What They’re Saying

Reactions from the Ohio State game are varied depending on who you talk to. I personally sum it up as typical. That last couple of minutes where two seniors completely blew any hope of winning by missing a dunk and a free throw defines the Tommy Amaker era. I understand he wasn’t the one attempting the dunk or shooting the free throw, but Michigan shouldn’t be in this situation come the last game of the year. The Wolverines always take care of business against the average non-conference opponents, get out to a promising start, and then collapse in the final months of the season. That then results in a berth to the NIT instead of the NCAA tournament.

Others are weighing in on this past game as well as Amaker’s job status.

Jim Carty wrote a great article that shows exactly why Bill Martin needs to move on and find a new head coach.

Amaker hasn’t recruited enough talent to play with them [four seniors]. He hasn’t surrounded them with enough teachers and made them better. He has loaded up on weak nonconference games that padded his win total, but didn’t prepare anyone for Big Ten play.

So, here we are, six years into his tenure, with one winning Big Ten season.

Sometimes, you don’t get what you deserve?

Yeah, just ask Michigan basketball fans.

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If you’re keeping Amaker now, you better be committed to keeping him for at least two more years. To fire him next year, when it’s obvious he’ll be rebuilding, would be ridiculous.

So, more than a decade without an NCAA Tournament appearance and cross-your-fingers in Amaker’s eighth year?

Is that Bill Martin’s plan?

Or has he watched this team long enough and close enough to see that what happened Saturday afternoon against Ohio State was Tommy Amaker’s program in a nutshell, with all the same old problems coming back to keep them from taking the final step from average to good?

A late offensive lapse and critical turnovers. Heartbroken seniors and the NIT.

This is Michigan basketball.

And it’s not going to change until the man in charge does.

On the other side of things, Bob Becker wrote an absolutely idiotic article that had me fuming during every second of reading it.

Amaker, however, was brought to Michigan under vastly different circumstances. Winning more than he lost was a concept that his predecessor, Brian Ellerbe, couldn’t grasp.

Amaker’s first goal was to stop the bleeding, and to do so in a way that would help Michigan regain the reputation that had been sullied by liars, cheaters and payoffs.
If you think that’s something you can do overnight, you are very, very naive. Or very, very dumb.

I keep hearing and reading that five years is long enough, and I completely agree. Five years is long enough to put the program back on track and Amaker has done that. He’s topped the 20-win mark three of his past four seasons, and that’s as good a measure as anything.

Don’t forget the second part of the equation. Amaker has brought pride and respectability back to the Michigan basketball program. Tommy Amaker is one of the finest men I’ve ever dealt with. Michigan fans should be proud to see him sitting on that bench, because he represents all that is good about college athletics.

Where to even begin? Becker first goes on throughout the entire first half of the article to make the case for his firing, and then completely contradicts it in the second half. He does it again when he agrees that “five years is long enough” to put the program back on track but says it can’t be done overnight. Five years is enough and the program still isn’t back on track. Winning 20+ games a year is nice, but not when most come against mediocre teams in the non-conference schedule that directly results in a bid to the NIT year in and year out.

I love this line: “Amaker has brought pride and respectability back to the Michigan basketball program.” Umm, what team have you been watching? Last time I checked nearly every announcer that does a Michigan game criticizes the coaching in some way and offers solutions that Amaker never seems to understand. Fans of opposing teams are calling for Michigan to “Keep Amaker,” meaning they don’t want to see him go. Is that pride and respectability? Who can take pride in going to the NIT every year while other teams enjoy the atmosphere of March Madness? It’s embarrassing.

This line represents the main problem: “Tommy Amaker is one of the finest men I’ve ever dealt with. Michigan fans should be proud to see him sitting on that bench, because he represents all that is good about college athletics.” Amaker is a nice, classy guy. He portrays the program in a good light. I get that. I’ve heard it a million times. Class does not bring victories. I don’t want to end up with a coach that does things to embarrass Michigan or runs a basketball team in a way that could cause further problems, but I don’t want Michigan to end up the laughing stock of the Big Ten either, which has already happened. Everyone gets the point that Amaker is a very classy guy, one of the nicest people you’ll probably every meet. That means absolutely nothing when your team plays like the one he coaches.

Should he win more and start to make a mark in the Big Ten and in the national polls? Sure, that should be the marching orders of any big-time coach. But geez, cut the guy some slack.

Again, I’m not even sure where to start. We’ve all cut Amaker enough slack for the last couple of seasons. I said during the last offseason that I didn’t feel comfortable firing Amaker after last season despite missing the tournament again. I gave him this year as his chance to keep his job if Michigan made the tournament. They won’t be doing that barring a miracle, and even so, things aren’t going to get better. The problem is we’ve all been cutting Amaker too much slack the last couple of years, and it’s now showing directly from the play by this team.

His job is to get his team in position to win. He did that Saturday. He didn’t miss a dunk or a free throw in the final minute, and he didn’t throw away Michigan’s last possession.

Plus, if you want to judge him, you have to eliminate his first four years, when his focus was on regaining respectability on and off the court.

Getting his team in position to win once and a while is fine. However, a win has to be the result most of the time. For Michigan, that never happens. Whether it is one game or an entire season, Michigan always falls short. And why would I eliminate his first four years? Yes, I’ll even admit the sanctions and scandal hampered some of what Amaker could do, but it’s not as though he couldn’t coach his current players to make them better. He still can do that today and isn’t. How long can the scandal be used as a crutch or an excuse to keep Amaker’s job alive?

The next step is climbing the ladder. He is halfway through that process, and he’s got 42 wins (and counting), plus a spot in the NIT to build on.

Fire Tommy Amaker? I don’t think so. This is a good man, a very attractive young coach who had the guts to see the potential at Michigan and pay the price to get things back where they are today.

He deserves those next two years.

This is probably the one quote I hate most out of this entire article. You build on being in the NIT after your first appearance. Not your second. And certainly not your third, which will happen in the next few weeks.

My question is how much did Amaker pay to have this article written? Bob Becker is sipping the Kool-Aid way too much. How he can give so much praise to a coach that has underperformed is beyond me. With four seniors in the starting lineup throughout the season, this team should be a lock for the tournament, not one that is on a bursting bubble.

The sad reality of all of this is brought forward by Drew Sharp.

But it’s unlikely Amaker is going anywhere.

This was his biggest week at Michigan, and although there’s genuine disappointment at what likely will be another NCAA tournament shutout, the program wasn’t humiliated against Michigan State or the Buckeyes.

Choking is one thing. But quitting is another, and the Wolverines fought hard.

But 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?

As much as I want to believe that Bill Martin may actually be considering making a change, I don’t think Mary Sue Coleman would even let him. Because she’s friends with Amaker’s wife and she sees that he represents Michigan in a positive way, he won’t be fired. She needs to keep the personal part out of this. Look at his performance only and nothing else. If this were Michigan State or another big basketball program, Amaker would be fired by now. They simply wouldn’t tolerate missing the tournament and underperforming. That’s where Michigan is different. The worst part about this whole situation is that Mary Sue Coleman doesn’t care about the basketball program. If she did, changes would be made and a new coach would be brought in. I agree that that won’t happen, and it saddens me to think that we’re probably going to be talking about how Michigan just came up short again a year from now. I’m sick of it. Apathy has already begun to set in with this program. I no longer get that upset when Michigan loses because it’s expected. Attendance is down as well, showing that others are beginning to feel the same way.

When all is said and done, if Amaker doesn’t go, then the basketball program will, straight down to the depths of despair and losing. It shouldn’t be tolerated. Unfortunately, the only people that have power over this situation do tolerate it, which is why the streak of missing the NCAA tournament will likely continue on for this year and many years to come.