Michigan Coach John Beilein spent some of his Sunday looking ahead to the following night’s matchup with Villanova for the NCAA championship. He also said he was “looking forward” to the day when his school reunites the “Fab Five” and honors the extensive contributions those Wolverines made to his school’s basketball history.
Beilein will be coaching in his second national title game with Michigan, looking for his first triumph. The Wolverines’ Fab Five teams of the early 1990s couldn’t quite get over that hump in their two trips to the championship round, but they became arguably the most culturally influential group of college basketball players ever, only to have their history largely erased after an investigation into payments from a Michigan booster.
“We love the Fab Five, and we continue to reach out to the Fab Five and that team,” Beilein said (via The Wolverine) at a news conference in San Antonio, site of the Final Four. “It wasn’t just five guys on that team, now. That was a team of champions, as well.”
“We have a lot of things still going on in the future. We have more banners to raise. We have more jerseys to raise over time. Just stay tuned to all that,” Beilein added. “But the university, when you have the NCAA violations in there, that’s a time that it takes some time to heal. But I’m looking forward to the times when we get everybody in that group together, and all of that isn’t under our control, if you understand that.”
The probe into booster Ed Martin’s association with the Wolverines over a period of several years included contributions from the IRS, FBI and Justice Department, as well as the NCAA. It led to a plea deal for Fab Five standout Chris Webber and the firing of then-coach Steve Fisher, who had won a national title with the 1989 Wolverines before putting together the high-profile quintet of first-year players, which also included Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson.
Michigan wound up not only removing Fab Five-related banners from its arena, but it vacated much of the wins from that era and erased the group’s achievements from its record book. Fans of that time will never forget how Webber and Co. electrified college basketball, and their affinity for baggy shorts and low-cut black socks helped set trends far beyond their sport. But, officially, it’s as if the Fab Five barely existed at all.
“It will happen. We all know it will happen,” Rose said in September of Michigan again raising his team’s banners. “You can’t erase the legacy of what took place.”
The NCAA handed down its own punishment, including probation and the loss of scholarships, and it demanded that Michigan dissociate itself from Webber until 2013. Since then, the bigger problem for hopes of a Fab Five reunion has been Webber’s alienation from his former teammates, a situation to which Beilein referred Sunday.
“If invitations are sent and they’re not accepted, then that’s okay. We’ll just keep doing it,” the coach said. “But one day, like The Supremes [sang] … one day, we’ll be together. We’ll get it all together at one time. In the meantime, we’re not going to dwell on it. We’re just going to keep moving, and it’s Michigan basketball, the past we love and the future we love.”
Another school’s college basketball scandal could have had Beilein claiming the 2013 national title, as Louisville’s vacated wins include its championship-game triumph over the Wolverines, but he was having none of it. “No, we didn’t win that one,” Beilein said Sunday (via ESPN). “It was fair and square.
“They didn’t have six guys on the court. … We lost the game. They won it. I’m going to leave it like that, and that’s the way it should be.”
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