Jalen Rose says the Fab Five should be in the Hall of Fame

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts has 12 teams that currently have the honor of being of induction, and one former Michigan Wolverine believes that the Fab Five deserves their spot in as well.

Jalen Rose sat down with Jason Jones of The Athletic ($) in a piece primarily about Chris Webber’s Hall of Fame chance after his illustrious college basketball and NBA career.

However, the article went in a bit of a different direction at the end as Rose claims that the Fab Five team in its entirety should be enshrined in the Hall. While there are plenty of sanctions and a damaged reputation to the team that have been discovered, Rose still believes they have a legitimate shot:

“No. 1, the NCAA doesn’t own (the) Fab Five — Isiah Thomas taught me this,” Rose said. “The same way the NBA doesn’t own (Detroit’s) Bad Boys, so if that was like ‘March Madness’ or ‘One Shining Moment,’ something that they owned, that’s something they would acknowledge and give love to. When you see highlights of teams going in and out of the commercials, they show teams that didn’t win the championship, so they could show us if they really wanted to. So that has to be a conscious decision, and that’s fine. It’ll happen, and it’s just like him going to the Hall of Fame; I believe it will happen.”

The Fab Five was an integral part of the 1990’s and thoroughly enhanced African American culture setting the tone for the decade. On top of the cultural shift, the team was a force on the court taking the Wolverines to back-to-back NCAA Championship births. Not to mention, Steve Fischer made the team the first in NCAA history to have five starting freshmen.

We all know the rest of the tale, though. The Final Four banners were stripped and all wins were vacated after Webber and subsequent players at Michigan were found guilty of accepting over $600,000 worth of funds for attending the school. Webber was also banned from all association with the school for 10 years once the findings were announced in 2001.

Rose also points out the transcendent impact each of the Fab Five members have now had on the game of basketball. “When you turn on that television, you’re going to see me. You switch the channel, you’re going to see C-Webb (as an analyst). You’re going to see Juwan standing on the sidelines, and there, here comes Ray and Jimmy.”

Even with the impact on the game these five had, the controversy still outweighs it as the banners are still missing from the rafters in the Crisler Center. Although several have spoken about their absence, Rose is no longer worried if they will ever return:

“The best acknowledgment they could ever do for the Fab Five — and he earned it — was me going to the first game and watching Juwan Howard as the head coach,” Rose said. “To me, that was, as far as I’m concerned, putting our jersey in the rafter in Ann Arbor, putting us in the Hall of Fame.

Michigan basketball recruiting update

Speaking of the Wolverines head man, Juwan Howard, he has been putting in the work on the recruiting trail as he offered 2021 power forward Will Tschetter:

Tschetter is a 6-foot-8 forward from Stewartville, Minnesota. Right now, he seems to be a lesser-known player only holding offers from Minnesota, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Loyola-Chicago. Statistically, however, Tschetter has been one of the most impressive players in his class. His only ranking up to this point comes from Rivals who has him listed as a three-star.

Checking in on four-star small forward Brandon Weston, Jake Weingarten told Twitter that Howard and his staff have been actively pursuing the No. 76 player in the 2021 class:

Michigan will be vying for the Chicago native’s services with Illinois, Wake Forest, Iowa State, Wisconsin, and Seton Hall.

National Brews:

• One day after receiving the player’s union counter-proposal, the MLB and its owners are conferring on a 50-60 game plan giving players their full prorated salaries in order to get baseball back in 2020 with the goal to start playing in July.
• The Vegas Raiders first-round pick out of Alabama, wide receiver Henry Ruggs, reportedly injured himself while moving according to his father. According to ESPN, “He was trying to move a trailer or something — move furniture or something — and the trailer just kind of pinned him against a car or a wall or something. He’s pretty much OK...It was just like a little open wound on his leg, a little incision. Like something had stuck him right there on his thigh a little bit.” Thanks for clearing that one up pops!