And don't forget Steve Fisher among those that should be implicated in UM's downfall. Dude wasn't minding the store at all. There's a reason Fish never went on to coach at a bigger school (or even a commensurate school) after helping UM win an NCAA tourney and recruiting the Fab Five.

When you are not allowed in the NCAA tourney, it's very hard to recruit the kids that can play at that level. Even though the suspensions have been over for a few years, the glory days of the Fab Five are approaching ancient history for today's high school senior.

I don't know much about Amaker as a coach, so I can't really judge his performance. If Michigan wants to be competitive again, they need a big name coach, maybe a state of the art facility, and a ramped up, well oiled recruiting machine: e.g. Rick Pitino in Louisville.

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"Eastern Conference regular-season champs, baby," said Chauncey Billups. "This is what we set out for when we started the season in training camp. We did it and we're happy." (2003)

I remember that when Pitino was deciding where he would return to when he was going back to college ball, I was at UM, and the school paper had someone saying they had a source who insisted that Pitino was "70% likely" to choose Michigan. My reaction to that was, "um, I think that 30% is looking a lot more likely," which of course is how it turned out.

One problem with getting a big name basketball guy to come to UM is that it'll always be a football school. Of course, football schools can win 'ships in basketball, as UM did and as Florida is currently demonstrating, but few (if any) really big-time established college hoops coaches are going to choose to coach at a football school. Billy Donovan went to Florida as a young up-and-comer--his only head coaching job had been at Marshall.

You are absolutely right. One thing that Pitino brings to the college game is recruiting.

When he tookover at Louisville, their team was mostly kids from Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, and maybe Missouri.

Since Rick showed up, they have kids from all over the country and the even the world playing for them.

Gotta love Izzo. His comments on the Amaker firing (from detnews):


"Not to take a knock at anybody, but administrations better look at, (if) they want coaches to perform miracles, then administrations have to do the same. I’m not sure in fairness to him, after the mess he took over, that was done.
“I feel bad for him as a coach, I feel bad for him as a friend. I feel bad for our profession that guys with 20 wins are getting fired in programs that I don’t think they stressed basketball there. I’ll be open for shots, but you asked me a question, I gave you an answer.”

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"I don't believe there's any problem in this country, no matter how tough it is, that Americans, when they roll up their sleeves, can't completely ignore. - George Carlin