A history on how Michigan Basketball used to recruit
Per Hoopscoop. Rankings began in 1983. For the purpose of this post I'm not including any signees outside the top 100. This should give a good overall view of basketball recruiting before the Amaker/Ellerbe years. I included Ellerbe's 1999 class to show that Michigan still had some cache' despite looming sanctions and atrocious facilities. Would be interested if anyone could find anything before 1983. I'm sure guys like Tarpley, McCormick, Hubbard, etc were all highly acclaimed coming out of high school.
1983: Antoine Joubert (#25 overall), Quincy Turner (#64 overall), Garde Thompson (#81 overall)
1984: Gary Grant (#11 overall)
1985: Glen Rice (#6 overall), Loy Vaught (#20 overall)
1986: Terry Mills (#2 overall), Rumeal Robinson (#5 overall)
1987: Sean Huggins (#12 overall), Kirk Taylor (#37 overall), Chris Seter (#52 overall)
1988: No Top 100 players
1989: Sam Mitchell (#42 overall), Tony Tolbert (#44 overall), Michael Talley (#64 overall)
1990: No Top 100 players
1991:Chris Webber (#1 overall), Juwan Howard (#3 overall), Jalen Rose (#6 overall), Jimmy King (#9 overall), Ray Jackson (#84 overall)
1992: No Top 100 players
1993: Bobby Crawford (#19 overall), Oliver St Jean, Makhtar Ndaiye
1994: Jerod Ward (#1 overall), Maceo Baston (#16 overall), Maurice Taylor (#18 overall), Willie Mitchell (#19 overall)
1995: Robert Traylor (#4 overall), Louis Bullock (#11 overall), Albert White (#16 overall)
Sidenote re: 1995. Kevin Garnett was the #1 ranked player and there were substantial rumors he would have come to Michigan if his coach and not "misplaced" his qualifying SAT score.
1996: No Top 100 players
1997: Brandon Smith (#63 overall)
1998: No Top 100 players
1999: Lavell Blanchard (#6 overall), Kevin Gaines (#11 overall), Jamal Crawford (#46 overall), Leland Anderson (#83 overall)
McDonald's All Americans (Began in '79): Blanchard, Bullock, Grant, Higgins, Horton, Howard, Joubert, King, McCormick, Mills, Rellford, Robinson, Rose, Traylor, Turner, Ward, Webber.
I'm not making any arguemnt. I'm presenting some facts and context re Michigan basketball before the Ellerbe/Amaker years and quite frankly this post took quite a bit of time to put together. I'm sorry they aren't partial to a narrative you desperately want to push.
I love Michigan basketball and want to see it succeed just like many here. I hope Beilein is nothing but succesful. But I do think his recruiting has left something to be desired these last few years. If you don't feel that way, more power to you, but no need to try and demean me or make me feel bad about that. It's quite frankly getting old.
is getting old is you taking every angle to demean Beilein and just stepping back and saying "hey, just the facts here." The facts aren't even on your side. There are many more people on this blog that appreciate all of his accomplishments with the program and don't feel the need to post razor-thinly veiled attacks on him when he resurrected this program from the dead. I guess we are just speaking up now because it is getting old and is unfairly hostile toward a really good coach.
Sorry it took so much time for you to do this.
Where am I demaning Beilein? The only critical thing I've posted in this entire thread is that I would like to see him recruit better. After the last two years you don't think that is a legitimate criticism?
Here's a thought, stop being a such an ass to anyone who doesn't worship at the alter of John Beilein. Good lord.
thought. Stop creating and/or turning every basketball post into one criticizing the best basketball coach we have had at this school in 30 years. Everybody on here read enough of your stuff this March to know that you are overtly and irrationally hostile toward Beilein.
Make me. Oh that's right, the first ammendment and all.
m, not two. And there could be nothing less applicable to this exchange than the first am(m?)endment.
LOL at first "ammendment" (sic). The first amendment is about government restricting speech. There's nothing in it that says some rando on a sports message board can post any damn thing he wants without getting criticism for his stupid opinions.
He didn't resurrect the program from the dead. That was Amaker. Beilein deserves plently of credit for building off Amaker, but there's no need to overstate his accomplishments.
right. That NIT title was hype.
What a joke.
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I bet you think Lloyd left the cupboard bear for Rich Rod too am I right?
Beilein inherited back to back 20 win teams and a roster that had Manny Harris, Deshawn Sims, and Epke Udoh.
He square pegged round holed it and had a disaster of a first year.
No, I don't.
Harris was a true freshman, Sims and Udoh hadn't done anything on the court yet (but I'm sure you won't give Beilein any credit for Manny and Peedi's development) and the core pieces of those "back to back 20 win teams" they were so good they couldn't even make the tournament were long gone by Beilein's first year. Check the roster, he was working with scraps.
If the talent Amaker left Beilein was so good, why do you refer to those teams as part of the down years of Michigan basketball that don't count in your biased, incomplete recruiting statistics?
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Udoh never bought into the system and didn't see the fit. He transferred because of that. He wasn't going to be the player he eventually was at Michigan because he didn't believe in the system.
Manny Harris, for as good as he was at Michigan, didn't even get drafted, and rightfully so based on his NBA career. He also didn't really buy in. We're talking about a borderline NBA prospect, a borderline All-Big Ten Player. We aren't talking about a great player. Michigan's best player at the time was merely good. Harris, by the way, improved his shooting percentage every year under Beilein, from 38% to 42%. He dropped his turnovers from 115 to 88. So he did improve under Beilein.
Sims was essentially in the same boat. A good player. Not a great player. Undrafted, rightfully so based on his career. Borderline All-Big Ten type player (he averaged 3.4 pts and 2.3 Reb per game the year before Beilein arrived). Improved throughout his career under Beilein. Went from a 33.3% shooter as a FR (under Amaker) to finishing his final two years above 49% shooting. He improved a lot under Beilein.
Surrounding them? Ron Coleman. Zach Gibson. Kelvin Grady. CJ Lee. David Merritt. Jevohn Shepherd. Anthony Wright. They lost Lester Abram, Dion Harris, Brent Petway, and Courtney Sims (that's 4 starters, for those counting) off of the previous year's team.
Sorry, but that team was always going to be a lot worse than the previous years. On top of that you are installing a drastically different system, and yeah, a bad season isn't all that shocking.
Udoh never bought into the system and didn't see the fit. He transferred because of that.
...and that is on Beilein.
If your system is horrible for those types of players and you won'tt adjust, or you're incapable of explaining to the player how your system will work for them... that is a coaching failure.
*bare
My point was not that guys like Taylor, Traylor, or Bullock were not very talented. They were. My point was that I watched those guys, and many others of that era, scuffle on the court far more than their talent should have allowed. I was at Michigan sitting in the first row from 1994-1997 and even knew a couple of the players personally during that era. And yet we got a lot of first round exits and NIT appearances for all of that talent that was essentially paid for.
Then Ellerbe recruited a lot of guys who were talented but troubled. Those guys couldn't stay on the court for other reasons and often left the program. For about a 7 year period we had an insanely low success rate at getting the roster to stay in tact for 3 let alone 4 years. And during that time we barely registered as a national story after Jalen and Juwan left.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was as frustrated with that era of players as I am with some of hte issues the past two years. It takes good recruiting AND good coaching to build a national power. For a 2-3 year period Beilein had both and so did Fisher. Let's see how Beilein responds now that the pressure is on. But let's not assume that hiring some coach willing to play dirty in recruiting is the answer.
Make me angry. I really should know better than to click on them.
- 11 years without a tournament bid
- 26 years without a Big Ten Championship
- 20 years without a Final Four appearance
- 19 years without a Sweet Sixteen appearance
- 15 years without an All-American
This is like comparing every Michigan football coach to the Rich Rod and Hoke years, or the 50's and 60's when Michigan wasn't very good either.
Except Beilien has vastly, vastly outperformed the program's accomplishments from the two decades prior to his hire. Michigan basketball has literally not been this successful since Bo Schembechler was the football coach. You do realize that firing Beilein is just as likely to lead to the program getting worse as it is to getting better, right?
Nah, I'm not. But at least we can agree on the last point.
you are.
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is a far larger sample than 7 years. (RR-Hoke)
Not sure of the ages of those disagreeing here but it has been my sense that those who came of age during the Fab 5 years are seeing that as the norm or where Mich "should be" than those who have suffered a far longer period of downs as well as the ups, going back to the Cazzie era
That was a different era for a number of reasons.
1. There are far fewer quality recruits coming out of the state of Michigan compared to 20 years ago.
2. Michigan spent a decade-plus in the basketball wilderness from about 1997-2009.
3. Michigan was clearly the top program in the state 20 years ago. That just isn't the case anymore no matter how much we want to believe it's true. Michigan will need to outperform MSU for a good 5-10 years to reverse perceptions again.
Beilein's not a top-notch recruiter, but he's done pretty well with the hand he was dealt.
It's almost like the rest of the world kept turning while Ellerbe and Amaker were coaching at M.
The Fab Five class ranking! Wow.
The world has changed. Stuff like AAU corruption err connections, shoe companies, one-and-dones and celebrity coaches now exist or at least are a hell of a lot more important than they used to be. And, as noted by others, booster money was a thing.
Personally, I don't give a damn about recruiting rankings. And now I'll get off my own damn lawn because I'm tired of reading about people bitching about coach Beilein.
For a minute let's set aside the Fab Five scandal since everyone knows that Webber took some large amount of money (perhaps not as much as reported, but still a lot) and that the others got some sort of perks along the way. Let's look at the other names:
- Traylor/Taylor - Part of the infamous Mateen Cleaves car accident that sparked part of the NCAA investigation.
- Ward - Overall #1 player who was ravaged by injuries, never found a role in Fisher's "offensive system" and ended up being just-a-guy.
- Albert White - Problems from early in his career, transferred unhappily early on.
- Willie Mitchel - Never found a role, played poorly, transferred to UAB.
- Bullock - The peak of the scandal in that he arrived years later, came from a well-off family in Maryland, and had no pre-existing relationship with Martin. Took money for sure, was the last one that the NCAA used to inact the sanctions since the statute of limitations hadn't run out. Pretty good NCAA player, not stellar.
- B. Crawford - Never did anything on the court, left after two years.
- Gaines - Total mess in his brief career, left program.
- J. Crawford - Amazing talent who arrived under some cloud of scandal, got booted by the NCAA for most of the season, left early.
While I'm critical of Beilein's recent recruiting and praise his earlier recruiting and development, I don't like the insinuation that we were doing something right in the gool 'ol days. Other than the Fab Five, none of these teams starting with Fisher's era amounted to anything other than a BTT title and NIT title.
In fact, most of the players on the list failed to live up to personal expectations and far too many left under negative terms. About the only player that I would cite as a GOOD example after the Fab Five would be Lavell Blanchard.
Look at OSU - they had the top B10 class last year and they're all gone early. MSU will be an interesting case study next year.
Star Rankings aren't necessarily the answer in basketball.
Steve Fisher took Michigan to 3 final 4's and won a national title. Even if he had some busts there is no doubt he was recruiting on a level that would have kept Michigan good for a very long time.
1989-90 23-8/12-6
1990-91 14-15/7-11
1991-92 25-9/11-7
1992-93 31-5/15-3
1993-94 24-8/13-5
1994-95 17-14/11-7
1995-96 20-12/10-8
1996-97 24-11/9-9
1997-98 25-9/11-5 (Ellerbe coached this team)
One AWESOME year ('92-93). Three other very good years (89/90, 91/92, 93/94). Good success in the NCAA tourney with his early teams, but some vastly underachieving teams late in his tenure at UM. The Fisher years were exciting on the court, mostly due to a few extended NCAA tourney runs. We were "good", but I think some people have very selective memories regarding the actual success - especially regular season performance - of Fisher's UM teams.
Again: 3 Final 4's and a National Championship in 9 years. Top ranked recruiting classes almost every year I don't know what to tell you if you aren't happy with that.
I was very happy with that performance (through end of the Fab 5 era) at the time. But you also have to admit that Fisher's post Fab 5, highly ranked recruiting classes vastly underperformed. Woefully underperformed. Those were very frustrating years made even more frustrating by the death pall cast over the program in the wake of scandal. You can't have the good without the bad in that era.
Of course. But every coach that recruits at a high level has teams that underperform. Coach K, Bill Self, hell look no further than Lloyd Carr with the football team. It happens.
But over the long run, if you recruit at a consistently high level your results are going to have more peaks than valley's.
Three straight years of underperformance after the Fab 5 era with top-ranked recruiting classes. Ellerbe coaxed a B1G tourney title out of the 4th year, so maybe the performance trajectory was increasing again. But that trajectory was abruptly interrupted by an inconvenient scandal.
The modern fanbase would be throwing a shit fit if JB brought in top ranked recruiting classes and produced the same won-loss records as the mid -90's teams.
You can fawn all you want about top ranked recruiting classes, but the 90's decade was not all roses for Michigan basketball. The Fab 5 era was a euphoric high. The post Fab 5 era was a middling mess of underperformance followed by inglorious death.
The only lesson I get out of the era is "don't get caught".
lot of that can be attributed to how badly the recruiting services misjudged Ward. I know he had some injuries and became serviceable by the time of the 1998 "run," but he was the centerpeice of Fisher's second recruiting push and he was just extremely overrated. I remember being very excited about him and then watching him in Maui and thinking "who is this F-ing guy and how was he ranked as the No. 1 recruit in the nation?"
The 5 coaches preceding Fisher at SDSU had winning percentages of .489, .356, .000, .351, and .399.
so... they seemed pretty desperate. You think the Fisher era should have continued? He had a brief run that seemed like it was less about coaching than anyone who has ever coached.
Point of fact is that there are similar rumblings out of EL about Izzo's recent "recruiting successes". If they are true, I hope it leads to the same spiral that M went down.
This is college basketball. Everyone is cheating. At least everyone competing at a high level year after year.
I don't want that as an alumus of UofM. K? I'll take the current situation a thousand times over.
He didn't recruit the NT team as a HC. If your whole deal is recruiting then keep it simple. You're a clown.
the quotation marks around "offensive system."
This is actually a reply to #83 post by AC1997.
Webber: $280,000
Traylor: $160,000
Taylor: $120,000
Bullock: $71,000
These were loans from Ed Martin, laundering his profits from his numbers racket (lottery) in the local auto plants.
Traylor is the only one to pay him back.
Webber claims to have borrowed and repaid only $38,200.