Michigan
REPORT: Marquette To Host Central Michigan
About a week back or so, noted college basketball bracketologist guy Rocco Miller put out into the universe that YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles men’s basketball team will be hosting Central Michigan in the 2024-25 season.
Sources: Marquette will host Central Michigan as part of its 2024-25 non-conference schedule. #BigEast #MACtion
— Rocco Miller (@RoccoMiller8) May 30, 2024
Now, I feel comfortable passing along Rocco’s information as solid. The next thing I’m going to pass along is stemming from that and since I don’t know the two Twitter accounts in question, I can’t vouch for the information. However, not one but TWO Twitter accounts noted that 1) Central Michigan will be hosting Stony Brook in 2024-25 and 2) that game is part of a Multi-Team Event that Marquette is (technically) hosting.
Scheduling News:
Central Michigan will host Stony Brook as part of its 2024-25 non-conference schedule.
Final date TBD, but will be in November. The game is part of the MTE that Marquette is hosting though it will be on campus in Mount Pleasant. Return game at SBU in 25/26.
— Made For March (@madeformarch) May 30, 2024
Scheduling update:
Central Michigan will host Stony Brook in November as part of the MTE that Marquette is hosting.
Central Michigan will visit Stony Brook in 25/26.
— SBU Hoops (@NewYorkHoopsIns) May 30, 2024
We already talked about Marquette’s home game against Stony Brook, so the pieces fit together there. Marquette Deputy Athletic Director Mike Broeker mostly confirmed the hosted MTE in an interview with Cracked Sidewalks’ Alan Bykowski without actually saying it is 100% happening or who was involved, so that fills in that side of the puzzle as well.
“I would say we are going to host our own MTE. We’re going to get three games out of it. Next year’s MTE is really a factor of a desire to play an additional home game or two and the best way to do that. Is it an every year thing? I don’t think we can say that. I’ve said this, historically, your schedule has to do two things. One, it has to reflect your roster and what you’re capable of doing. And then two, it always has to feed your competitive expectation for the program, and obviously, our competitive expectation is pretty clear and Shaka has been open about it.”
Okay, so back to Central Michigan. This game will be the third ever meeting between Marquette and CMU. The Golden Eagles have won both, with both coming as home games for MU. Marquette won 81-67 in December 2008, and then again by a score of 97-73 in 2022. That game was the Students Only game at the Al McGuire Center. Marquette has confirmed that they are doing that event again in 2024-25, but between being a repeat opponent just two years later and coming as part of the MTE, I would presume that the Chippewas will not be the opponent slotted into that game.
Central Michigan is coming off an 18-14 season in Tony Barbee’s third season in Mount Pleasant. The Chips went 12-6 in MAC play and earned the #4 seed in the conference tournament, but had their season cut down in the quarterfinals by way of a 66-56 upset loss to #5 seed Bowling Green.
They finished 2023-24 at #277 in KenPom.com’s rankings, #269 at BartTorvik.com, and #264 in the NET. The Torvik computers show the Chippewas as perhaps being a touch better next season, as they project at #234 in the country, although that’s only 7th best in the MAC. Central Michigan returns Anthony Pritchard, a 6’2” guard who led the Chips in scoring (12.8/game) and assists (4.7/game) last season. He’s not much of an outside shooter after connecting on just 26% of his long range attempts last year, and shooting in general was a struggle for CMU all season. The Torvik RosterCast tells us that Central Michigan doesn’t return much else outside of Pritchard, so Marquette could have a notable tactical advantage if this game gets played in the first week or two of the season.
A date with Central Michigan brings us to seven known games on the Marquette schedule for 2024-25. We know dates for four of them — Maryland, Purdue, Georgia, and Iowa State — while we wait for details on the yearly game against Wisconsin as well as the aforementioned Stony Brook game and this CMU contest. There’s another game for the MTE that lays out there in the wilderness, and I would presume the opponent is on the rough level of Stony Brook and CMU. There’s also the theoretical game against NC State that Andy Katz reported as a possibility, but there’s been no announcement about that or further rumoring.
Michigan
How two Michigan stamping plants power Stellantis turnaround plan
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
Michigan
Menominee, Michigan man arrested on sexual assault charges involving a minor
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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