Carolina play Ole Miss on Friday, as well), but here are the rest of the picks for the first round in the South, with all the odds from BetMGM:
Midwest region picks | East region picks | West region picks
(All times Eastern.)
No. 8 Louisville (-2.5) over No. 9 Creighton, 12:15 p.m. Thursday
The first game of the first round Thursday is a good one. Louisville seems very under-seeded, but that’s part of playing in a bad ACC. Still, since Dec. 14 the Cardinals are 21-2 and one of the losses came to Duke in the ACC tournament. Creighton has been a very good team too, and 7-foot-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner will be a problem for the Cardinals. But I won’t hold it against Louisville that the ACC was down. The Cards advance.
No. 1 Auburn (-31.5) over No. 16 Alabama State, 2:50 p.m. Thursday
Alabama State thrilled us with a great NCAA tournament opener, with a last-second shot to win it. But this isn’t the type of 16 seed that can scare a 1 seed. Alabama State doesn’t have any strength that will keep it in a game against an Auburn team looking to quiet critics who wondered how it got the No. 1 overall seed after losing three of their last four.
[Full NCAA tournament bracket revealed | Printable bracket]
No. 13 Yale (+7.5) over No. 4 Texas A&M, 7:25 p.m. Thursday
Yale has become the Ivy’s best program, and this season it dominated the league. Yale was 16-1 after Dec. 22. Texas A&M is a good team, but it lives off offensive rebounding (the best offensive rebounding percentage in the nation), and yet Yale is pretty good on the defensive boards. The Ivy League has been pretty good in the first round of the NCAA tournament, going 10-4 against the spread in the first round since 2009 (per Matt Eisenberg’s Tournament Guide). Texas A&M could make a run into the second weekend, but this one isn’t going to be easy.
No. 5 Michigan (-2.5) over No. 12 UC San Diego, 10 p.m. Thursday
Ah, the 5 vs. 12 game. We all know by now this is where upsets come from, and UC San Diego is a dangerous 12 seed. KenPom.com had San Diego as the 36th best team in the sport, which is rarified air for a Big West school. That’s just one spot below UConn, the reigning champs. San Diego does everything well, and it shoots (and hits) a lot of 3s. The problem is UCSD’s size. It doesn’t have a regular who is taller than 6-8. Michigan is the rare team with two 7-footers, Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf. If UCSD hits a ton of 3s this could be a fun upset, but this was a really unfortunate matchup for a strong mid-major.
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No. 14 Lipscomb (+14.5) over No. 3 Iowa State, 1:30 p.m. Friday
Iowa State looked like it could be a Final Four contender, but the last month was a little rough. Injuries affected the Cyclones. It appears Tamin Lipsey (10.8 ppg) will return from injury, but Keshon Gilbert (13.4 ppg) is out for the season via the Des Moines Register. That lowers the Cyclones’ ceiling. Lipscomb has a lot of shooters, which is what you want from a big underdog. If Lipscomb can knock down some of the many 3s it’s going to take, this one could be interesting late.
No. 11 North Carolina (-1.5) over No. 6 Ole Miss, 4:05 p.m. Friday
Most years, a team that wins in the First Four also wins a first-round game. This isn’t just an overreaction to UNC’s dominant win over San Diego State; the Tar Heels match up pretty well with Ole Miss. UNC didn’t deserve an at-large spot but that never meant it couldn’t get hot and win multiple games.
No. 7 Marquette (-3.5) over No. 10 New Mexico, 7:25 p.m. Friday
If you like guard play, this will be a fun matchup. Marquette’s Kam Jones is one of the best players in the country, a Bob Cousy Award finalist for the trophy that goes to the nation’s best point guard. New Mexico’s Donovan Dent and his 20.6 points per game should get more respect for postseason honors. Marquette won just five of its last 12 games, but there weren’t any bad losses. This isn’t an easy pick between two similar but flawed teams. Marquette might be happy to not see a Big East foe.
No. 15 Bryant (+17.5) over No. 2 Michigan State, 10 p.m. Friday
Michigan State had a tremendous season. The Spartans were good to bettors too, posting a 22-10-1 mark against the spread via Action Network, one of the best marks in the sport. MSU won’t shoot many 3s, won’t shoot them well, but can score inside and rebound it well. Bryant is one of the few 15 seeds that actually has some decent size. It has the sixth-tallest team in college basketball, according to KenPom.com. The Bulldogs didn’t play a tough schedule and against the two best teams they played, St. John’s and Grand Canyon, they lost by 22 and 46, respectively. There’s no upset concern here, but Bryant might not be a total pushover.
Sterling Stamping Plant is the largest in the world
Ed Daniels, vice president of North America injection and stamping operations, discusses the process of producing metal parts for Stellantis models.
Warren — Hulking metal presses line one wall of Stellantis NV’s cavernous stamping plant here, punching out the raw shapes of Jeep doors, Dodge hoods and Ram tailgates in rapid succession.
Nearby, swinging yellow robots continue the tightly choreographed work, gluing and pressing and welding smaller components to the sheet metal that eventually will start to resemble the shape of a truck or SUV.
Seven miles north, in Sterling Heights, Stellantis operates an even larger stamping plant — the biggest in the world, at 2.7 million square feet — that does much of the same work, churning out various shapes of steel and aluminum 24 hours a day.
Together, these lesser-known links in the manufacturing supply chain support all of Stellantis’ big North American assembly plants — from next-door Warren Truck Assembly Plant, where the Jeep Grand Wagoneer SUV is built, to facilities in Windsor and Mexico that make minivans and pickups.
Inside Stellantis’ Huge Detroit Stamping Plants
The Detroit News recently got a rare look inside the automaker’s Sterling and Warren stamping plants, which are key to the company’s turnaround plan.
The Metro Detroit stamping plants, the automaker’s only two such facilities in the United States, have at times struggled in recent years, facing major job cuts and worker morale issues amid slowing sales and shifting production plans. But under Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa, the facilities are expected to cram in more workload — and add staff — as Stellantis begins a new five-year strategic turnaround plan, which includes a heavy focus on its most profitable North American market.
The carmaker’s goal: grow sales by more than a third to 1.9 million annually by 2030 as it launches 23 vehicles, including 11 all-new models. The company also is directing billions of dollars of investment into its U.S. manufacturing footprint due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“Stamping has never really been viewed as the sexy side of automotive manufacturing, we’re relatively invisible,” said Ed Daniels Jr., vice president of North America injection and stamping operations. “Because when you look at the commercials and advertisements, it’s always a beautiful Ram rolling off the assembly line or climbing the side of a mountain.
“But we’re the inception of that vehicle,” he said. “This is where raw materials are turned into commodities and parts.”
The Detroit News recently got a rare look inside the two plants that combined employ about 3,000 people. The automaker wanted to show off a newly-installed blanking press at Warren Stamping and other machinery like a high-speed transfer press and a robot that spots flaws in the metal.
Hiring expected
The blanking press unspools long coils of metal and chops them up into pieces that can then be shaped into roofs, fenders and floor pans. Stellantis shipped the massive machine to Warren from its idled Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois last year.
After upgrades to the machine, executives said it’s able to produce as many as 120,000 metal blanks per week. It will save Stellantis money since the plant will no longer need to pay a supplier to break down the coils before the metal arrives there.
The blanker addition is a big deal for the plant and signals that the company wants to bring more work in-house and invest in the facility over the coming years, said Romaine McKinney III, president of United Auto Workers Local 869, which represents workers at the factory.
The plant has already brought back all of its laid-off UAW workers, and McKinney said he anticipates more hiring to get underway if sales grow and new Stellantis vehicles come to market.
In another corner of the Warren facility, one of the fastest press lines in the world — known internally as the Hellcat — pushes as many as 15 pieces of metal through per minute. Dies that weigh up to 50 tons apiece squish the material into the shapes of doors and hoods before robotic arms snatch them out and place them on conveyor belts. Midway through a shift, workers can reconfigure the machine to make a different component, a process that takes just five minutes.
Robots check for quality
Curtis Booth, who manages Warren Stamping, said manual processes inside the plant have become increasingly automated, and safer, over the last couple decades, even as the automaker’s two stamping factories still utilize some presses that were installed in the 1960s.
The latest high-tech addition is the Automated Body Inspection System, or ABIS. It’s a camera system mounted on a robot that automatically checks the quality of components and flags anything in need of repair.
Auto plants of all kinds are increasingly turning to these types of camera systems, infused with artificial intelligence, to catch flaws in sheet metal and other components before they are shipped. Booth said worker visual inspections are still used. But in some cases the human eye has too much subjectivity, and the ABIS removes the guesswork.
Greg Bauer, who manages Sterling Stamping, said his plant has added staff over the past year, and expects to continue hiring as more work is assigned to the facility. There is no space at the plant to add more presses, but officials have figured out how to increase efficiency — quickly toggling back and forth between making doors for a Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Charger on on a single machine, for example.
“We want to bring high-volume parts into the plant, and we want to maximize the capacity of the equipment,” Daniels said.
lramseth@detroitnews.com
MENOMINEE, Mich. (WLUK) — 24-year-old Ethan Raymond Masters of Menominee was arrested on sexual assault charges June 30th, according to the Menominee County Sheriff’s Office.
According to a news release from the Sheriff’s Office, deputies learned of an incident involving a 24-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl which happened in Menominee June 22nd. Following a sexual assault investigation, police charged Masters.
Masters was arraigned July 2nd on 2 counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct First Degree. He remains in the Menominee County Jail on a $250,000 cash bond.
Menominee City Police and the Michigan State Police Crime Laboratory of Marquette assisted with the investigation.
Michigan
Michigan immigration advocates react after Supreme Court ruling on Temporary Protected Status
Twenty-four thousand immigrants in Michigan have Temporary Protected Status (TPS), but a recent Supreme Court decision could put their protection in jeopardy.
TPS is a humanitarian protection granted to U.S. immigrants fleeing dangerous situations in their home countries, often from natural disasters or political instability. The status allows immigrants from the designated countries to live and work in the U.S.
The Supreme Court overturned those for 356,000 Haitians and Syrians in a recent decision. While the court’s decision directly impacted Haitian and Syrian immigrants, it also established that the Secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to determine TPS status without judicial review or input from the courts.
That means that the Secretary of Homeland Security can eliminate TPS for any immigrant group that is currently in the U.S. under protection. That puts 1.3 million immigrants in the U.S. at risk of deportation. In Florida, 113,000 healthcare workers with TPS are at risk of deportation. The Haitian population in Philadelphia is also expressing concerns about what comes next for them.
“The Supreme Court turned its back on our moral and legal commitments to people seeking safety,” said Christine Sauvé, manager of Policy and Communication at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. “The decision eliminates legal protections for people fleeing danger and allows the Trump Administration to really advance its mass deportation agenda.”
Left without the ability to live or work in the U.S., these Haitian and Syrian immigrants with TPS now face deportation. But going back home could still be incredibly dangerous.
“It’s not really an option to go back to their home country,” said Melanie Goldberg, immigration attorney with the Institute of Metro Detroit. “In the case of Haiti, they don’t even have an airport in Port-au-Prince that’s operational. Yet they say it’s safe for these citizens to go back.”
In Michigan, immigrants with TPS have contributed $349 million to the state’s economy, a sign that they are deeply embedded in the community, according to Sauvé.
“Many TPS holders have been in our communities for a very long time,” Sauvé said. “They’ve really spent decades building their lives here in Michigan. We welcomed them here, only to see that completely ripped away with the stroke of a pen.”
The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center encourages Haitian and Syrian immigrants with TPS, as well as any immigrants in the U.S. with a TPS designation, to seek out a qualified legal service provider and review the “Know Your Rights” Materials on the MIRC’s website
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