
There’s a lot of talk that Tommy Amaker should lose his job because Michigan failed to receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament for the ninth straight year. People say that Amaker has had the job since 2002 and he’s made little to no progress in building a program that can compete on the highest level. They give him credit for being a nice guy and for dealing with NCAA sanctions in his first years with the program but they say it’s time for him to go. Just like the Democrats on Capitol Hill, these cut-and-run advocates won’t allow Amaker to finish the job he started. Oh Henny Penny, they say, the sky is starting to fall! Hogwash.
Amaker’s NCAA Title is just a success that hasn’t happened yet. It doesn’t mean that it won’t occur it just hasn’t occurred as of March 13, 2007. I certainly don’t look at that as a failure. I don’t know why in the world you would. The rest of the Big Ten is quite obviously in the last throes of their resistance to a bright Blue future. I also don’t know why you would focus on the so-called failures when there’s so much success to be found. Dion Harris was third-team All Big-Ten people! Where’s the tickertape parade down State Street? Where are the celebrations on the Diag?
Michigan has a chance to put last year’s confidence building loss to South Carolina in the NIT final to good use at Madison Square Garden later this month. Cutting Amaker loose now would be counterproductive to following through on the master plan. Everyone knew it would take time to win a second NIT title, successes like that magical 2004 run don’t happen every day. If the Wolverines do return to New York they will be greeted as liberators for wresting the NIT trophy from the clammy hands of South Carolina coach Dave Odom and his brutal, autocratic regime.
Am I the only one that realizes that a return to the Garden would make three Final Fours for this group of seniors. Even the blessed Fab Five, with their rule flouting and faux-timeout calls, only made two Final Fours. Give me the hard work and perseverance of Courtney Sims and Lester Abram any day. You can keep your Juwan Howards and your Chris Webbers and their “success.” I know that you’re never going to have to take down that 2004 NIT banner. No guy on this team ever took any money under the table. I think Amaker is the man to thank for bringing some respectability back to Michigan’s basketball program.
I, for one, continue to support our brave Wolverines unlike those that have turned their backs on them. It’s so easy to get caught up in wins and losses but to me that’s all rhetoric. Brent Petway won a Big Ten Sportsmanship Award this season. I seem to remember someone telling me that it “doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Whatever happened to that? All these win-now folks with their focus on the results of the games and the refusal to admit that this has been a golden era for Michigan basketball make me sick.
So Amaker’s won the games that he’s been scheduled to play, he’s given Ann Arbor a reason to hold its head high once again, restored pride to the mock turtleneck and he’s going to finish what he started last year. You go to the NIT with the team you have, not to the NCAA with the team you want. The surge is going to work and the only thing that will hold it back is people who don’t have the nerve to see it through.