0
0 0
TheMiciga Daly Tioff- TursayNovember 12, 2009
WANT TO BE COOL?
FOLLOW @MICHDAILYSPORTS.
MICHIGAN
From page 5C
team in a position where they're
knocking on the door and they
have a chance."
And there's a reason opposing
coaches and those close to the pro-
gram see the Wolverines reaching
the doorstep of the Big Ten's upper
echelon.
"What I've witnessed," said
King, "is it doesn't matter who
scores, doesn't matter who
rebounds, doesn't matter who
gets a blocked shot, who gets the
winning bucket - they just want
to win. That's what's going to
take them from
the middle of
the pack to the
front." It hasC
King pre-
dicts atop-three started,
Big Ten finish
for Michigan, nowhei
would likely f
translate into a finis
top-four seed in
the NCAA Tour-
nament, which
would in turn give the Wolverines
an opportunity to play deep into
March.
FAB FIVE ATTITUDE
They wore baggy shorts, black
socks and their mouths on their
sleeves.
And for two years, the phrase
"Fab Five" was synonymous with
the Michigan basketball program.
While the most noticeable aspects
of the quintet were the quirky
uniforms that turned into nation-
wide trends, they weren't the most
important. What mattered most
was the attitude.
"We didn't use the word 'swag-
ger' back then, but we had a hell of
a swagger," Chris Webber said in
Fox Sports Net's program "Beyond
the Glory - the Fab Five."
The Fab Five was more cocky
than confident, to say the least.
Though that's a far cry from the
Michigan basketball team under
Beilein, it certainly has some par-
allels in that area.
"Watching these kids from
afar, the biggest thing that they
remind me of that was similar to
us is their attitudes," King said.
"(The current players) go into
a game believing they can win
regardless of who they're play-
ing. Like last year, when they
played UConn, nobody gave them
a chance that they were going
to play hard or even hang with
UConn. They go into their place
and almost win."
King pointed to a few games
during Beilein's first year, match-
ups that Michigan ended up los-
0 0
ing after the team shrank 10- or
20-point deficits in the game's
final moments. The fight, that it-
ain't-over-til-it's-over attitude,
was perfectly clear. According to
Beilein, it's a "believe you can beat
any opponent" mentality.
And that's what brings for-
mer players like King back to the
early 1990s. Sure, the Fab Five was
known more for its trash talking
than its confidence. But when five
freshmen tell the national media
that they expect to win a national
championship, it's hard to ignore
that attitude.
Nobody on the Michigan roster
this year predicts a national title.
But that doesn't mean the goals
aren't lofty and
the pressure
isn't cooking.
ertainly "If they were
to ask me what
but it's to expect this
year, I would
re near just say, 'You
,hed. guys won't be
a surprise this
year - you're
on the radar,'
" King said.
"Now, when you go into a Wiscon-
sin, or a Michigan State or a Penn
State or wherever you go on the
road, the crowd is gonna know,
they're gonna know who you are
and they're gonna be gunning for
you."
WHERE MICHIGAN BELONGS
Back to the present, though, for
just a moment.
"Right now, we're 0-0, and so is
every team in the country," fresh-
man walk-on Josh Bartelstein
said, echoing a mantra other play-
ers have used. "We know we have
a lot of work to do. Nothing's going
to be given to us easy, that's for
sure."
Beilein has instilled that kind
of attitude in his players. It's why
when he sends a letter telling each
athlete to "be a hunter," the team
takes it to heart.
It's also why the players exude
confidence when they take the
court.
And for all of those reasons,
Beilein finds himself in the center
of another program revival. It's
certainly started, but it's nowhere
near finished.
"Until we can get Michigan to
point where they're in the NCAA
Tournament -this is normal to
be in the NCAA Tournament - we
haven't turned anything around
yet," Beilein said.
"I think that's where Michigan
belongs. If you're in the tourna-
ment every year, dang it, you've
got a chance of winning it. That's
where we want to go, sustain the
program."
Choose from the following games:
FRI, NOV. 27 -8 PM vs. LA. CLIPPERS
TH U, DEC. 10 - 7:30 PM vs. DENVER
WED, DEC. 23 - 7:30 PM vs. TORONTO
TUE, DEC. 29- 7:30 PM vs. NEW YORK
SAT, JAN. 9 -7:30 PM vs. PH ILADELPH IA
FRI, JAN. 15-8 PM vs. NEW ORLEANS
SAT, FEB. 6 - 7:30 P vs. EW JERSEY
FRI, FEB. 19 - 8 PM vs. MILWAUKEE
FRI, MAR. 12-8 PM vs. WASHINGTON
FRI, APR. 2 - 8 PM vs. PHOENIX
24-37-e g gPITN.O/OLEEIHS
LET'S
G TO
WORK.