An hour or so after the Michigan basketball team whipped No. 1 Duke Saturday night, Wolverines football star Charles Woodson became the first defender to win the Heisman Trophy.
Guess which story made the bigger splash around Ann Arbor?
Right. Michigan has always been consumed by football, diverted by basketball.
Coach Brian Ellerbe understands, and he didn’t feel his team’s upset of the unbeaten Blue Devils was overlooked in the local media.
“They’re both great Michigan stories,” Ellerbe said Tuesday from his Crisler Arena office.
For much of the fall, the maize and blue basketball program has been relieved to live in the shadow of the nation’s top-ranked football team. The Wolverines basketball team had been making all the wrong kind of headlines recently.
A university investigation into alleged wrongdoing led to the firing in October of head coach Steve Fisher, who had coached the Wolverines to the 1989 national title and two other Final Four appearances.
But once the uproar over Fisher’s dismissal subsided, there was still a basketball season starting. Responsibility fell to Ellerbe, a hastily promoted assistant who had compiled a 34-47 record in three years at the helm at Loyola College in Baltimore.
Ellerbe is an “interim” coach. That means he has no security. It also means he stands almost no chance in the vicious major-college recruiting wars, because blue-chips rarely commit to schools whose coaching situations are muddled.
Rivals also are reminding anyone who is considering Michigan that there is still a possibility of NCAA action against the program, though the firing of Fisher may have been intended to head off NCAA sanctions.
“It’s not the most normal of situations,” Ellerbe said. “We are recruiting, but obviously it’s very difficult because we can’t sell stability.”
But recruiting is next year’s worry. Ellerbe had enough concerns when the Wolverines opened the season with a loss to Western Michigan, then needed a basket at the buzzer to slip past Detroit-Mercy. After a loss at Bradley dropped Michigan to 5-2, the deep, talented Dookies came to town–and left with their first loss of the season.
Ellerbe didn’t consider it an upset, given that Michigan has long since shrugged off its Duke bugaboo.
“We’re Michigan, they’re Duke, and we’re playing at home,” he said.
Now for the hard part: spunky Eastern Michigan Wednesday night in Ann Arbor in the battle of Washtenaw County. The game was postponed last week as Michigan mourned the death of a wrestling team member.
In years past, Michigan has had a tendency to come out flat after a big win. That’s why Ellerbe is pushing his players to maintain their desire. He’d like to see another big-time performance from junior center Robert Traylor, who burned Duke for 24 points and 13 rebounds.
“Eastern will be a big test,” Ellerbe said. “That’s where the maturity comes in. How do we do A.D.–After Duke?”
It’s no wonder Ellerbe refuses to look beyond this week, though it is sometimes difficult not to. Athletic Director Tom Goss has given no public indication of what’s coming, but Ellerbe is holding out hope that he may be retained.
“There’s no gauge,” Ellerbe said. “There are two factors I think will be important. Wins and losses is one. Perception is the other–the perception of the media, the alumni, the powers that be.
“If they feel things are being done the right way, they’ll tip their hat and maybe give a word of acknowledgement.”
He deserves at least that after knocking off the No. 1 team in the country.
Tourney time: Big Ten coaches have a new recruiting tool: the postseason tournament.
Some are even using the United Center, site of the inaugural tournament, as a draw. They’re telling potential recruits that they may have a shot at playing on Michael Jordan’s home court.
“The tournament–there’s a major selling point,” Ellerbe said. “Kids want to have that extra exposure and opportunity.”
Nothing could be finer: Duke’s loss was doubly delicious for North Carolina when it stepped over its fallen rival and into the top spot in the polls.
But no one was celebrating down in Chapel Hill.
“Actually, we don’t want to be No. 1,” senior guard Shammond Williams told reporters. “No. 1 is a jinx. No. 1 puts a big `X’ on your chest, being a Carolina basketball team. We’re very happy to just get wins, be it No. 1 or No. 151.”
Like it or not, this is Carolina’s 72nd No. 1 ranking. Only Kentucky, with 87, and UCLA, with 128, have spent more weeks atop the AP rankings.
Free throws: Kenwood Academy product Nazr Mohammed is the Southeastern Conference’s Player of the Week. Kentucky’s junior center had back-to-back career scoring highs with 19 points against Purdue and 21 against Indiana. Mohammed hit a combined 16 of 21 shots from the floor (76 percent) and grabbed 17 rebounds. “Nazr has such good presence on the court,” Kentucky coach Tubby Smith said. And to think Mohammed isn’t even a starter. . . . Kansas coach Roy Williams is tearing his hair out over his team’s play late in games. Williams said he planned to stress late-game strategy after the Jayhawks nearly gave away a hard-earned victory to Arizona in the Great Eight two weeks ago. But last week, the Jayhawks nearly blundered away a victory at home over Massachusetts, turning the ball over with 5 seconds to play to set up a failed last-gasp shot by the Minutemen. “These games are still a matter of pride,” guard Ryan Robertson said. . . . Robertson has filled in nicely for the departed Jacque Vaughn, but he said he thinks Arizona’s Mike Bibby is the nation’s best point guard. “He’s a fantastic player,” Robertson said. . . . Speaking of Bibby, his Wildcats go against father Henry Bibby’s Southern California Trojans on Jan. 5 in Tucson. The father and son, whose troubled relationship was aired in the media during Bibby’s freshman year, split two meetings last season. . . . Penn State’s Dan Earl, who missed last season with a back injury, likely is out for the rest of this year after tearing knee ligaments. . . . Wisconsin’s Dick Bennett goes for his 400th career victory Saturday against Coppin State in Madison. . . . With a 75-15 record (that’s an .833 winning percentage), the Southeastern Conference is off to its best start of the decade. It also has five teams in both the coaches and media rankings, the first time that has happened in the 1990s. . . . This isn’t the time for struggling Minnesota to be visiting Cincinnati, which is stinging after a 20-point loss to crosstown rival Xavier. The Golden Gophers meet the Bearcats Wednesday night. . . . Has anyone noticed that the leading scorer in the Big Ten is a freshman, and that he plays for woeful Ohio State? Michael Redd, a 6-foot-5-inch guard from Columbus, is averaging 23.2 points a game. He’s also leading the league in three-point percentage, knocking down 50 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.
