Michigan Fires Head Coach Tommy Amaker

Another NCAA postseason rages on while the Michigan Wolverines are knocked out of the NIT tournament early. This has been another disappointing season for the Wolverines. It is not disappointing just because of the 2^nd round loss in the NIT tournament but that it was another season without a bid in the NCAA tournament. After six seasons without a bid into the national tournament, Michigan has fired it's head coach Tommy Amaker.

The men's basketball program at Michigan was regarded as one of the finest in the nation. Until the late 1990s, the program had won 12

To be fair to Amaker, he was placed in a losing situation. When he was hired in 2001 as head coach, Michigan was not even close to having a decent basketball program. Not only did he have the mess of the scandal to try to deal with but he also had the problem of watered down recruited players. Former coach Brian Ellerbe was a very poor recruiter, so Michigan did not have the top players or even close. Amaker was excepted to make the program work regardless. He had another disadvantage staring at him though, Michigan had failed during his coaching tenure to update the basketball practice facilities. Michigan has actually let it's basketball facilities fall into such disrepair as to be the worse, not only in the Big Ten Conference, but also the nation.

So actually, Amaker was set up to fail but he progressed the program to being on the right track for rebuilding. Although, he did have six seasons without an NCAA bid, he did have an overall winning record. He was 109-83 nationally but a pitiful 43-53 in the Big Ten conference. He actually has helped the program in many ways. He had placed Michigan back on track to being a winning basketball team and eventually, back in the NCAA tourney. He has Michigan back on the road to being at the top of recruiting. He needed help from the university though. They could have helped with rebuilding of the facilities, helped in recruiting, and just paying more attention to it's second most profitable program. The university would not stand for the same situation with it's highly favored football program, so it should not have expected to give less to it's basketball program.

Whoever is the next coach at Michigan will have a tough task ahead of them. They will be expected to do more, with less, in the way of facilities but also it seems, less support from the university. I doubt Michigan will see the NCAA tourney for a few more years at this rate. Big Ten regular-season conference titles, had 6 final four appearances, and won the national championship in 1989. All that came to an end when the scandal of Ed Martin broke out. It was revealed that as a Michigan supporting booster, Martin had paid players to play basketball, which is against NCAA rules. The Michigan basketball program was hit hard by the scandal. Not only was the program placed on probation for four years, it forfeited games from the seasons that the NCAA deemed questionable. Two of those games involved its' final four appearances in 1991 and 1992. They were also banned from the postseason for the 2002 and 2003 seasons. To add a sense of creditability back to the program, Michigan hired Tommy Amaker as coach. Regarded around the league as a "good guy", Amaker had a reputation for being a stickler for rules and regulations. All that came to and end on March 18^th, when Michigan fired Amaker for failing to receive a bid in the NCAA tournament. Expectations were high for Michigan receiving a bid but when expectations fell short, Michigan was asked to play in the NIT tourney. After having a losing Big Ten record, failure to reach the NCAA tourney, and then losing in the 2^nd round of the NIT tourney, Michigan felt the basketball program was heading in the wrong direction.