The Un-Fab Two

continued

They were parts.

In 2008, that was OK with Michigan’s new basketball coach, John Beilein, who had a history of building basketball programs where the sum was much greater than the parts. It was not OK with a certain segment of the Michigan fan base, whose vision of how a basketball program should be built was forged by the Fab Five.

The sum didn’t need to be greater than the parts when Michigan had Jalen Rose and Chris Webber. For fans who remembered Rose, Webber, Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson, and Jimmy King leading Michigan to the NCAA title game as ­freshmen—and then again as sophomores—it was hard to think about anything but individual talent. It was also easy to forget the ensuing NCAA investigation that forced Michigan to erase the Fab Five years from the record books.

Those fans at least understood Tommy Amaker, the guy Beilein replaced. Amaker ultimately failed, but early in his tenure he signed a top-rated recruiting class headlined by McDonald’s All-American Daniel Horton. It wasn’t quite the Fab Five, but it was the Fab Five model. You bring in enough good players, and good things would eventually happen. In theory.