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.
Bo and Frieder had a prickly relationship, and it was believed by many that Bo thought Frieder was dirty.
I was not a bit surprised when Bo refused to let Frieder coach the '89 team in the tournament. He seemed happy to show him the door.
There were definitely rumors floating around the basketball team in those days.
Although it's possible that Bo just didn't like Frieder's manner. There were also rumors about him expecting to get comped around town, and that wasn't always appreciated.
In any case, Fisher was his assistant for a long time. I expect he knew plenty about what went on before he was promoted.
March 31st, 2016 at 11:14 PM ^
Fisher played the part of the innocent bumpkin, but it seems pretty unlikely he didn't know what was going on. Hell, if local fans like me heard rumors, he was either lying or willfully ignorant.
Reminds me of Pitino's "I'm shocked, shocked" b.s. regarding hookers at Louisville.
Most big time programs recruit that way. It turned into a big deal at Michigan because the FBI got involved. Without the FBI investigating Martin, the NCAA would have done nothing. Just look at UNC, Louisville, Kentucky etc.
Michigan had the misfortune of having one of its boosters doing illegal stuff that the FBI investigated, meaning there was an actual investigatoin, unlike what happens everywhere else.
Exactly. Duke had similar situations with Corey Maggette and Lance Thomas, and those are just two players we publicly know about. I'm sure there are more. Just a reality of college basketball.
Ed Martin gave money to a lot of kids who went to schools other than Michigan, Mateen Cleaves being one. Did Izzo cheat?
And if you want to give Jalen grief, then any school that recruited a kid out Detroit had illegal classes back then.
I'm pretty sure everyone knows Webber was getting paid well before Michigan...
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I knew from the title that this was going to be a MaizeHaze post.
Me hates standardized tests
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...have two thoughts:
1.) I don't think anyone argues that Michigan's MBB recruiting has been where we want it to be in the last three years.
2.) All of those great recruits amounted to one non-vacated Final Four (the 1989 championship year) and two Big Ten regular season championships. Beilein has taken Michigan to a Final Four and two Big Ten regular season championships (one of them shared).
quite a bit like 1987. Next year looks quite a bit like 1983.
Not sure you can look at it like that entirely. Michigan didn't win a big ten title with the Fab 5 but played in two title games. Conversely Beilein's 2013 team didn't win a big ten title but also played in a title game, while his 2012 team won a big ten title but lost in the 1st round.
Point is Michigan basetball used to be a destination it just isn't anymore for a multitue of reasons.
1990-2009(20 years), 2 championship game appearances(both vacated cuz rules), 1 Elite 8, 0 BIG titles.
2009-present(7 years), 1 championship game appearance, 1 Elite 8, 2 BIG titles.
Same could be said for Duke before K (0 national titles before 1990), Uconn before Calhoun, Syracuse before Boeheim, MSU before Izzo, and on down the line.
Michigan has played in more national title games than all but 5 programs in the country.
Duke and Syracuse are #4 and #5 in both all-time wins and win %.
Being among the top six for "Most national title games played in" is a nice feather in our cap, bit that seems like a pretty esoteric measuring stick.
Michigan is nowhere near the top in NCAA titles, Final Four appearances, NCAA appearances, all-time wins or winning percentage.
I love Michigan basketball, but we're simply not historically great. We're historically pretty good.
Duke and Syracuse are #4 and #5 in both all-time wins and win %.
...but they weren't before Coack K and Boeheim. They were just middling programs.
MSU was a mediocre program with little history before Izzo.
Etc.
That is the point. If those schools can make that jump from no history middling programs to elite, why can't we?
A lot of the high end recruits we got in the 80's and early 90's had ZERO connection to Ed Martin. Not to mention the succes we had in the 70's.
The '91 class didn't take money to come to Michigan. In fact, 4/5 didn't take any illegal benefits. One of them, Chris Webber, took money while he was in school, but after he declared for the draft. Then he royally fucked up and had a meltdown during the Ed Martin investigation and perjured himself, thus raining down pure destruction on the program.
The improper benefits DURING school came in later recruiting classes (as in AFTER '91) to Maurice Taylor, Robert Traylor, and Louis Bullock. Also, as mentioned previously, Ed Martin gave money to A LOT of kids who went on to play for multiple schools. Case in point: Mateen Cleaves in MSU.
So in short, stop misrepresenting the scandal and then presenting a ridiculous straw man where the scandal was responsible for all of Michigan basketball's woes since then. Ohio State got smashed with the Jim O'Brien mess in 2004, and they were NCAA runner ups 2 years later. Hell, the best model for Michigan's interests is Indiana. They went through the Kelvin Sampson/Eric Gordon saga that cratered their basketball program. They hired Tom Crean, who inherited a roster of only 2 walk-ons when he got there, pushed the program through 3 years of mediocrity then broke through in Year 4. Ever since 2011, Indiana has been an above average to elite team (albeit underachieving at times). It took Indiana 4 years to recover, it took Michigan 12 to somewhat recover. The disaster of Michigan basketball from 1999 onwards WAS NOT due to sanctions. It was due to subpar hiring by the athletic department and inept coaching.
As for recruting, I notice that you did not respond to the rebuttal of Michigan having great recruting classes in the '60s, '70s, and early to mid '80s. Or were all of those dirty as well? Running a clean program may mean you miss out on some top level recruits, but it does not excuse being outrecruited by Harvard and UMass.
It is perfectly reasonable to appreciate the work John Beilein has done and still criticize some of his glaring weaknesses. It is also reasonable to evaluate how to get Michigan basketball to the next level. In recruiting, when the other side is playing dirty, you need to be creative/innovative in your approach. Harbaugh has shown that in spades for football; Beilein needs to do the same for basketball.
To buttress your claim that Michigan has never been a destination school for basketball, you throw out the carefully worded "some of the best classes" were under Martin. This implies Michigan can only get great classes when they cheat. This is BS on 2 accounts:
1) Martin never paid ANYONE to COME to Michigan; those elite recruits decided to come on their own. They definitely saw Michigan as a destination.
2). They had multiple elite classes throughout the early to mid 80s, the 70s and 60s.
And point #2 rebutts your assertion that we've only had good recruiting classes "here and there". While we can agree to disagree whether or not Michigan was a destination pre-1999, we are certainly more of a destination for basketball than Harvard or UMass. But I'm pretty sure both of those schools have outrecruited us 2 years in a row.
Martin-type figures are at the center of a lot of AAU ball and Michigan, because of the precedent of the Martin scandal and because of Belein's professional ethics, won't go near them. The root of Belein's recruiting difficulties are his refusal (with the support of university administrators) to engage with the corrupt world of AAU "grassroots basketball."
For example, the main AAU guy in DC (the "GM" of DC Assault) was sentenced to 100 months in prison a couple years ago for cocaine and heroin distribution. Here's a snippet of si's story on him...
Malone "controlled so much talent that coaches recruited his players, hired his coaches and overlooked his past indiscretions. Three of 10 recruited scholarship players on the Duke roster in 2010–11 were from D.C. Assault. “I think everyone was shocked,” says Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski of Malone’s drug-dealing career. “How would you know that? I feel bad for the family. He’s been a great father to Nolan.”
But some weren’t shocked. When he was coach at Maryland, Gary Williams refused to deal with Malone, telling his assistants that he wasn’t going to deal with a drug dealer. “I know what he is,” Williams, who declined to comment for this story, told The Washington Post in 2009.
To get access to Malone’s players, a college would often have to hire Assault coaches, and this just extended Malone’s power and reach. Nearly a dozen Assault coaches have joined college staffs in the last decade. Mark Turgeon, who replaced Williams with the Terps in 2011, immediately hired Hill from Kansas State. Turgeon declined to comment to SI, but this gave Maryland, Under Armour’s flagship Division I basketball program, access to Under Armour’s top AAU program."
http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2014/08/20/curtis-malone-aau-baske…
No need to convince me that AAU is the work of the devil. With that amount of money, mixed with complete lack of regulation/oversight, combined with young, impressionable athletes, and seasoned with poor families, dark shit happens. It's the same kind of thing that happened/happens with Miami-Dade County high school football.
But that being said, not all AAU coaches are scum (our very own Tai Streets ran one of the top AAU teams in Chicago called Mean Streets). And there are other ways to access top level recruits if you are the Head Coach of Michigan than just AAU coaches. The overall vibe I get from the Beilein camp is that they just tolerate recruiting, while they love coaching. To make it in college athletics, you need to be Harbaugh and love/be elite at both.
Considering UNC thought it was a good idea to make up classes for athletes, Kentucky pretty much gives its players a salary and benefits, and Kansas/Duke being all kinds of shady, we probably should steer clear of that mess. But I think it's completely reasonable to get to Maryland/Indiana level in terms of recruiting.
By end of last year a lot of people were looking at Doyle, MAAR, Dawkins, and Chatman as another great class by Beilein. MAAR was a 3-star, just like Trey! Dawkins was an overlooked late-class addition with elite athleticism - just like Caris! Chatman's a 5-star - just like GR3 - just give it time. Doyle's like Jordan Morgan but FAST (errr...more skilled).
Around this time there was a lot of "THIS IS FINE" talk. Who needs top 100 recruits when you have Beilein's skill identification. Besides basketball recruiting is so diiiiirty ewwww, let's just be a mid-major.
A lot of denial about the failures of that recruiting class could be covered up by youth, but after consecutive bad classes this year it became far more evident.
This is why I get pissed off at the recruiting by Beilein because we always used to get some of the best players, we just don't go after them as aggressively anymore.
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old timers about Frieder you are correct.
Beilein is a shitty recruiter. And if he was such a star spangled awesome in-game coach, maybe his teams would play a little defense once in a while.
weren't even alive when UM recruited at that level. I don't understand how this OP's post is relevant at all, especially when the chart conviently leaves out the two coaches leading up to Beilein - the only period that recruits would even remember. Everyone knows the fab 5... but everyone also knows Larry Bird, and you don't see kids lining up to go to Indiana State.
This is akin to BYU football fans being pissed off that they aren't national title contenders every year.
And Michigan is one of the best universities, public or private, on the entire planet.
There is no reason, NONE, why we should accept mediocrity in basketball, or anything else for that matter. 500k living alums, probably 10x that in fans around the world, a massive endowment, and an athletic department swimming in cash.
Explain to me why Michigan shouldn't be a top 10 basketball school.
to me why Texas, LSU, and Ohio State are not top 10 basketball schools.
They don't prioritize it. All they care about at those schools is football. Also, OSU has an endowment about 1/3 the size of Michigan's and LSU's is under $1 billion. UT has more $ system wide, but I submit to you that none of those schools are as well rounded academically and financially as Michigan is.
At Michigan, football will always be king. Is it fair to expect a secondary program to be a perennial contender? Does any school have that with their secondary program, whether it be football or basketball?
There are a handful of schools that excel in both (Wisconsin is the best example I can think of who is perennially solid in both), but to have two programs that are routinely near the top just doesn't exist. Michigan basketball can and does have its sporadic spikes in success, but to expect sustained success is unrealistic.
Michigan has a ton of resources, more than most. But the bulk of those resources go to football, not basketball. To compete at the top, Michigan basketball has to outduel schools whose basketball program is the primary at their school. That's a huge hurdle to overcome.
The most glaring challenge I see is in recruiting visits. A kid comes to an early season game at Crisler and sees a half-full arena of fans mildly engaged in the action. Contrast this with an Indiana, or even a Dayton, where basketball is king and the arena is always full and energized. The recruit would be coming in knowing that no matter how successful the team is, it'll always be second fiddle to football.
I'd love to see Michigan basketball become a perennial contender, I just don't see how it is possible.
you mention Wisconsin as being "perennially solid".
It's true they've been pretty good for quite a few years now, but until the 90's they absolutely sucked at both sports for decades.
Since 2000 they've really stepped up their game in both sports.
That's true, and after I wrote it I wondered if they've been good long enough to be considered perennial. Got any suggestions for a better example? Really, I'm thinking Michigan might be the closest to fitting the bill but I'd like to have something else for comparison.
Ohio State
Michigan State
Florida
Wisconsin
Oregon
Texas (if we stopped counting after 2010...)
Louisville has been successful, but not sure if I'd consider them a National Title threat in football (same with Arizona)
Notre Dame
Oregon
As far as I can see, Michigan is about as close as anyone.
OSU has had a few periods of greatness in hoops. They might be the one school that can boast equal long-term success in both sports (it pains me to write that). Their early '60's hoops teams were top-notch, and Matta has had a good run.
Also sadly, MSU has probably had the best football-basketball run in recent years. Of course, historically they've usually been behind us in both sports.
Florida had one great run in basketball and quite a bit of football success, but for decades they sucked in football and hoops. Wisconsin we already discussed.
UCLA has had periods of football success, but they wouldn't be considered a "perennial power". North Carolina has had some good football teams too. They are the only basketball "blue bloods" with any football success.
Texas, Oklahoma and ND have had some success in hoops, but nothing really spectacular. Syracuse used to be good in football.
That's about it. It's exactly why I feel its unrealistic to believe we can be consistently great at both sports. No school has ever done it.
Off-hand that's a great list you've assembled. I'm currently researching all-time winning percentages for each sport, though basketball has been difficult to find for most teams. So far it looks like Notre Dame is the strongest historically when comparing both sports by school, followed by Texas, Alabama(?), Ohio State, and Oklahoma. I'll post full results at the site in my signature when I've collected everything I need.
I used this. You can search by several criteria. Good luck!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_teams_with_the_most_victories_in_…