The Last Word on Tommy? Part 1

I've probably embarrased myself by declaring so much love for Tony Kornheiser's show on Washington Post Radio before, but he had two interviews last week that I think could be of interest to Michigan basketball fans. So during this lull, before John Beilein is officially introduced as the Wolverines' next coach (and in the meantime, Maize n Brew has given him a checklist to go over), I figured this could be a good way to pass the time.

Last Thursday, Kornheiser talked to his old buddy John Feinstein about the Final Four, and more specifically, Kentucky's interest in Billy Donovan. Toward the end of the interview, however, Mr. Tony snuck in a question about Tommy Amaker, whom he still holds a curiosity for because he's a "local kid" from northern Virginia, and - as Michigan fans might hurt to remember - he was considered something of a future coaching star when he arrived in Ann Arbor.

I've transcribed the conversation about Amaker for you to read (which I hope I'm allowed to do), but if you'd prefer to listen to it yourself, the show is available via podcast. (You can also download the show directly here.) If you're pressed for time, the Amaker stuff is from the 51:27 to 53:33 mark.

Tony Kornheiser: What's the deal with Tommy Amaker?

John Feinstein: I wish I knew the answer to that. To me, Tommy has everything that should make him a successful college coach. He's a bright guy, he came out of a great program, he learned from a great coach, he's someone people like when they meet him. He's gotta be great in the homes. You know, any mother has gotta look at Tommy Amaker and say, "I want my kid to be with him for four years." He recruited some very highly rated high school players when he was at Michigan, and they never, ever lived up to their alleged potential.

TK: Mm-hmm.

JF: And this year, they were seniors. He had four seniors on the team this year. You know what's interesting about a situation like this? They're playing Ohio State the last Saturday of the regular season, they're up six with three and a half to go... and they don't score again, they lose the game. If they win that game, they're in the tournament, and Tommy is still the coach.

TK: Right.

JF: It's that slender a margin sometimes. You know, that's the business. And Tommy understands that. Every coach in the business understands that, that there can be one play - literally - that decides a coach's future one way or the other. And in this case, they didn't get it done in a couple of games in the last two or three years. They're about three wins away from being in the NCAA the last three years, and he's probably got a contract extension, but they didn't win --

TK: Will he get another Division I, high profile job, for his next job, or will he have to do sort of what Matt Doherty did, and go way down?

JF: I don't know about how far down he'll have to go. But he'll have to take a step down. He's not getting a Big East job. He's not getting an ACC job, you know? And again, knowing Tommy, he might, at this point in his life, be saying, "maybe that's more the route I wanna go. Maybe it'd be more fun for me to coach at that next level now. I made a lot of money." His wife's a psychiatrist. It's not, like, you know, they're gonna be hungry. Maybe he might enjoy that next level down more. I don't know. I'm purely speculating on that.

On Friday, Kornheiser also asked Jay Bilas about Amaker, and... you can probably imagine how that went. But I've transcribed that in a second post, which you can read below.

The Last Word on Tommy? Part 2

On his Friday Washington Post Radio show, Tony Kornheiser had ESPN analyst Jay Bilas on as a guest, presumably to talk about the Final Four. However, Kornheiser brought up Tommy Amaker (as he did with John Feinstein the day before) at the beginning of the interview, and it ended up dominating almost the entire segment.

As you might have guessed, Bilas had quite a bit to say on the subject as he stuck up for his good friend and former teammate. If you've been following this story for a while, some of this stuff will probably be familiar to you, as Bilas said many of the same things immediately after Amaker was fired by Michigan. He also made the comparison to Gary Williams, which Rob Parker also tried in Amaker's defense.

Again, I've transcribed the dialogue, which is a bit longer than the conversation with John Feinstein. But if you'd prefer to listen to it yourself, the show is available via podcast. (You can also download the show directly here.) If you're pressed for time, the Amaker stuff is from the 33:00 to 43:00 mark.

Tony Kornheiser: This is interesting - and if you don't want to talk about this, you can actually say on the air, "I don't want to talk about this" - but your teammate for years at Duke, the point guard at Duke, was Tommy Amaker. I think I'm correct on that, right?

Jay Bilas: Yes. Oh yeah. We played for three years together. We coached for three years together.

TK: I'm quite certain he's a dear friend of yours.

JB: Yes.

TK: And he did not succeed - at Seton Hall, the jury was out, but at least he made the tournament - and he did not make it at all in Michigan. He's personable, and he's smart, and he's accomplished - and he would seem to be a perfect candidate to be a big-time basketball coach. And I wonder why it's not working?

JB: Well, I think it did work at Seton Hall. You know, he took over a program that was in bad shape, and he turned it into a winner, and he recruited a bunch of great players, including Eddie Griffin, who wound up being a top pick in the NBA draft. And they did get to the Sweet 16, and then he left for Michigan.

And when he took over at Michigan, I'm not sure... Listen, I'm not in the business of making excuses for friends or otherwise, but --

TK: Right, right.

JB: -- but what I think happened is, when he took over Michigan, that place was in a hole like I can't imagine. He was there for six years; five of the six years, they were on probation. They were forbidden from going to the NCAA Tournament one of the years that they were qualified to go, and I think would've gone his second year there.

And Tony, when you look - just for example - if you looked at Gary Williams, and when he took over at Maryland, and the hole that place was in --

TK: Terrible.

JB: -- it was very similar to what Michigan was going through. Michigan fired Steve Fisher, they hired a guy named Brian Ellerbe that actually coached at Loyola-Maryland, and lost there, and wound up the head coach because they fired Fisher at Michigan. So it was similar to what Maryland had gone through - without the horrible tragedy, the Bias death - but hiring Bob Wade, and then [Williams] taking it over.

Amaker's record at Michigan, in his first six years, was better than Gary Williams' first six years at Maryland. But Michigan didn't have the patience to see this thing through. And I'll tell you one thing that most people don't know. He had a point guard there named Daniel Horton; graduated not this year, but last year. I think it was three years ago.

Horton had gotten in an altercation with his girlfriend, and the school decided to suspend Horton - through the basketball program - for the entire season. Now, Amaker didn't agree with that. I certainly agree with it when I heard about it. But Amaker remained silent about it; he did what the school wanted. But the truth was, Horton was being suspended for what Steve Fisher did, not for what he did. And I thought it was wrong, because you should treat each kid the same, and handle each of these things the same.

The football program didn't have to worry about that, because the basketball program had been through a horrible scene where they cheated, and they had to pull all their banners down --

TK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

JB: -- they had to vacate five years of games. Five or six years of games. Including two Final Four appearances. And that's what they were punishing the Horton kid for. And that's one of the reasons they didn't make the tournament that year. So it's those kinds of things that we can look at it from afar and say, "Six years, no tournament - he's gotta go."

But while Michigan's sitting there, talking about "everybody wants this job"... If so many people really wanted that job, and it was so great - and it is better now than it was when Amaker took it over - why didn't Tubby Smith go there? He went to Minnesota!

TK: Yeah...

JB: The truth is, it's not that great of a job. It's a good job, it's a Big Ten job. But they're going to wind up with... you know, they're gonna get a good coach. They're gonna wind up hiring either a mid-major coach like Chris Lowery or someone like him. Or Kevin Stallings from Vanderbilt, or something like that. And that's what Michigan is dealing with right now, because their facilities are awful.

Amaker and his staff had to drive from their office to practice. They couldn't, like, walk downstairs or walk in the same building. They had to get in their cars and drive to practice - which is ludicrous.

TK: What happens to a guy like Tommy Amaker now? Is it sort of like with Matt Doherty, where you have to take a couple of steps down? Do you get out of coaching altogether? How does it work?

JB: Well, he's so versatile, he could do a number of different things. But he's going to stay in coaching. And he'll, I'm sure, be interviewed for things. But Tommy, he keeps things very close to the vest and very quiet. He's a very dignified person, and handles things, in my judgment, the right way.

TK: Yeah, he's a local for us. I mean, he's from northern Virginia, so it's why I bring it up.

JB: Listen, I don't want to sit and wax poetic about Tommy all day...

TK: You can.

JB: But there's no player I played with that I admire more than Tommy. None. He was the best teammate I've ever had, and remains one of my best friends. Not because of any other reason than he's an unbelievably good guy, a good person. I'd hire him today, if I had a job - whatever it was. I think he's a big-time basketball coach. And I think he will be, again, in the eyes of sort of the casual observers. But what does a guy do in his position? He probably won't get the big-time job now, like a Big Ten job or something like that. He probably will have to take what some people would think is a step down.

But he's a really good coach, and a really good guy. This is something that happens in basketball, which is why it's important that you always take into account the circumstances of any job you take. There are some jobs that you're better off not taking, even though they may be great later on, because the circumstances aren't going to be in your favor during that time period. And if you don't turn it right away - and Tommy did turn it; he went to postseason and he won 20-plus games three times while he was there - he just didn't get over that NCAA Tournament hump.

You know, Tony - one other thing: Look at Stan Heath. He went to two tournaments in a row and Frank Broyles fired him.

TK: Yeah, at Arkansas.

JB: So there's no rhyme or reason to it.

Again, consider the source. Bilas obviously can't be objective about this, though he raises a good point about how much Michigan continued to punish itself for the sins of the Steve Fisher era.

After Bilas got off the phone with Kornheiser, however, Mr. Tony pointed out the folly of the Gary Williams comparison to his co-host. Even if Amaker and Williams initially found themselves in similar situations, Williams had Maryland at the top of the ACC in six years. Amaker, as we're painfully familiar with, couldn't even get Michigan into the NCAA Tournament within that same period. And now, all parties are moving on.

Ding Dong, Tommy's Gone

WDFN is reporting that University of Michigan men's basketball coach Tommy Amaker has been fired. Eric Lacy of the Detroit News has reported the same (via Michigan Sports Center), as are Mark Snyder and Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press.

A press conference to announce the firing is scheduled for 3 p.m. this afternoon.

My initial reaction, despite joining the pitchfork-and-torch mob that wanted to see this happen, is a bit of shock. More after the presser, hopefully.

UPDATE (3:30 p.m.): The Wolverine is reporting (once again via Michigan Sports Center) that the presser has been pushed back to 4:30 p.m. However, the Detroit News' Terry Foster says there won't be a press conference today, and Michigan will issue a statement. Saturday's kind of a weird day for such a thing anyway, so maybe they're holding off on addressing the media until Monday.

UPDATE (4:30 p.m.): The Diag has more details, including Bill Martin's comments to the Associated Press.

"Letting Tommy go was the toughest decision I've had to make in seven years as athletic director.

"He took over a program that needed help, and he helped it in a lot of ways. But at Michigan, we have a tradition of winning Big Ten and national championships and we haven't been close to doing either in a lot of ways."

Amaker (who will receive a $900,000 buyout for the dismissal) also spoke briefly with the Detroit News. (via The Diag)

"It was tough. But with the way things went this year, we knew anything could happen.

"We tried to get this program to the next level. It didn't happen."

And on his Detroit News blog, Terry Foster said Martin gave Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman an ultimatum: Either let me fire him, or I quit.

Do the Right Thing, Bill Martin

So is our long national regional nightmare now over? The Michigan basketball team had their season mercifully laid to rest last night in Tallahassee, 87-66. At least that's what I'm reading. Michigan Sports Center confirms this result, and there were highlights on ESPN this morning to corroborate this information. That's good enough for me.

I've already said my piece on Tommy Amaker - several times. My arms are tired from swinging, and my throat is sore from screaming. What needs to happen for the Michigan basketball program is now beyond obvious.

This thing has fallen apart on most every level. Amaker can (inexplicably) make his case, and maybe it will convince the right people in the athletic department. If so, they can all watch fan and alumni support erode even further. Just don't publicly shrug your shoulders, hold out your hands, and plead ignorance. No one's buying this $#!+ anymore.

EDIT (4 p.m.): Yes, I originally typed "Ed Martin" in the headline, instead of "Bill." Oops. Thanks to those who pointed out my mistake.

Not Interested, Tommy

But really, so what?

I hate that I feel that way about Michigan basketball. I actually strongly considered going to last night's NIT game vs. Utah State. The tickets were cheap, and I could've had almost any seat in the house. But ultimately, it just came down to the feeling that I can't support this stuff.

The majority of fans obviously shared the same sentiment. 3,114 fans attended the game. That's the lowest Crisler Arena crowd for a men's basketball game in 23 years. 1,000 fewer fans showed up for this game than last year's NIT first-round match-up with Texas-El Paso.

On TV, the crowd looked like what you typically see for a women's basketball or gymnastics contest in Ann Arbor. Credit the Maize Rage section for making it as loud as they could, but judging from the large sections of empty seats and bleachers, that was essentially a scrimmage.

We could argue about how many Michigan fans care about basketball, in general, (and I don't think it's very many) but if apathy hadn't already set in, a significant dose of it has rushed in over the past few weeks. Go ahead and question the reasonability or expectations of the Michigan fanbase, but don't question their intelligence. This was not a case of Michigan almost being good enough to get a bid to the NCAA tournament, but things didn't go their way, so they should just try to make the best of an NIT bid and show people they may have deserved better. Not this year. Not when schools like Syracuse, Drexel, Kansas State, West Virginia, Clemson, Washington, and Air Force didn't get in, either.

This is exactly what the Michigan basketball program deserved. I'm not talking about the players; it would've been nice for that senior class to participate in at least one NCAA tournament. I feel bad that they had to play in front of 3,000 people last night. At least they went out and won this game. (It's too bad no one will be able to see their second-round contest with Florida State. If a game is shown on ESPNU, and virtually no one can see it, will it really have happened?)

But this is about something much bigger right now. Basketball is undergoing a slow death at Michigan, and if the athletic department won't (or can't) take steps to prevent that and bring in someone who can at least achieve the bare minimum for a Big Ten program, who has at least a shred of interest in promoting his team and embracing the community at-large, then they can't possibly expect people to support the team. This charade has been carried as far as it can go. There is no better time to make a change.

A Case of "The Block"?

You know, the writing thing just wasn't coming to me today. Sure, the Pistons' 111-93 loss to Golden State last night raised my eyebrows. But, um... I sort of didn't watch it ("Yatta!"), so I couldn't work up much indignation. The sure-to-be brutal month of March isn't off to a good start for Detroit basketball, though.

You've had one of those days, right? Sometimes you just can't manage to do what it is you like to do. If you're a blogger, you're surely familiar with sitting at the computer, wanting to post something but nothing's getting the fingertips pumping. Even if you want to take another swing at Tommy Amaker for saying his job status isn't an issue when it's the only issue surrounding Michigan basketball right now.

On such occasions, it's probably best to just step away and let those writing cells recharge. But then I thought about my good buddy, The Daily Fungo's Mike McClary, and how he's starting up a new blog dedicated to the ballclub with the flashy new threads, your Arizona Diamondbacks.

Wait until Mike finds out the fun stuff that comes with running multiple blogs, like darker bags under your eyes, sore finger joints, chronic coffee mouth, frequent flat-butt, lingering lower back pain, and a DVR that reminds you every single night with its bloated hard drive that you're not watching TV anymore. But that might just be me.

Oh, and I'm hoping Mike devotes plenty of letters to the tangled bale of hair belonging to Mr. Eric Byrnes (who's loved in the Casselberry household for carrying one of my fantasy baseball teams to a league title last season).

By the end of the workday, I'd decided there would be no posts today. I could just copy some information from someone else and pass it off as my own stuff, like Ron Borges did, but that would just look old and musty. How many newspapers even do those "Sunday notes" columns anymore?

No, I was going to sit back with Baseball Prospectus 2007, attempt to expand my understanding of the game, and think about spending summer evenings at the CoPa (even though I never use that term).

But what if the ballpark's name changes, now that Comerica is moving its corporate headquarters from Detroit to Dallas? Will the Detroit Tigers' home have a new name/corporate sponsor? I'm guessing not, since they'll still have 7,000 employees in Michigan and approximately 23 years to go on their naming rights agreement.

I don't think anyone's a fan of corporate names on stadiums, but in Detroit, at least there was a local flavor to the ballpark's sponsor, which made it somewhat digestible. And now the name seems to reflect yet another body blow to the Michigan economy. If I wasn't fighting "The Block," I might actually write about that. But that wouldn't fill a whole post, would it? Neither would the other stuff.

Who Wears the Pants in the Amaker Household?

Okay, I missed the Michigan-Ohio State basketball game yesterday, opting to see Zodiac instead. Some might argue that my sports fan card should be suspended for that. I'd point to the Big Ten men's basketball standings in my defense, which would've supported a case for a blowout that I had no obligation to watch.

(Sitting through almost three hours of Zodiac wasn't necessarily more fun. It's not that I didn't like the movie, yet I'm not saying I liked it either, so there's your less-than-enthusiastic endorsement. Drink some coffee beforehand, or get a Pepsi from concessions; there's a lot of sitting and talking. But I digress...)

So I didn't get to see Michigan get their hopes crushed by the Buckeyes yet again. (To even make such a comparison between football and basketball is silly, of course.) But it looked like a close one, at least according to the score I saw on my cell phone after the movie. The mantra from the home locker room at Crisler Arena, however, was "Coming close doesn't mean anything."

Tommy Amaker argued that his team deserved more, but I don't think he knows what he's really saying. As the Ann Arbor News' Jim Carty points out, if those seniors deserved anything, it was to have a better team built around them, and a coach who could teach them how to develop into better players. And Amaker never managed to do that in their four years at Michigan.

Yet probably the worst kept secret in Ann Arbor is that there will be no coaching change in the men's basketball department. Maybe Amaker did enough to save his job this week by beating Michigan State and fighting the #1 team in the country to a four-point margin. Some have said that the decision has already been made to keep Amaker, regardless of how his team finished the season. How is that possible? Well, such a decision might not have anything to do with basketball. Check out this nugget from Drew Sharp's column in today's Detroit Free Press:

"... fueling the coach's job security most is that he's the second-most-popular Amaker on campus. His wife, Dr. Stephanie Pinder-Amaker, is an associate dean of students who co-chaired a large university fund-raising initiative. She's a rising star in the academic community, something that's not lost on university president Mary Sue Coleman, who remains an advocate of diversity despite recent legal challenges.

Do you think she'll risk losing a highly qualified African-American female educator because her basketball-coaching husband hasn't fulfilled expectations?"

Of course, you could write that off as speculation (and many would dismiss it because of the byline "By Drew Sharp"). However, it might also explain a few things. Bill Martin is getting a lot of negative feedback for the state of the men's basketball program, and maybe he's to the point where he might want to make a change, too. But what if it's not ultimately his call? If you're a Michigan fan (I'm not going to say "Michigan basketball fan" because that applies to a smaller readership), how infuriating is that?

And if you're Tommy Amaker, how big should your budget be for Valentine's Day, birthdays, and Sweetest Day? Maybe throw in something for Mother's Day too, just for the hell of it.

This might not be helping Tommy Amaker

It can't be a very good sign when Rob Parker is defending you, can it? After all, this is the same guy who's brought us such sportswriting gold as calling the Tigers' Dave Dombrowski the worst general manager in Detroit last season.

(Much more, of course, can be found at the "Wobb Parker, Sooper Geenus" database at The Wayne Fontes Experience. On more of a personal note, I'd like to say to Big Al, "Good luck. We're all counting on you.")

So in today's Detroit News - which has several pieces on not only Michigan basketball's currently precarious situation, but on the Big Ten's NCAA tournament hopes, as well - Parker says Amaker shouldn't be fired.

In the process, Parker lists several reasons why Amaker should keep his job - first and foremost being that two top-notch recruits are coming in next season, and a coaching change could cause some alienation. And that could very well be the reason that Amaker won't be fired.

From there on, however, Parker goes into full excuse-making mode, using the same stuff he would surely use to call for a coach's firing. Unfortunately for Michigan fans, we've heard these rationalizations already. The clean-up job in lieu of the Ed Martin scandal. The successful NIT runs. The team's overall won-loss record this season. And perhaps lamest of all, injuries are used as an excuse.

There isn't a single person who watched Wednesday night's loss to Iowa and thought to him or herself, "Boy, Michigan would've won that game if not for injuries." Michigan did, however, lose that game in large part because of Amaker's continued failure to install any sort of consistent offensive or defensive schemes that can lead to a good shot or key stop. When his players needed to be sharpest, they looked lost.

And while we're on the subject of looking lost out on the floor, one of the major factors in Michigan's recent lack of success is cited by Eric Lacy elsewhere in the Detroit News: Terrible point guard play. Is it unfair to criticize a coach for an inability to properly tutor the position he played in college? Because I'm thinking a former point guard could be criticized for an inability to develop any point guards.

But back to Parker and his case for Amaker. What's funny is that the whole thing falls apart at the end because of two points brought up to support his argument.

Don't forget that in his second season, Amaker's squad went 10-6 in the Big Ten, tied for third.

Well, that would mean the team's actually getting worse, not better. Right? Or am I missing something?

Maryland gave coach Gary Williams time to fix its troubled program. Williams took over in 1989. Five years later, the program's first season off probation, the Terrapins received their first NCAA bid since 1988. Williams led Maryland to a national championship in 2002. Hence, it wound up taking Williams 13 years to accomplish his ultimate goal.

Amaker's had six years. I was an English major in college (as anyone who's asked me to calculate a tip can tell you), but that's one more than five, isn't it? And in his sixth season, Michigan likely won't make the NCAA tournament. Williams' Maryland team went 26-8, tied for first in the ACC, and scored a #3 seed in the West Region. Thus, he earned the seven subsequent years it took him to win a national championship.

I'm not sure you're doing Coach Amaker any favors, Rob. Or maybe you should keep writing columns in support of Amaker. After all, looked how your anti-Dombrowski column worked out for the Tigers. It's like the Seinfeld opposite theory: “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”

Tommy Amaker should begin looking for boxes

I don't think I've performed the stomp-up-and-down/coach-gots-to-go dance too many times in the year-and-a-half life span of this sports blog. Maybe a search through the SME archives will eventually prove me wrong, but the only coach I can recall saying should absolutely be fired was Steve Mariucci.

Bringing out the pitchforks and torches for a coach's head often seems too easy. (Although one guy I can think of has made something of a career out of it.) Team's not playing well? Fire the coach! It's quick and no hassle - the sports equivalent of heating up a frozen entree in the microwave.

And it's not just that it's a relatively easy solution to propose, but it's become such a lame cliché for the mainstream media - especially TV announcers - to lean on when talking about a coach under fire. Talk about those bloggers, talk show callers, and message board hounds, and then chuckle dismissively, like they're some weird cult that heads out to Area 51 every year waiting for a UFO. (No offense if you actually do that, of course. We all have our hobbies and passions.)

But after Michigan's likely NIT-clinching loss to Iowa last night, I think the time has come to head into the garage or stop at your local hardware store for supplies. (Remember - just about anything with a handle makes a good torch with the right amount of lighter fluid.) The mob is beginning to grow, and I think it has a pretty damn solid case to back up its outrage now.

♦ Maize n Brew puts it rather succinctly. Brevity is the soul of wit, as Shakespeare once wrote.

♦ Michigan Sports Center is giving up and just doesn't care anymore.

♦ The Detroit News' Eric Lacy used the phrase "Detroit Lionsesque" in describing the current state of the team. So you know that can't be good.

♦ The Freep's Michael Rosenberg thinks Amaker's team is a reflection of his personality.

♦ The Ann Arbor News' Jim Carty says Amaker is a dead coach walking.

Michigan's performance up until this point, along with its remaining schedule, had placed this game squarely in the "must-win" category. They were playing at home against a team that hadn't won a road game all season. How do you become a good team, one that can make it to the NCAA Tournament? Well, beating the teams you're supposed to beat is a good start. So if Michigan can't even do that, what does that say about the coach?

What else does it say when your team blows a 14-point first-half lead and gets mowed over by a 20-1 run from the visiting club? Who does it reflect upon the most when one of your players says the team "let up"? And this is from a guy whose college career is largely defined by its overall lack of development. Hell, even he showed up last night, with 29 points and 11 rebounds.

Sure, you can point to the puny stat line (one point on 0-for-11 shooting) from a teammate who's arguably the team's best player. But bad games happen. Sometimes that ball just won't go in that hoop. That's basketball. So what then? Doesn't the coach need to come up with something to compensate? Steve Alford did.

What's so disheartening about this is that the Michigan basketball team suffered a near-identical collapse last year. It just feels like I've written this before. "Five years is five years...", "this senior class should've progressed...", "his players haven't gotten in four years under his tutelage..." We're almost at the end of Amaker's sixth season, and nothing appears to have changed. If last season's failure to win an NCAA Tournament bid was considered a disappointment, the expectation for the following year - especially when most of the players from that squad return - is obvious. So where does that leave us?

I'd pretty much bought into the argument that a school couldn't realistically expect to have top-notch football and basketball programs these days. You're either a football school or a basketball school. And I'd begun to accept that Tom Izzo cornered the basketball market in East Lansing, while football was king in Ann Arbor. But after looking at what Bruce Pearl's done at Tennessee - where men's basketball stood behind not only football but women's basketball in the pecking order - such resignations have blown up. He's changed the culture in Knoxville, he's fired up the fanbase, and most importantly, he's winning games in an elite conference. It absolutely is possible.

Michigan can do better than Tommy Amaker, and for the sake of its basketball program, it should start looking into an upgrade. And if you work in the shipping-and-receiving department of any businesses in Ann Arbor, keep some empty boxes on hand. An out-of-work head coach might come asking for them in a couple of months.

I'm disappointed too, Tommy

No more worries about nothing firing up my sports blogging synapses today. I just read something that almost had me spitting tuna salad on my computer monitor.

In today's Detroit News, Michigan men's basketball coach Tommy Amaker is crying "¡Que lastima!" about the crap he and his team have been taking for their phony 16-6 record.

"I think everybody needs wins," he said. "I'm a little disappointed that we're the only team people talk about that needs wins. We're 16-6, which is almost a 73 percent winning percentage; we're 4-3 in the conference, tied for fourth...

"I think everybody, to be honest, needs wins, and I think every game down the stretch is important. It seems like we have that arrow pointing at us in that regard."

Coach, I'm disappointed too. I'm disappointed that your team has lost to every good team it's played this season. And none of those games were even close.

North Carolina State? Loss. UCLA? Loss. Georgetown? Loss. Purdue? Loss. Wisconsin? Loss. Indiana? Loss.

Okay, five of those six games were on the road. But for a team that "needs wins," shouldn't scoring one away from Crisler Arena be something of a priority? And it's not like each of those losses has been to a powerhouse. NC State is 1-5 in the ACC. Purdue is 3-4 in the Big Ten.

I'm disappointed that the majority of Michigan's wins this season have been achieved against such schools as Central Connecticut State, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Wofford, and Delaware State.

I'm disappointed that Michigan no longer plays compelling non-conference games against the likes of Duke, Syracuse, Boston College, or Arizona. And then the athletic department wonders why no one - student or otherwise - treks out to Crisler Arena to watch the basketball team play.

Amaker argues that such criticisms are unfair, that every other school in the Big Ten and beyond does the same thing. That may be the case, Coach, but those other schools don't have as much to prove right now, either. Did those programs have as big a clean-up project as yours did? No. But they haven't had a six-year span to work with, either.

You know, I don't think it's going to take too long for Gary Walters to explain why his selection committee left Michigan out of the NCAA Tournament field on Selection Sunday. One or two sentences, tops.

With recruits like Alex Legion and Manny Harris coming in next season, Amaker may well have earned himself another year tacked onto Bill Martin's grace period. At the Detroit News' Big Ten Blog, Eric Lacy thinks Michigan's coach should officially be on notice if his team loses to Iowa at home tomorrow night. I'm inclined to agree, because the schedule sure as hell isn't getting any easier after that.

(Meanwhile, Maize n Brew has taken the time to draw up a list of potential replacements.)

The three magic letters of success

I don't know as much about basketball coaching as Tommy Amaker. My experience on the bench consists solely of helping my friend Scott coach a recreation league team of high schoolers about seven or eight years ago. Coaches were mostly there because teams needed an adult to sit on the bench. Those guys didn't need us, though I'd like to think our coaching played a role in the team winning the league championship.

Actually, I wasn't there for the final few games. I was sick of dealing with those kids by then. But like I said, they didn't really need us.

But I did learn some things about strategy and motivation. And that's what brings me to Amaker and the Michigan basketball team. After last night's 66-43 stomping of Old Dominion, the Wolverines are one game away from winning the NIT tournament. No, it's not the "real" tournament, and hardly anyone remembers NIT championships years later. But Michigan is winning the games they're playing right now, even if it would've been better for them to play this way three weeks ago.

(Photo by Steve Perez/ Detroit News)

Amaker's players seem to focus when the NIT is on the line, and the coach needs to take advantage of that. Look at Courtney Sims: 18 points and seven rebounds last night. Michigan fans (along with coaches and teammates) have been waiting for that kind of game out of Sims for a long time.

Somehow, the coach needs to convince his guys next season that they're playing for the NIT again. Maybe he can post NIT logos, posters, and banners all over the locker room. Cover up anything that says "NCAA." Get one of the assistants or a student to dub "NIT" over "NCAA" whenever the players watch SportsCenter. Make anyone who dares mention those four letters sleep in the dark and scary upper deck of Crisler Arena.

But that seems like a lot of work. Maybe there's an easier way. And I think Daniel Horton alluded to it in a post-game quote from today's Detroit News:

"We're backed to the three H's that coach talked about," senior guard Daniel Horton said. "That allows us to be a better team. And we're sharing the ball better."

Three letters. Something about that number, regardless of the letters involved, gets these guys' attention. But the combination of the letters "N," "I", and "T" really keeps them sharp. Amaker needs to keep them in that zone. And after carefully considering this for the last 30 minutes over my morning coffee, I think I know how he can do it.

Hypnotism.

Courtney Sims, you are getting very, veerrrry sleeeeepyyyy. We're playing in the NIT. Relax. Forget the pressure of the NCAA tournament. We're going to hang another banner in Crisler. When I count to three, you will become a dominant frontcourt player, like you were in New York City. Maize rage... maize rage...

I think it's worth a shot. And in case it doesn't completely work, and you have Michigan basketball players wandering the streets of Ann Arbor looking for Times Square or Central Park, put in some trigger word safeguards, like "Webber" or "Ellerbe" to snap them back to reality when it's necessary. Just to be safe, maybe Amaker can just whip out the watch before important conference games. Or just use it in March.

Anyway, like I said, I don't know a lot about basketball coaching. I think I threw away Jerry Krause's book on coaching around the same time I told my buddy that I hated those punk-ass mother#@$%ers we were babysitting every Sunday afternoon. But I think I'm onto something here. Consider it free advice, Coach. No charge.

NIT-picking, indeed

I can't even frame this in a good news/bad news scenario, can I? If I told you the good news, that Michigan earned a #1 seed in its upcoming postseason tournament, you'd figure out the bad news almost immediately. Because you know the only tournament Michigan would receive a #1 seed in is... the NIT.

I only caught bits and pieces of the NCAA tournament selection while working on "magazine stuff" (which I'll probably write about tomorrow). The people around me were mostly buzzing about the teams (including "my" Iowa Hawkeyes) playing in first-and-second-round games at The Palace on Friday, while wondering where Michigan State was being placed and what seed they'd receive. By paying more attention to who was in and where they were going, the teams that weren't invited to the NCAA tournament kind of got lost in the shuffle.

Maybe it's because I didn't expect Michigan to get a NCAA bid. I was surprised that any so-called "bracketologists" (a term that is thankfully retired until next year) would predict the Wolverines to be invited after losing their last two games to Indiana (oh, look who received a bid over U-M) and Minnesota. (Or was it just Jay Bilas stumping for his fellow Blue Devil, Tommy Amaker?) Anyway, I didn't even think about what happened to Michigan, until I heard the news on the drive home.

Did Michigan get "jobbed"? I'm sure plenty of fans (those that care about Michigan basketball, by the way) will say yes. Sports talk radio is already burning about that, and probably will be all day. If you ask whether or not Michigan is among the best 64 teams in the country, then they probably did get snubbed. But that's not how it really works, and we all know that. Besides, Michigan had control over its tournament fate, but acted like their hands were soaked with lotion. At least their hands should be left smooth this postseason.

▪▪ Michigan's Graham Brown says there's a big difference in motivation between this team and the 2004 squad that won the NIT.

▪▪ The M Zone points out that this is probably the worst overall performance by the Michigan athletic program in 25+ years. (Softball team, a fandom turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo.)

▪▪ Big Al watched Michigan's tournament die a slow death.

▪▪ Michigan Sports Center praises Jim Nantz and Billy Packer for questioning Craig Littlepage, head of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, about the apparent inconsistencies in the selection process.

▪▪ The Detroit Free Press' Michael Rosenberg explains why Bill Martin won't be firing Tommy Amaker any time soon.

▪▪ Beyond Boxscores is conflicted on Amaker, wanting him to stay, but wondering whether he should.

Is this a bad time for an Iowa alumnus to talk about "his" basketball team, and its #3 seed? Right. Wrong blog, wrong state, wrong time. But I am proud of "my" guys today, even though my two years in Iowa City did nothing to transfuse my Michigan blood.

I should point this out, however: Two years ago, Steve Alford was in much the same position Amaker is now. There was a lot of talk last year that Alford might lose his job if the Hawkeyes hadn't made the NCAA tournament. But he turned it around. That's how fast it can change. Of course, his seniors developed more and played a hell of a lot better, which says a lot about where each team is right now.

NIT-picking?

I've barely written about the Michigan basketball team this season (and have been rather out of touch with the sport overall), so to jump up and down in outrage or to call for Tommy Amaker's job after the Wolverines' loss to Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, when I haven't watched many of their games, rings false to me.

I was hoping to point you toward several blogs that could provide what I can't, but it appears that the Go Blue blogosphere mostly feels the same way about Michigan hoops that the general majority of Michigan fans do. Football? HELL YES! Basketball? Eh. And that shouldn't be a surprise. Sports blogs reflect the fanbase, right? These are the Michigan blogs that stepped for us all today:

▪▪ MGoBlog has a live blog of the game's radio broadcast. (Why I love the idea of someone live-blogging from the radio isn't quite clear to me.) Brian sums up the season nicely:

This probably excises Michigan from the tourney. They played a paper soft non-conference schedule. They're 18-10 against a crap schedule, finished the year 2-7, and just lost to a team that couldn't find its ass with both hands in the halfcourt.

▪▪ Ronald Bellamy's Underachieving All-Stars recaps what the so-called experts are saying about Michigan's NCAA tournament chances, and promises "anguish and scathing tirades" later.

▪▪ Michigan Sports Center has an excellent game summary. He watched so the rest of us didn't have to.

▪▪ Westsider Rider laments the opportunity Michigan squandered, with the rest of the college basketball landscape doing its best to allow the Wolverines into the tournament. Kenny also tries to look at this through maize-and-blue glasses:

Maybe this senior class will be able to say they won 2 NIT championships.

▪▪ Lester Abram told the Detroit News' Jim Spadafore that selfish play cost his team the game. (Abram's ankle injury might have cost Michigan its season.)

▪▪ Mark Snyder's game story in the Detroit Free Press has a lead that might explain just why this team has been so frustrating.

There were no tears in the Michigan basketball team's locker room late Thursday.

No one was weeping. No one was furious. Everyone was simply quiet.

The team looked like it did on the court for the previous two hours: passive and resigned to its fate.

I can't really say what should happen to Tommy Amaker if Michigan is relegated to the NIT again this year. As I said, I haven't watched the games. I can't point out any clear reasons as to why they're not succeeding. I don't know if Amaker's coaching is costing them wins.

What I do know is that this was a baffling team. After beating Illinois, a tournament bid seemed assured. Maybe the players felt the same way, and just coasted through the rest of the schedule. Unfortunately, with three straight losses to close out the season - the last two of which were to teams they should've beaten, in games they needed to win - Michigan likely cost itself a spot in the 64-team pool.

What I do know is that Amaker has had to clean up a huge mess in the basketball program, dealing with matters that many coaches would've run away from, screaming in horror. He's had a lot of support and patience from an athletic department that knew what it was asking Amaker to do. Maybe this was a much bigger project than we realized. Or maybe it's an insurmountable task for Amaker.

But how much time should Amaker be given? Five years is five years. He's had time to bring in his own players, and this senior class should've progressed to the point of an upper-tier finish in the conference and an invitation to the NCAA tournament. Yet that senior class seemed to reach a plateau, in terms of achievement. His players haven't gotten better in four years under his tutelage, which to me, might be the most damning indictment you can throw at a college basketball coach.

Amaker is probably the beneficiary of a school and fanbase that regards its basketball program with second-string interest. But Michigan fans aren't ones to let their expectations lower as the years go on. And college basketball - especially when your team plays in the Big Ten conference - isn't a sport that will allow Amaker to continue to hover under the radar. Not at this time of the year.

(Photo by Dale G. Young/ The Detroit News)