Jalen Rose wonders what will change Michigan’s mind about the Fab Five?
Jalen Rose could be experiencing bittersweet deja vu.
Great excitement surrounds the current Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball team. Great expectations hover over them, too.
Its been some time since the program has been highly celebrated.
Top ranked player Trey Burke and familiar names like the talented Tim Hardaway, Jr. and Glenn Robinson III fill the roster.
The team is ranked 10th (tied with New Mexico) going into the tournament, and have a record of 26-7.
Thursday, they’ll meet Penn State in the first round of “March Madness”, a team just they defeated in the Big Ten Tournament.
Something about all of this seems amiss, though, considering that you are not likely to see any members of the early 90’s Wolverines team (other than ESPN’s Rose) acknowledged or present during any of the current team’s tourney games.
Rose, who co-produced the ESPN 30 for 30 film, “The Fab Five,” hopes that the university will change its tune and re-hang the banners from his team’s storied seasons.
He told USA Today…
If you don’t want to put the banners back up, that’s fine,” Rose said. “I think they could put a black banner up with maize and blue around it and the Fab Five numbers on it, and say whatever they want to say and be done with it. But if they are going to wait for Chris to apologize to acknowledge what the coaches and the players and fans really want to see, I think they’re doing a disservice to the whole situation.
“I walk outside right now, I get hit by a bus and now everybody wants to honor me and the Fab Five. That’s how these situations work. I don’t want to have to go to some tragedy or a funeral, and then, ‘Oh my God, we really loved and appreciated them so much.’
The rift between Michigan and Chris Webber is real. His association with the university can resume in May, after a 10-year ban, but what would that even look like? How would that feel?
It would be nice to see those banners hanging in Crisler again, but the road to that reality is paved with baggage, politics and a little stubbornness.
So, like Jalen Rose, one can only hope.
