Warde Throws Water On Idea of Hanging Fab Five Banners
I guess we can put this to bed.
Good. I liked his response.
I'm not against raising banners at all. But I'm 99 percent concerned about Juwan being a good coach and 1 percent concerned about banners. Way more interested in whether Jalen Wilson is coming or not.
You are 100% correct
Not only that, but any talk about banners just puts the spotlight in the exact wrong place. This fanbase is really cultish about these kind of things, and it has always felt off to me. Incestuous almost.
/\This. Let Juwan focus on coaching the team. He doesn’t need to step right into a controversy.
I think it does go to recruiting swagger somewhat. Glad for the response as far as institutional focus goes. But still very much hope that we haven't heard the last of it. They accomplished something great, and I hope that Howard marries that era to the one we've been in for a decade and produces something beautiful.
Can't make threads since I'm stuck on 0 points, but Dickie V just tweeted that Michigan hired Martelli and Eisley...
Idk if he knows anything or not but thought it was noteworthy...
I think you've got a lot of promise, kid. Here's a point, so you're on your way to however many you need. Looking forward to reading your threads.
I don't understand why it took him so long to answer that. Juwan's reply was fine, "we'll have a conversation." Warde took ten minutes to arrive at "no."
You mean because he was answering other questions not related to the Fab 5? Pretty sure he talked about how he didn't hire Juwan to re-raise banners pretty much immediately after a question about that.
Actually I just found the video. The reporter asked "Where do you stand on the notion of the Fab 5 coming back together...?"
Warde's first words, "No. First of all, let me be clear. Juwan Howard is hired to coach our basketball team and lead us to tremendous success. He's not here to raise banners."
You don't seriously think it should have been in his opening statement, do you?
Actually he is here to raise banners, Warde.
He also stated that it was the University that made the decision and it's their matter.
So... Mark Schlissel's decision.
Ugh. Thanks Mary Sue Coleman. 1 of the 30 things that made her presidency awful.
At least she left a better legacy than Lou Anna Simon. Low bar, I know.
Her shining moment was her speech at halftime. The after party where she was rode hard and put away wet .
And you rip Beilein in other threads and Warde later in this. Is there anyone at Michigan you don't hate?
Lol what?
Are you still drunk from last night's Martelli thread?
I said Warde's answer annoys me more b/c Bando's high horse ass thinks the convo about the banners is over.
Methinks The Cube is a little too spun today. It's going to be OK.
He dodged that question and passed off the buck on that one. He's owning the Howard hire, but will not step on that land mine. I am not impressed thus far with Warde, I think he botched this press conference and I think he botched this hire. I hope for the best, I'm just not impressed.
I think he botched this press conference
Hell yes... that was completely cringe-worthy to watch if one considers M a big time school.
And did NOT one person in the <insert name of wealthy donor here>_Athletic_Department not think to prep Howard, or do a dry run, beforehand?
I don't have a problem with the crying like others have posted... it was a genuine moment of emotion and totally okay with it.
I do have a problem with Howard being up there having to pull shit out of his ass like "my tactical strategy is to work harder than other programs". Well thank goodness... all the other 350 DI schools are thinking hell, work harder, *that's* what we've been missing all these years.
Warde and/or staff failed Howard by not prepping him. SMH.
Was it just me or was this press conference a little weird? Coach was good but went off on tangents quite a bit and Warde was a little hostile.
Not really. I didn't see Warde as hostile at all. What tangents are you talking about? Juwan seemed slightly off at times, but he was obviously emotional considering he was crying the first 2 minutes and the mic was too short for him, so sometimes he'd get too loud when he bent down more.
I'm not entirely sure you want your new head coach to be crying for two minutes in his introductory press conference.
Just..... kind of weird.
I thought he would be more "coach like." He kind of seemed more like a college player still. I did not foresee "Chris, Jimmy, Jalen" let alone Dugan Fife and Leon Derricks to be make their way into his speech. Just being completely honest. The introduction did not instill a ton of confidence in me.
Juwan crying at coming home to Michigan is going to play so well with recruits if you're worried about perception.
We had a wildly buttoned up dude for a long time. Things are different in many places and they'll be different here now, too.
Juwan might not even lecture players on how they wear their hats or make them listen to edited music in the weight room!
Wow. Just wow.
Look, he may the best coach in Michigan history. I just thought the intro presser was a little strange.
Emotions are weird to some i suppose
Yes. I am a complete sociopath.
I knew it all along!
I agree ijohnb, though I am fine with him showing his emotions. My issue was with his terrible answers and blank stares. - it did not instill confidence in me for this hire. Top that off with Warde's terrible answers and contradictions, and I really was not impressed. It was a brutal press conference, looking at this objectively. If this was any other school, we'd be ripping them up an down. Saying that we can have a coach who is going to grow into this position and that they need to start somewhere, is an insult to this program and to what Beilein built. They had a damn week to prepare for this press conference... and this is what they come with?
You summed it up better than I did. The entire thing just felt and looked really amateur.
In case you missed his point Juwan listed not just the Fab 5, but many of the other players and people associated with the teams he was on. It was a great way of instilling the message that he is more than just about the Fab 5. He is about the team, the team, the...hey, how did that sneak in here?!?
I think it sends a strong message to every guy on the current roster on down to the student trainers. Everyone is important to the success of the program.
Fair enough, but would you have preferred something other than “no clue but we are going to figure that shit out together” when asked about his coaching style?
I just think he needed to come across a little more prepared and professional than he did. Nobody really knows if he can coach yet and this was kind of a crucial first impression. He seemed like he was ready to play some ball but that isn’t what he is coming here to do. He is going to be coaching against Tom Izzo next year. Needs to command the room a bit.
The idea that a coach needs to command the room is based on a very outdated view of what a coach is supposed to be. Many kids do not want a General MacArthur type telling them to charge through that wall because it's the proud thing to do.
Juwan actually addressed coaching against Izzo and I loved his answer. He respected what Izzo has done but then said let's do it.
This is where I agree with Warde, let Juwan grow into the head coach he is going to be. He has all of the skills, background, and capability. Labeling him already is really ridiculous when he hasn't had one practice or game yet.
This reply is underrated. I LOVE Beilein but, one of the criticisms was how strict he is about everything and how little input the athletes got in those decisions. On one hand it is what made him great, on the other it surely limited the pool of athletes willing to come to UM.
Juwan will coach in a way that is more attractive to today’s players, but will it be more effective? That is the question.
it shouldn’t even be asked right now, let Howard settle in, make a name for himself coaching. If all goes well I’m sure he will have some pull in that later.
+1 bold statement
Sometimes it’s the only way I can comment. It won’t let me click the box unless I hit bold, I’m on mobile btw
I have that problem on mobile too.
it’s a pain in the ass.
meta? Anyone there?
Just raise a Fab Five banner and be done with it. We've had like six banners since those were taken down and those are still the only ones people talk about
Yeah, well "people" talk about them for the wrong reasons. I'd rather focus on the ones that are actually hanging as well as moving forward with the new coach winning games.
I've always been indifferent about the raising of the Fab 5-era banners. Yes the NCAA is hypocritical and dozens of other programs have the same hanger-ons as Ed Martin, but Michigan was the one that was caught and, honestly, getting punished is the "idiot tax" you pay for getting caught. So if Michigan wants to raise the banners I won't lose any sleep, but Michigan has had real, sustained success recently that (seemingly) was all above-board that it sort of cheapens it a bit to hang them next to a bunch of banners from an era that ended with a whimper.
If I recall and understood the Ed Martin scandal correctly, he was front running tons of kids with loans that he'd hope to cash on in future when they were in NBA... and had he not been given free tickets by Fisher, then he'd have been considered not associated with the program. Is this correct?
That it came down to the free tickets only ?
Hard to judge what was going on in the 90s through the lens of modern compliance, but I also think Fisher and the rest of the AD probably didn't try hard enough to monitor Martin and the players he was paying. Ultimately it's the program's responsibility to make sure everyone is compliant with the rules, and looking the other way to have plausible deniability is not doing enough.
I don't beleive that Fisher knew that Martin was paying them....and giving others tickets may have been innocent.... Once as a student season ticket holder, some of us wanted to go to Lexington for the sweet sixteen.... I couldn't score tickets anywhere, so I went to a practice at Crisler and waited, and asked Coach Fish if there is any way I could get tickets... he told me to wait a week and call me at the Registry Hotel in St. Paul, when he was there, to see if he had any... I did... and he got me a pair of tickets. True story. Coach Fish is genuinely nice person... cannot say the same thing about the Mrs. however...
Fisher had to know what was going on. For one thing, he stopped Martin a couple of times from paying for things like plane tickets for players. It also was pretty obvious by the end what was going on, when Taylor, Traylor and Bullock were driving around campus in souped-up SUVs. At the same time, Fisher gave Martin complimentary tickets, once even forging Perry Watson's initials.
I don't think Fisher wanted to be dishonest, but he probably just accepted that this was how big-time college basketball operated. And he was correct. We just had the bad luck that Ed Martin was wanted by the FBI.
I don't remember all the details and minutiae, but that sort of makes sense. I think the bigger issue was that he was also paying for things (like cars like the infamous Mateen Cleaves accident) that the NCAA sorta couldn't ignore because of how prevalent and obvious the violations were. I tend to think that the NCAA would have found a way to attach Martin to UM in one way or another if the tickets hadn't existed; by that point if the NCAA is coming after you they can't find some incriminating evidence to create the pretense of a connection.
The first NCAA investigation (in 1997) turned up little concrete evidence, because everyone involved clammed up, and the NCAA doesn't have subpoena power. The school pretty much knew what was going on though, and fired Fisher for it.
What really got us in trouble was the FBI probe a couple years later that forced the players to come clean. This gave the NCAA the evidence it needed to reopen the case.
The school pretty much knew what was going on though
That's odd... The department put up pictures of Ed Martin with a caption of do not associate with this man in the facilities.
... but let's deal in facts here. The school did know about it. That doesn't mean they "condoned" it. It's like telling your kid not to do something and it's the first thing they go and do. Webber went and took the money. That's where the outrage should be focused.