Tell me about the Fab Five II

Maceo had go go gadget arms. He and Bullock were my favorite players of that era, money aside.

The year they won the NIT  they were probably an elite 8 caliber team.  Ward was hurt for half the season and he came back and they came together.  

They were big and scary.

All I remember is that they came in and played with Jimmy and Ray when they were seniors and that they won the first B1G tourney along with Bullock and Traylor in '98

They weren't "Fab Five II," they were the "Fresh Five."  

Actually, the original Fab Five was in the early '80s.  The more famous Fab Five was technically the second.

Taylor was a rock solid power forward. Good fundamental player with good size. Baston was more long and athletic with a crazy wing span. Ward never looked good. Huge disappointment. Never understood the hype surrounding him, even when he was healthy. Willie Mitchell could have been a Sean Higgins type, but flamed out.

Sweet Lou would light it up for Beilein. All the off court stuff sucks, but his shot was pure. Tractor was my favorite player ever. Huge dude that had unbelievably good hands and touch. Those were the guys I enjoyed most from that time period.

I remember Maceo being a shotblocker was a huge wingspan. Bullock was a high volume shooter and automatic from the free throw line. Traylor was just a beast. younger fans wouldn't recognize the "old" team and having a big man that size. he was very big in the upper body, but had chicken legs and was surprisingly nimble. Maurice Taylor was just an all around solid player. raw athleticism. Travis Conlon/Dugan Fife/Robbie Reid (a transfer) provided your token white guy 3 point shooting. They were ball handler/facilitators whose role was to get the ball to the other guys. one of my favorite videos from the era is on YouTube when they DESTROYED Bobby Knight's IU team.

Beating #1 duke after trailing by 18 and then racing home to watch Woodson win the heisman.

Jerod Ward was a straight and narrow type of guy. He didn't hang out much with the rest, often I found him on Friday nights chilling in West Quad while the rest will be out partying. (I worked at the front desk at West Quad during their freshman year and saw them come and go.) He was the most like a "normal student" of all the basketball and football players in West Quad, so the Fab Five II did not even come close to matching the swagger from the original Fab Five. I don't even refer to them as the Fab FiveII

2 of those 3 years Duke was down. First year Coach K missed most of the season for health reasons. Second year they were better and the third year they were back up to more of what you'd expect from a Coach K team. Don't really care, 3 wins is 3 wins. Screw Duke.

Bullock was such a fun shooter to watch. Always thought it was going in when he shot it. Taylor was a stud. My favorite of them all was Maceo Baston. 6’9” guy who looked like he was 7 ft with his wingspan, and jumped like he was on a pogo stick. After seeing the player DJ Wilson became last year, I would have loved to see what Beilein would have done with Baston.

My main memories when those guys played was tons of underachieving. They had many wins over great teams and so many losses to teams they had no business losing to. The year they won the NIT, they had won at Duke and beat the eventual national champion Arizona at the Palace. Couldn't even make the tourney. The following year, they pounded Syracuse, beat #1 Duke, won their 5th straight over Tom Izzo (Izzo considered it a moral victory that Sparty "only" lost by ten) gave Bobby Knight a 112-64 ass kicking at Crisler (the most points Indiana has given up in their history) and beat a really good Purdue team in the conference tournament championship. But they also lost to Western, Eastern and f*cking Bradley. I was at Crisler for that stupid Eastern loss. It was one week after we had beaten Duke. It was Christmas break so few students were there. My dad and I were the only Michigan fans in the upper bowl completely surrounded by EMU students who took that place over. Lost in overtime. It was horrible. The inconsistency was maddening. But just one year later, the program's nose dive to hell with Ellerbe started about a 15 year stretch of pure crap and we had much bigger issues to worry about.

Baston was a Texas kid who had this crazy wing span. Ward was the top HS player coming in but was underwhelming. Traylor was a physical beast..he should've played football. Taylor was very consistent. Kevin Garnett was slated to come, but decided to go to the NBA directly. Mitchell was good, I think he died while playing in Italy, some faulty water heater emiiti g monoxide.

would be interesting to do.

Jerod Ward has made something of himself:

http://www.jerodward.com/

Nice to see...

 

Travis Conlon stood out as a massive jerk (had a buddy who shared a house with him). Also as someone who couldn’t break a press to save his life

This era of Michigan basketball was the first that I have real memories of. I remember Ward being very underwhelming; he seemed to take a lot of corner jumpers and not be very aggressive. I loved Taylor and Baston; very athletic guys who could finish around the rim. Mitchell was a bust, and Conlan was average at best. About 10 years ago, my brother and I spotted Maurice Taylor at the Venetian playing blackjack. Nothing too crazy, about $100-$200 a hand. My brother was a total fanboy and tried chatting him up about his time at UM, but Mo wasn’t too interested, lol.

It just goes to show much like the dantonio era the Izzo era may have never happened if Michigan doesn't get hit with probation. This could have been the choice of top recruits. Hopefully not the way apparently recruiting is won today

for the history lesson.

I actually opened this thread thinking it was highlighting a thread re: our current team.

My wife, girlfriend at the time, is a Dukie.  Like all Dukies, when it came to basketball she looked down her nose at Michigan.  After their 20 point win over Michigan in the National Championship, they all thought the Fab Five was just an undisciplined joke.

When she took me to a Duke game at Cameron not long after that, they were all wearing shirts that said:  "You can talk the game, but can you play the game?  We can play."  It was a jab at the Fab Five.

But . . . we beat Duke in '95 when Coach K was out most of the season with a bad back, in '96 at Cameron on Traylor's last second shot, and then the surprise win in '97 coming back from being down nearly 20 points.

That was unheard of at that time.  No out of conference team was beating Duke 3 years in a row.

Especially a "football" school.

I certainly gave me something to brag about.