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November 13, 1997 - Image 19

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1997-11-13

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28B The Michigan Daily - Ti '97 - Thursday, November & 1997

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A United venture?.
Despite dissent, the Big Ten will host its
first men's basketball tournament this season

The next Fab Five?' Three years later, that's s

Mateen Cleaves will lead Michigan State to Chicago for the Big Ten tournament.

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By Mark Snyder
Since its inception in 1894, the Big
Ten conference has maintained a prece-
dent of selectivity.
As the NCAA's most financially suc-
cessful organization of schools, the Big
Ten holds the power to admit members
as it chooses instead of as necessity dic-
tates.
The Big Ten's individualism may
have played a role in its reluctance to
institute a men's basketball tournament
- until now.
Finally, the Big Ten has
relented and will follow the
lead of numerous other con-
ferences with its own postsea-
son bonanza, to be held
March 5-8 in Chicago.
For the first two seasons, the tourna-
ment will remain in Chicago's United
Center - the city where the Big Ten
was born.
As progressive as the idea of postsea-
son play seems, the tournament's
approval at the December 1996 confer-
ence meetings passed with dissension
among the ranks.
Minnesota coach Clem Haskins,
whose team dominated the Big Ten con-
ference last year, voiced his objection to
the four-day adventure at this year's Big

I

Ten preseason media luncheon.
"I didn't vote for the tournament,"
Haskins said. "I feel you compete for
the year."
His Golden Gophers rolled through
this past Big Ten season, compiling a
16-2 record in the conference, and
without a conference tournament,
coasted to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA
tournament.
While it may be assumed that
Haskins fears losing an edge during the
conference tournament, he maintains
that his players' well-being is his top
priority.
"We ask them to play,
and we exploit them once
again and not reward
them' he said.
He is not alone in his
anti-tournament stance. Bobby Knight
is also a staunch opponent of the
NCAA tournament warm-up. But
despite the shadow Knight casts, the
tournament will go on - with all 11
teams participating.
To accommodate the unbalanced
numbers, the tournament's format fea-
tures three play-in games in the first
round.
No day will see more than four con-
tests, with the championship being
Sunday's lone game.
The process of instituting the

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March Madness
The Big Ten will host its first
men's basketball tournament
March 5-8, 1998, at the United
Center in Chicago. While few
details about the tournament
have trickled out of the confer-
ence offices, here's what is
known:
a All 11 teams will participate.
t The top five regular-season
teams will receive first-round byes.
CBS, ESPN and ESPN2 will
provide television coverage.
The tournament winner will
receive the conference's
automatic bid to the NCAA tour-
nament.
tournament and garnering support was
hardly the simple task one might
expect.
"We discussed the (prospect of a)
tournament with the coaches over a
five-year period," Big Ten commission-
er Jim Delany said. "There was a criti-
cal mass of support."
University athletic directors were
also consulted during the inquiry, and
were in nearly unanimous agreement
that a tournament should be instituted.
The lone dissenter was former
Michigan Athletic Director Joe
Roberson.
Delany said various factors pro-
longed the decision to bypass postsea-
son conference play for so many years.
"It was partially because we wanted
to do things to differentiate from the
other conferences." he said. "We were
having success in the (NC AA) basket-
ball tournament, and we had pride in
the full round-robin schedule."
While teams can compensate by
scheduling non-conference games -
as Michigan did with Michigan State
last season - the contests are no sub-
stitute for action that impacts the stand-
ings.
But for all of the negative reaction,
disputes and contentions, a majority of
the coaches fully endorse the concept.
"I'm a big proponent that it's an
event the players enjoy," Illinois coach
Lon Kruger said. "All of the sudden,
you're playing with a lose-and-gd-
home type of mentality. That's the men-
tality you have to have in the NCAAs,
so I think that's good preparation."
Early round NCAA tournament exits
by Big Ten teams in recent years ate
another spark that pushed the confer-
ence towards postseason play.
"We haven't been as successful as
we wanted in recent years," Delany
said.
And success translates to profits, a
common perception about the reason
for the postseason playoff - a charge
the commissioner adamantly denies,
because the Big Ten was financially
successful before the tournament.
And come March, 102 years of Big
Ten tradition will fall by the wayside -
it'll be tourney time.

t was unfair from the very beginning.
Everything about them mentioned their
potential, their talent, their future. The
thing-, they would do for Michigan basket-
ball were limitless, people said. That poten-
tial. That youth.
-They were the "Fresh Five," sometimes
even the "next Fab Five" - a hopelessly
unfair label - and theirs was the future of
Michigan basketball. They had their picture
taken at center court, just the five of them,
in their uniforms -just as the original Five
" had done before them. The picture ran in all
the .magazines and papers, oftentimes along-
side a shot of the one taken back in 1991
with Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and the rest.
And while most people realized the new
group could never equal the brashness and
exuberance of the once-in-a-lifetime Fab
Five, the comparisons were inevitable. The
talent was there, people said. The tools were
in place. It was only a matter of time.
Michigan basketball was at a crossroads,
and this group was to be The One.
It sure seems like that was an awfully
long time ago, doesn't it? What remains of
the Fresh Five - the supposedly new and
exciting changing-of-the-guard for
Michigan basketball - is a tired trio of
players that has never won an NCAA tour-
nament game, much less a national champi-
onship. Two of the original five members
are gone: Willie Mitchell transferred and
Maurice Taylor left for the NBA. Only
Jerod Ward, Travis Conlan and Maceo
Baston remain.
u Their college years have been spent under
a microscope of public scrutiny that most
players will never face. An NCAA investi-
gation sullied the only title - last season's
NIT - that they've ever won together.
Their coach was fired just before their final
season. And that potential, like their future,
has evaporated with shocking speed.
What happened since they posed for the
cameras back in 1994? What happened to
that potential, that youth - that future?
So much has happened to this team in the
years since the Fresh Five came to town -
and so very little of it has had anything to
do with basketball. Players have transferred,
and others have been told to leave. Stories

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FILE PHOTO
Maceo Baston was a member of Michigan's first big recruiting class to follow the Fab Five. He and his fellow seniors
enter their final season as Wolverines after three years in the shadow of perhaps the greatest class ever.

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