By Andy Gardiner, USA TODAY
CHARLOTTE ? A day before his team faced defending national champion and No. 1 seed Duke in the NCAA tournament, Michigan's John Beilein reminisced about his first game as a Division I coach.
By Chuck Burton, Associated Press
Michigan coach John Beilein answers a question during a news conference for the West regional NCAA tournament game in Charlotte, N.C.
By Chuck Burton, Associated Press
Michigan coach John Beilein answers a question during a news conference for the West regional NCAA tournament game in Charlotte, N.C.
Beilein had just taken charge at Canisius and the Golden Griffins opened the 1992-93 season against defending national champion Duke and coach Mike Krzyzewski at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It was a midweek game but when Canisius arrived for practice, a horde of students was already camping out for tickets.
"I thought, damn, they're setting up Krzyzewski-ville to play Canisius," Beilein remembered. "I asked somebody and he said, heck no, we play Michigan this weekend. How ironic is that right now?"
The eighth-seeded Wolverines (21-13) are coming off a 75-45 dismantling of No. 9 Tennessee in the opening round, a game in which Michigan shot 64% from the field in the second half. It was another step forward in Beilein's mission to return a once-storied program to national prominence.
Michigan opened the Big Ten Conference season 1-6. It needed a four-game winning streak at the end of the season with victories over Michigan State and Illinois to earn one of the last at-large NCAA tournament berths.
The Wolverines did it with a roster entirely recruited by Beilein over his four years in Ann Arbor, one without a senior and with a playing rotation that starts two freshmen and brings two others off the bench.
"Preseason projections weren't in our favor and people had us at the bottom of the Big Ten," said sophomore guard Darius Morris, top man in scoring and assists. "I think everybody (on the team) throughout their basketball careers has been an underdog. We've embraced that chip we play with on our shoulder."
Michigan has been to the NCAA tournament two of the last three years after falling short for 10 consecutive seasons. This is the Wolverines' 22nd NCAA appearance but they had to vacate victories in five of those years because of NCAA sanctions.
Some of those sanctions involved the "Fab Five" teams that played between 1992-95 (Duke beat Michigan in the 1992 title game). One of those five, Jalen Rose, said in a recent documentary he produced that he hated the Duke program when he played. He called the blacks who went to Duke Uncle Toms and said the school would never recruit players like him who came from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Both the Michigan and Duke camps have sidestepped any comment on Rose's statements beyond saying it has nothing to do with Sunday's showdown.
"I don't even know what an Uncle Tom is," said Duke senior guard Nolan Smith. "That was a long time ago."
While acknowledging the depth of the rivalry between Michigan and Duke 30 years ago, Beilein is focused on the future.
"We just want to build this Michigan program so that it is a lasting and consistent program like you see in Duke," he said. "Michigan State, Wisconsin, Ohio State ? they're all back (in the tournament) every year. That's where we want to be."
Krzyzewski said it is only a matter of when, not if, this happens under Beilein.
"I think it's a no-brainer to say that when they hired John that they were going to be eventually a consistent NCAA participant," said Krzyzewski, who with a win would becomes the second Division I men's coach to reach 900 victories, following his mentor Bobby Knight.
"He's a program-builder. These are all kids he's recruited and they believe in what they're doing. As good as they are individually, they're better together which is always a sign of a solid and winning program."
Michigan and Duke played twice within two weeks in the 2008-09 with the Blue Devils winning the first meeting 71-56 in Madison Square Garden before the Wolverines won 81-73 in Ann Arbor.
And what about that first game in Beilein's career 20 years ago in Cameron?
"I think we were down 32-24 and Coach K called a time out," Beilein said. "I said, 'Boy, I think we've got a pretty good team here. We can hang with Duke.'
"The next thing I knew it was 62-26. Then they got back in a soft zone and let us at least come out of there with some dignity."
The final was 110-62.
read baseball news read soccer news more sports news more football news more cricket news
No comments:
Post a Comment