We wanted to bring the culture we came from, which was street basketball, community basketball, and bring that fun back to game.” “It could get frustrating and un-fun at times,” Jackson said. So, no title, but the Fab Five ended up with more - namely, they opened the world to embracing the style they brought to the playground, while making an indelible statement about the way they felt college players should be treated. In 1993, it was Webber's costly timeout when the Wolverines didn't have one that made the difference in a close loss to North Carolina. They got blown out by Duke 1992 with Bobby Hurley, the brother of current UConn coach Dan Hurley, doing some of the damage. They showed up at Michigan in 1991 and made not one but two appearances in the national title game. “I had the ability to close my eyes and dream, and dream of this, to be honest with you,” Fisher said earlier this week.Ī Final Four wasn't so much a dream as an expectation for the Fab Five - Jackson, Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard and Jimmy King - who, in many opinions, remain the most electric single recruiting class in college history. These days, sports gambling is legal in many states (the NCAA brought the Sweet 16 to Las Vegas for the first time last week), while everyone from car dealers to social media conglomerates pay players in the open.įisher is in Houston this week, hanging with his son, Mark, a special assistant for the fifth-seeded Aztecs who has ALS. Back then, it was a shady booster with gambling ties trying to funnel money to players. In essence, the coach, who retired and handed over the SDSU reins to Dutcher in 2017, got caught up in a series of events that, frankly, wouldn’t be frowned upon nearly as harshly today. Fisher made his way to the West Coast after losing his job at Michigan in the wake of one of the most complex and sordid illicit-benefits scandals in NCAA history. One of the greatest ironies is that the coach who essentially built the 21st-century version of San Diego State is Dutcher's longtime boss at both Michigan and SDSU, Steve Fisher. “We wanted to change the dynamics of that, get the athletes feeling empowered a little more.” “We got to college and started understanding the hypocrisy in the game, with the schools making millions and us sitting around poor as hell,” said Fab Five guard Ray Jackson.
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