Just Take Them

I really enjoy your recruiting Ninja reporting, but this is your best "writing" yet. keep it up

Being Big-Ten Champions puts a lot into perspective.

I graduated from U-M in 2004. I came in as Jamal Crawford left. I knew my four years at Michigan would witness clawing and scratching in hopes of freeing the program from our NCAA coffin. I knew, at least, that the Elerbee years were behind us. Tommy Amaker came in with new bathwater: a Dukie, a Seton Hall success story, a coach seemingly cabable of recruiting. I had LaVell Blanchard and BR3 to root for. LaVell was probably the classiest college athlete I ever met. BR3 was a lovable loon. The NIT was the promised land for those guys, and I rejoiced as a fan when they got to play in the NIT.

Daniel Horton and Lester Abram provided a glimmer of hope for more. Graham Brown, Brent Petway, Dion Harris, Courtney Sims. They were a decent core of players, so I thought. They probably could've been a lot better. Their offense was second or third-tier at best, and I was consistently rooting for my team to hopefully make the NIT, and to Harvard went Tommy.

In came John Beilein. The first of the West Virginia snatchings. Didn't seem like a lot of pomp or circumstance there. Five years later...

BIG TEN CHAMPIONS. BANNER TEAM. PROBABLE 3-SEED IN THE TOURNEY. A FIGHTING CHANCE FOR A REAL RUN.

The new culture of Michigan basketball was a multi-phase process. I don't know if it had to be that way, but it was. From Fisher to Elerbee to Amaker to Beilein. From the Five, to the overrated, to the NIT overachievers, to the NIT under-coached, to the rebirth and vision that is John Beilein's program.

This version of Michigan basketball is a good and proper fit. It's smart basketball, and it's being played by a gritty and determined cast of characters. Who can recite pi to 62 digits. And now it's attracting top talent. This is Michigan basketball, fergodsakes.

I definitely think Beilein is a better coach than Amaker (and most folks in the country), but let's not forget that this took five years to get here.  I think people also need to realize just how much the perception of the Amaker era was shaped by the NCAA selection committee rather than on-court events. 

Michigan posted a losing record in Amaker's first year, then finished 10-6 in the Big Ten in his second (t-3rd), but couldn't go to the tournament thanks to the postseason ban (though a poor start to the regular season may have prevented them from receiving a bid anyway). 

In year 3, the team finished 8-8 in league play (t-5th), then beat #4 seed Iowa to reach the semi-finals of the conference tournament.  On Selection Sunday, only three Big Ten teams made the dance, and Michigan would go on to win the NIT.

In year 4 the team posted a losing record after Daniel Horton became unavailable.  They finished at .500 in the conference each of the next two seasons, but again failed to make the Big Dance (in 2006 they went all the way to the title game in the NIT).

Beilein posted losing records in year 1 and in year 3, despite inheriting Harris, Sims, and future lottery pick Ekpe Udoh who transferred out of the program after Beilein's first season.  In year 2 the team finished .500 in the Big Ten, 19-12 overall, tied for 7th in the league, and didn't make the semi-finals of the Big Ten tourney.  Yet they got into the tournament as the Big Ten sent 7 teams to the dance.  That team very easily could have missed out if the selection committee hadn't been so generous to the conference.  They almost certainly would have missed out if they hadn't gotten a second bite at Duke, so as to post their signature non-conference victory against an unmotivated team that had already defeated them handily on a neutral court. 

If Beilein hadn't made the tourney in year two, how much louder would the calls for his job have been in the middle of last year?  If Amaker hadn't been screwed out of a bid (IMO) 2-3 times, how much more popular would he have been and would he still be here?

As for players getting better, Daniel Horton didn't improve because he was good from day one.  It is the same reason THJ didn't get better this year, and the same reason Trey Burke won't be dropping 25 and 10 every night next year.  Stu is averaging just 1.7 more points than he did as a freshman, despite playing more minutes.  Novak 2.8.  The entire concept of "player development" as something coaches do is completely overblown.  Scouting/recruiting Douglass and Novak was a far more impressive accomplishment than making them better by some small degree over the course of their careers.

There is a great divide on the Fab Five.  Those, like myself, who were in school with them will never be able to hate them.  There were too many good memories of maize baggy shorts, black socks and celebrations on South U.  There were tournments wins against Ohio, Cinnci, UCLA and an OT game against Kentucky that sent my entire fraternty on a sprint to South University so we could dance and get tear gassed.  There was too much of a feeling of watching people my age set the world on fire with a promise that I could, and would, do it too.  

But there was bad too.  There are reasons to condemn them and those who immediately followed. They cheated.  Let's call it what it was.  

The Fab Five lead us to the promise land and then got us lost in the desert.  It was years before the final verdict came down and we could begin to work our way bak.  All the while, we wandered lost and thirsty, reaching for the mirage of the NIT while Sparty won titles and crushed us by 50. 

The divide between those of us who are older than Ace is whether or nor you were there for the promise land.  I was there.  I danced in the street and partied.  I bought a pair of maize baggy shorts.  I suspect that Brian missed the promised land.  By the time he got to Ann Arbor, there was only the wind blown wasteland that came next.  Given that, I don't blame him for his feelings about the Fab Five.  However, I still can't forget how good that milk and honey tasted to a 20-22 year version of me that is fading further and further away.  

There is no way to undo what was done.  We can't give Brian Cook the Final Four runs that filled my college days.  

But, the page has long since turned.  Like the Fab Five, the 20-22 year version of me is gone.  He is a memory that I celebrate with boring stories of shit that happened two decades ago while my wife pretends to listen.  Like the Fab Five, the early-20s me is just not relevant to the kids in school now.  It is their time, it is this team's time.  I hope like hell this team makes a final four.  Not to redeem the Fab Five, but so this generation of students can party on South U. If they do, that's what I will think about - not Weber, King, Rose, Howard and Jackson.  Their time is long past.

One peice of advice from my 20-22 self though - if the cops start with the tear gas, run like hell.

The last time (before last year) I watched Michigan basketball with any degree of regularity was the Fab5 era.  They were awesome and incredible, and you were afraid they were too young and cocky. 

But they were so different than last year's or this year's team that there's no reason to think of the two together.  I didn't think of the Fab5 once yesterday.  And I think I'm a little different than most, after reading Brian's post.  I was embarassed and disappointed as a fan with the way the era ended.  But I still love what they did.  I wasn't walking around with some open wound that needed to be healed.  There were enormous mistakes, these were paid for, and I look back fondly on what they did.  Not dissimilar to the view of mistakes I've made in my own life, admidst successes I remember and cherish today. 

Our guys today are totally different.  There's a bridge that always connects two sets of players that wear the same uniform, especially at a place like Michigan, but there's no reconciliation necessary between them.  One group had their time, and the others theirs... there's a lineage that links them forever, and the more important remembrance isn't direct comparison, but understanding how each of them fits - good or bad - into the Legend of Michigan basketball.

Oh, the Amaker years...the only things I can remember from then (since all else has been repressed of those dark days in Michigan basketball) are Graham Brown killing some guy on a screen and of course "Air Georgia!"

I didn't get season tickets my senior year ('98-99) b/c we played NO ONE* that year at Crisler and the athletic department, for the first time, charged full price for tickets to the exhibition games (hello Athletes in Action!).  We were still in the glow of the Fab 5 and I think that AD effectively said:  "F it, they will come and pay MORE, even for sh*t games".  Well, as evidenced by the bare gold sections over the years, we didn't pay for crap. 

Glad to see that the team is one that makes you willing to at least accept a full price exhibition game, and that the AD is scheduling meaningful home games again.  Go Blue!

*I'm really talking about non-conference.  We basically played Wagner after Wagner after Wagner.  I couldn't justify with my meager college dollars paying full price for 15 crap games (including exhibition games!) to get 5 decent/good games.

Ace, you are a magnificent writer.  I don't like basketball all that much but when you write about it I will read it.

Its been fun to watch Ace's writing style improve so much over the last few months.  The only problem now is that he sounds just like Brian. Given another year and he's going to be among the best sportswriters in the sports blogosphere.

This article was trash! Wait, it was flipping awesome! JB is a great coach, and has so many plays dialed up we need an operator. The future is way too bright, and I dig it. Sparty out.

But you can't question his hires. This was a great piece. (And not to cast stones, but we couldn't have ever gotten this "counterpoint" with your predecessor...it would have been too lock step).

I won't argue Beilein's offensive creativity. I'd just add that it's been defense (football broken record, I know) that they hung their hat on. And a flexibility to garner tough man-to-man with matchup difficulties due to roster holes rather than just being wed to a zone scheme (do we even run zone anymore? Just the occasional monkey wrench).

Tom Izzo is B1G COTY. That's just ridiculous, with Tom Crean and Beilein both more deserving of it than Izzo.

He's doing pretty well after moving on to Harvard. I wonder why he couldn't do it here. (Meant to be a reply up in the Amaker part of the discussion.)

I was around 10, 11 when the Fab Five were playing and even when they moved on, as a middle school basketball player (and proud Club Trillion member, so, for a given definition of "player,") I would still envision myself as Jalen Rose or Chris Webber or whoever I felt like at the time.  Some very formative years, in other words.  So I feel qualified to comment on the real legacy of the Fab Five:

Michigan basketball is supposed to be damn good.

That's all there is to it.  The Tractor Traylor teams sort of kept the promise alive, but really, this is the first time we've gotten back to that kind of thing.  And that's the only legacy the Fab Five needs.  Michigan basketball is supposed to matter.  It matters now.

Probably my favorite of yours.

The Fab Five era makes me cringe a little.  It really goes against all that we have traditionally stood for as a program.  It was the kind of environment that we would look down on if it was at programs like UNLV or Miami.

But now that it no longer defines us, there is a little part of me that thinks it's kind of cool that the Fab Five era happened to us, Goody Two-Shoes Michigan.  Like the Church Deacon who can wink at the kids and tell them: "I used to have a wild side."

wouldn't you just love to know what Amaker is telling him in that picture?

Go blue!

I feel old when thinking about these comparisons.....and there really isn't any between the current team and the Fab Five era, or really even the football team and say the team from 2006 or 2007.  

Webber had more natural talent and ability than the current roster for the basketball team in it's entirty does today.....add in Rose and Howard and that team would simply have been able to overwhelm today's version on talent, but they always seem to lack some poise and the determination and effort that kids like Douglas and Novak bring to the table on a consistent basis.  Had they given the same level of effort on a nightly basis, those early 90s teams should have had more banners (at least in the basement somewhere).

I think with the recruits coming in next year, there are starting to be the pieces put in place to return to the level of talent that you hope Belein can combine with this effort level that should really start to turn thoughts of championship basketball back on Ann Arbor at a national level.  This team should be recognized for their efforts, especially given the lack of natural talent and size that they regularly were giving up to OSU, MSU, etc.

It seems like forever ago, but I grew up watching players like Gary Grant, Glen Rice, Terry Mills when Michigan was a destination program to go to as well and it is starting to finally begin to come back to that level.