Izzo's gang no longer green giant...

SpartanBone · 02-01-2007, 01:27 PM

Priceless. Abso****inglutely PRICELESS.

TheDoctorIsIn · 02-01-2007, 01:29 PM

did he say Amaker was too busy to be on the radio???

HE IS RADIO

DeputyMSU · 02-01-2007, 01:31 PM

5 years later.....Amaker needs miracle to save job.

http://www.mlive.com/sports/aanews/j...l=2&thispage=2

SpartanBone · 02-01-2007, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDoctorIsIn

did he say Amaker was too busy to be on the radio???

HE IS RADIO

Must have been a Freudian slip.

AASpartan · 02-01-2007, 01:38 PM

More From The Ann Arbor News | Subscribe To The Ann Arbor News

Jim Carty

Amaker needs a miracle to save his job now

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Every coaching regime gone bad has a point of no return, a time when you knew there'd be no happy ending.

This might be it for Tommy Amaker. That moment.

It should be it.

In a game they had to win, against a team they were supposed to beat, the University of Michigan blew a 12-point second-half lead and, once again, utterly and totally collapsed. The Hawkeyes built their unlikely 69-62 victory with a 20-1 run during which Amaker's team seemed absolutely helpless, unable to get a quality shot, or handle the ball, or make a defensive stand.

Any Michigan basketball fan had seen it all before. This is, ultimately, what Amaker's teams do.

They build a promising record in November and December against bad teams who are paid to come to Crisler Arena and lose.

They beat the bad teams in the Big Ten, maybe a few good teams at home, lose a lot of road games and just miss the NCAA Tournament.

What will happen during the next six weeks is inevitable.

The Wolverines will get destroyed at Ohio State and Michigan State. They'll win a couple of home games. They'll go into the Big Ten tournament with a .500 or below conference record, still nominally alive for the dance, lose early, and head for the loser's tournament.

That is Michigan basketball.

Mediocre seasons. Mediocre players. Mediocre assistant coaches. Mediocre efforts.

Mediocre facilities. A mediocre head coach.

Nothing truly bad or embarrassing, just mediocrity.

Nobody's happy with it. Not the fans, not the players, not even Amaker, although he's seemingly powerless to fix the offensive woes and toughness issues that have dogged his team for five years now.

Most people just don't care any more and, in fairness, why should they? Why should they get excited about empty wins, empty promises, and - if all goes well - an empty celebration in Madison Square Garden?

The only real question remaining, though, is whether mediocrity is good enough for athletic director Bill Martin. So far, amazingly enough, it has been.

But Amaker's biggest defender watched the worst parts of Wednesday night's performance with a grim expression on his face, then declined comment afterward.

Even blind faith wasn't enough to not see what was happening here.

Martin said earlier this season, after an embarrassing loss to Georgetown, that winning can't be a secondary concern at Michigan.

If that's true, Amaker needs a miracle to save his job now. He needs to do what he has never been able to do, to get his kids to play tough on the road and win games they're not supposed to win.

To play their way into the tournament instead of falling out of it yet again.

No one believes they can. Not after Wednesday night.

Again, we've all seen this show before. There's no joy in where it's headed, no celebration.

Just hope, really.

A small hope that Amaker and his team will defy all of their history and save themselves, but more realistically the hope of a fresh start, of something more than the same sad story played out every basketball season.

Jim Carty can be reached

at jcarty@annarbornews.com
or 734-994-6815.

Gnossos · 02-01-2007, 01:38 PM

In reading this article:

http://www.mlive.com/sports/aanews/j...l=2&thispage=1

I have a hard time reconciling it with THIS article:

Izzo's gang no longer green giant

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

It'll be easy to remember when it became clear Michigan State's basketball dynasty had peaked and was on the way down.

Easy to remember because Tom Izzo himself delivered the message.

It was just last week. Izzo popped up on the television, in between games on ESPN, doing college basketball analysis in the middle of his own season. There he was, sitting next to some hair-sprayed anchor, talking basketball when he could be coaching it.

Writing his own obit to Michigan State's amazing run of three straight Final Fours, four straight Big Ten titles and the 2000 national championship.

Greatness takes everything you've got, sometimes more than you even think you can give. Izzo could have never built what he's built in Lansing by taking time out mid-season to play Howard Cosell on national television.

The fact that he's willing to do it now is proof in living color that on some level he's ready for a change. Make all the excuses you want about having a lot of time off between games or the ESPN gig being a fun way to promote the program, the bottom line is that basketball suddenly isn't enough to keep Izzo busy. He needed a getaway, a little fun, something different at a point in the season when most big-time basketball coaches are in the office 10 or more hours a day six or seven days a week.

Those are the kind of hours University of Michigan coach Tommy Amaker puts in.

Amaker has the drive and focus Izzo had back in 1995 when he replaced Jud Heathcote, when he had to prove he deserved the job, had to win over Mateen Cleaves and everybody else.

Amaker won't take time out to do 15 minutes on Detroit sports radio - he tells his media relations guy he's just too busy during the season - let alone give ESPN a day of his time. He and his staff don't have time to watch TV, let alone appear on it. They're mad, they're this bad and consumed by making sure they never are again.

Some folks will tell you Izzo can and will coach circles around Amaker. Maybe. They'll tell you Izzo is much, much better at promoting his program in the media. That's true, but nobody ever won a game that way.

They'll say the Spartans again outrecruited Michigan this year, and that this year's little slump in Lansing is to be expected, and that even in a bad year Michigan State will make the NCAA Tournament.

Maybe.

But maybe everyone has yet to grasp just how big a threat Amaker and Michigan are, just how hard it's going to be to maintain Michigan State's dynasty, even if Izzo's at his best.

If Amaker isn't the best young recruiter in America, he's close. At Seton Hall he attracted the nation's No. 1 recruit and No. 1 recruiting class to a school with on-campus facilities comparable to some Michigan community colleges, a school that sits on the outskirts of a Newark slum. They came for one reason: Kids and parents fall in love with and trust Tommy Amaker.

It's starting already here. Amaker may have already found his own Cleaves in Texas guard Daniel Horton. He's going to sign super junior Dion Harris of Detroit Redford next year, just watch, and Harris will only be part of yet another great class.

The University of Michigan, meanwhile, is this state's historically dominant basketball program, and Michigan kids will flock here over any other option if the Wolverines are decent.

What Izzo has accomplished the last four years towers over the Fab Five years at Michigan in terms of achievements, but for some reason Michigan State has never approached that Fab level of buzz outside of ... say ... Lansing and some Flint neighborhoods. The Fab Five were a national story. Every little kid with a pair of Jordans and a hoop in his neighborhood knew C Webb and the boys.

A lot of those kids are now going to the Nike or ABCD camps, and they remember those years. Most of them can't name four members of the five, but it doesn't matter. When it comes down to Michigan vs. Michigan State, Amaker vs. Izzo for a recruit, the Fabs are going to be a tie-breaker. Mark it down.

Izzo's been lucky up until now, he hasn't had to really deal with Michigan. He's received a huge boost in his program building by circumstances like the Ed Martin scandal, the ugly end of the Steve Fisher era, the inability of Brian Ellerbe to figure out he needed good kids, not just good players, to succeed at Michigan.

This isn't to say Izzo and the Spartans are done now, mind you.

They'll probably beat the heck of Amaker and Michigan tonight at the Breslin Center.

They need to. The free pass has been canceled. Michigan vs. Michigan State is an even fight again, and it's going to be a fight. The Spartans are ahead now, and will be a factor as long as Izzo is in Lansing, but in the long run my money is on the guy who's too busy coaching to appear on the radio.

What happened, Jim? And did you ever apologize for your ignorant and insulting statements about Izzo? Or are you just too in love with the blue boys to do that?

I assure you a large # of MSU fans continually post that artcle - EVEN FIVE YEARS LATER - on MSU sites and laugh their heads off at you.

Nice job Jim.

Put Dahlman in!! · 02-01-2007, 01:42 PM

I just emailed that tool to remind him that he is an idiot

TheDoctorIsIn · 02-01-2007, 01:45 PM

Time Running Out for Subway's Jared

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Jared thought he had the market cornered. That was before he met me.

There's a new dorky white guy in town, and he's not spending his time doing commercials. Nope, he's writing newspaper columns, something Jared has lost focus of.

The wheels are in motion. I see a changing of the guard.

Jim Carty can be reached

at jcarty@annarbornews.com
or 734-994-6815.

bodhisattva · 02-01-2007, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDoctorIsIn

Time Running Out for Subway's Jared

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Jared thought he had the market cornered. That was before he met me.

There's a new dorky white guy in town, and he's not spending his time doing commercials. Nope, he's writing newspaper columns, something Jared has lost focus of.

The wheels are in motion. I see a changing of the guard.

Jim Carty can be reached

at jcarty@annarbornews.com
or 734-994-6815.

SpartanButter · 02-01-2007, 02:12 PM

But, but, but there isn't anyone out there that says UM hoops is going anywhere, not like they do about MSU football. UM could be good in hoops anytime they wanted to.

Signed,

Wolverito

Captain_Ahab · 02-01-2007, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDoctorIsIn

Time Running Out for Subway's Jared

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Jared thought he had the market cornered. That was before he met me.

There's a new dorky white guy in town, and he's not spending his time doing commercials. Nope, he's writing newspaper columns, something Jared has lost focus of.

The wheels are in motion. I see a changing of the guard.

Jim Carty can be reached

at jcarty@annarbornews.com
or 734-994-6815.

OMG that's priceless!

SpartanButter · 02-01-2007, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Ahab

OMG that's priceless!

TheDoctorIsIn did a fine job!

Raleigh Wood · 02-01-2007, 03:52 PM

This whole thread is absolutely AWESOME!

Canty looks like, and writes like, as Big a tool as I have ever seen.

Sparticane · 02-01-2007, 04:13 PM

Somebody should forward that article right back to Jimmy boy, ask him what he's thinking.

goosinator2005 · 02-01-2007, 04:15 PM

Email sent.

goosinator2005 · 02-01-2007, 04:18 PM

Holy crap. He already responded to my email. This is amazing. Apparently we're all lemmings.

Quote:

Mike,

I'll be making fun of myself again over this one in the coming weeks.

Promise.

Although the annual homage from SpartanTailgate fans, resending this
column a bit like lemmings, each one thinking they're being original,
is a bit flattering.

I'm actually going to miss it when Amaker's gone.

Jim

SpartanButter · 02-01-2007, 04:23 PM

No Jim, it isn't about thinking we are original. You see, we have this thread thingy on a message board thingy, technical, I know, and we just bring it out to get a good laugh once in a while.

The originality is all you, Jim. You are a leader of a great movement!

bodhisattva · 02-01-2007, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpartanButter

No Jim, it isn't about thinking we are original. You see, we have this thread thingy on a message board thingy, technical, I know, and we just bring it out to get a good laugh once in a while.

The originality is all you, Jim. You are a leader of a great movement!

you should send that to the d-bag.

SpartanBone · 02-01-2007, 04:36 PM

Hey Jim. I know you'll be reading this and all, since you know so much about tRCMB. Funny thing is, we wouldn't get the chance to bump this thread on an annual basis if umaa actually had a basketball program moving in any kind of direction at all.

Your column from 2002 is absolute comedy GOLD and it is one for the ages. Now, when exactly is the tide actually going to turn? Thanks again for the annual laugh.

Babies Need Tickets · 02-01-2007, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jared the Subway Guy

Some folks will tell you Izzo can and will coach circles around Amaker. Maybe. They'll tell you Izzo is much, much better at promoting his program in the media. That's true, but nobody ever won a game that way.

Sweet paragraph!

TheDoctorIsIn · 02-01-2007, 04:44 PM

I just found this pic on his myspace page, with a caption below it:

LOL this is me and my idol jared or jarod idk witch. im blushing hes so cute

Captain_Ahab · 02-01-2007, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RAHorning

Sweet paragraph!

I was thinking the same thing when i read it.

SpartanButter · 02-01-2007, 04:45 PM

Wow, he sure shined up those cheeks.

SpartanButter · 02-01-2007, 04:47 PM

I knew I recognized him from somewhere! Ghost Busters! Nobody steps on a church in my town! Let's roast him!

goosinator2005 · 02-01-2007, 04:47 PM

In response to my question,

Quote:

Jim, thanks for the quick reply. It lets me know that you are
diligent and care about what you do. That speaks volumes.

I would like to point out to you that we, at spartantailgate, do not
send you the article in the hopes of being original. We send it to
you to allow you to realize that your arrogant writing style is way,
way off. You will say anything to appease the fandom of Ann Arbor.
With comments bashing the work ethic and habits of Izzo (of which you
or I obviously have no idea), is like running around the basketball
court naked rooting for your favorite IM basketball team. It doesn't
make sense.

I just wanted to bring your arrogance into the light.

Quote:

Mike,

Seriously, two years ago, I wrote a column saying the original column
was wrong.

I even quoted Tom laughing about it.

Every year when you guys send these, I laugh along with you.

Honestly, what more do you want?

Jim

what more could I want?