The End of an Era (hopefully)

June 19, 2008 Note: This is a post that originally appeared on Golden's Football Rankings and is reproduced here for posterity.

The regular season ended for the Michigan Wolverines on Saturday afternoon with a game against the number one team in the country. For a wolverine team that has been frustratingly inconsistent all year, the game offered an opportunity to gain a signature win that their tournament resume had been lacking. Crisler Arena was sold out for only the third time all season, and even though the students were on break, the place was rocking. The team came out playing well, took care of the ball, and played good defense in the first half to take a three-point lead at the break. With just under four minutes left in the game, they had grown that lead to six points. Ohio State called a timeout and Ohio State coach Thad Matta told his players, “We have them where we want them.” Michigan went scoreless the rest of the game, and OSU won by four. Why was Matta so confident down by six late in the game? Because he knows what everyone else in the Big Ten knows, Tommy Amaker teams cannot finish.
The last three Michigan possessions couldn’t have been more representative of the Amaker reign if they were scripted. The 6-10’ senior center, a four year starter, misses a wide open dunk. The senior shooting guard, another four year starter, and the team’s best free throw shooter, misses the front end of a one and one. Finally, the sophomore point guard, the only one that Amaker has been able to recruit in six years throws the ball to no one in particular in the backcourt. Ball game over. Upset bid over. NCAA chances over. Again.
The amazing thing is that this is the exact same thing that happened last year. Needing only a win over a ranked Indiana at home to make the big dance last year, Michigan gave up a 10-0 run to end the game to lose by four. They then lost to a Minnesota team in the Big Ten tournament that they had beaten twice during the regular season. Guess who they play next week in Chicago.
They say that one of the definitions of insanity is seeing the same thing happen over and over again and expecting a different result. How many times do we have to watch them come up short in the clutch and in the end to realize that a change needs to be made?

This and That

June 19, 2008 Note: This is a post that originally appeared on Golden's Football Rankings and is reproduced here for posterity.

-Went to the Michigan/Iowa game last night. It was a typical Amaker loss. They came out with a lot of defensive intensity and built a solid lead on hustle, some fast breaks and some good one-on-one play. Iowa made some adjustments after going down by 14. Michigan’s top defender, Brent Petway, went out of the game with an uncertain injury. Iowa then went on a 20-1 run as Michigan went scoreless for over 8 minutes. By the time they woke up, Iowa was up by seven with five minutes to go. A couple of key turnovers and fouls down the stretch sealed the deal, and they suffered a tournament-shattering loss. AD Bill Martin was at the game. One can only hope that he is reaching the same conclusion that many of us are reaching: we need a new coach.
-There’s a lot to dislike about the hype leading up to the Super Bowl, but one of the things I like is how college football fans from every section of the country can all claim a little piece of the game each. For us up here, its good to see Cato June and Marlin Jackson of the Colts get their shot at a ring.
-Once again, MgoBlog has nailed it, with an article about how coaches salaries are affecting college football. Our readers in SEC country will appreciate the new nickname for Nick $aban he came up with.
-After losing four of the last six, perhaps Bruce Pearl should spend more time coaching and less time painting his body for Lady Vols games.
-A lot was made recently up here about a slight alteration made in Lloyd Carr’s contract for 2007. His most recent contract was signed in 2005, and it called for $300,000 to be put aside in a separate account to be given to Carr if he remained Michigan’s head coach on July 1, 2007. The alteration made in late December calls for Carr to get an additional $300,000 if he is still employed (in any capacity)by the university on July 1, 2008. The assumption that everyone here seemed to make was that Carr was going to retire or announce that 2007 was his last at some point. I’m not so sure that’s what’s going on here. It’s quite possible that this is just an extension of the prior terms.
-So with the Carr contract news, and the basketball struggles, the Michigan message boards are awash in new coach talk in both major sports. Imagine how stressed the Bill Martin will be if he has to replace both coaches in the same season.
-Football recruiting things are getting crazy up here. I try not to get sucked into all the angst on message boards, but its hard not to read about it when there is nothing to but sit and wait for the basketball team to make their annual NIT run.
-I know I’m a week late with this, but the Duke/Clemson thing was a travesty, if you can use such strong language for a game. I don’t understand why the league couldn’t order the teams to replay the last play when they realized the officials had made a mistake. In the coaching I do, we have a rule in our state league that a judge’s bad decision cannot affect an outcome. If we find a judge has ruled wrongly, even after the match is finished, we will change the ruling and have the players replay the last game. Why couldn’t the ACC order the two teams back to Cameron the next day to replay the last 3 or so seconds?
-I like Tony Dungy’s suggestion to play the Super Bowl in Fort Wayne, Indiana, halfway between the two cities. I believe that football was meant to be played in the snow.

Why Tommy Amaker should really be asked (nicely) to find gainful employment elsewhere

June 19, 2008 Note: This is a post that originally appeared on Golden's Football Rankings and is reproduced here for posterity.

To me there are a number of things that a coach at a major university must do to keep their job:
1) They must represent their university with class – This includes two parts, not doing anything that might embarrass the university (the Larry Eustachy / Mike Price clause), and promoting the goals and ideals of their program and the university
2) They must recruit kids that will also represent the university well – Kids that go to class, stay out of trouble, and give their all on the field, court, or ice. Additionally, these kids should be able to compete at the level of competition the university is accustomed to.
3) They must serve as a teacher and a role model for their players in such a way that their players learn and improve as players and people in their time at the university.
4) Finally, they must win. This is, of course, the 500-lb Elephant standing in the corner of the room that no one really likes to talk about. This is after all the bottom line in college sports, but everyone likes to pretend that it’s not. The amount of winning a coach has to do varies from place to place, from sport to sport, and from year to year. But no one will keep their job if they don’t win at some point.

The thing is, from my point of view, Tommy Amaker hasn’t really successfully completed any of these points.
1) Yes, he is a class individual who represents the school well. But he doesn’t promote the program in ways you would expect a coach at a high profile school to do. He has no radio or TV coaches show in the area. His weekly press conferences rarely make the Detroit news. He has little or no presence in the media of the most dominant market in the state. This is especially glaring when you compare him with the coach at his most direct competitor, Tom Izzo, who is on air every 15 minutes.
2) He has had problems recruiting kids who show any fire on the basketball court, or look like they belong in the Big Ten. The last Michigan player who made it to the NBA was Jamal Crawford, who left Michigan a year before Amaker got here. He has finished as the runner-up in recruiting battles for Malik Hairston and Joe Crawford from Detroit Renaissance, who are staring at Oregon and Kentucky respectively, Scottie Reynolds, who is at Villanova, Patrick Beverly, who starts at Arkansas, and countless other players who have ended up at MSU, Notre Dame, Florida, Syracuse, and other places. He has gone through all sorts of drama with de-commitments and re-commitments.
3) Players don’t improve under Amaker. Daniel Horton was a better player as a freshman than he was when he left. Courtney Sims led the league in blocked shots his freshman year, in today’s game against Indiana, some 6 foot nothing guard drove the lane on him and he did nothing. Amaker’s teams don’t have any discernible identity. They look lost on offense, always led the league in turnovers, and can’t defend dribble penetration or the three-point line.
4) Amaker’s record at Michigan is decidedly mediocre. He is 4-32 on the road in the Big Ten against teams that aren’t Penn State or Northwestern. You can count the number of victories they have over tournament teams on one hand. They are consistently whipped by the better teams in the league. He is 2-8 against Illinois, 0-10 against Indiana. His five trips to Wisconsin have resulted in losses of 13, 26, 11, 11, and 31 points. He has a winning record against only three league teams, Purdue, Penn State, and Northwestern.

I’m not the type of person who is comfortable calling for a college coach to be fired, especially one who appears to be a fine citizen who is attempting to build a program the right way, without stooping to the levels of so many in the sport (Hello, Mr. Huggins!). But to be a good coach, you have to be a good recruiter, a good teacher, a good motivator, a good strategist, or some combination of those. Amaker appears to be mediocre at all these aspects, and it doesn’t seem like he, or the team, is going to improve in any of these ways anytime soon. So for the good of the program, I would suggest that he should be shown the door.