Jalen Rose: I tried to Recruit Glenn Robinson While Playing at Michigan

The Fab Five still hold a key place in the history of Michigan Wolverines basketball, not to mention college basketball as a whole.

Stories about the group still fascinate, as evidenced by the Fab Five documentary and by this ESPN video featuring Jalen Rose (which you can also see at this link):

Rose is asked by David Jacoby if he ever tried to recruit players to Michigan after he was a freshman. As it turns out, he tried to recruit players to Ann Arbor even before that.

Rose targeted future No. 1 draft pick Glenn Robinson to Michigan when both were selected as McDonald's All-Americans. Robinson ended up at Purdue before spending 11 years in the NBA.

Who knows what may have happened if Robinson chose differently (interestingly, Robinson's son, Glenn Robinson III, did play at Michigan before embarking on his own pro career.)

But that's not all. Rose also named Voshon Leonard, his high school teammate. Leonard chose Minnesota, and also spent 11 years in the NBA. Lastly, Rose named Calvin Rafer, another McDonald's All-American who ended up at Kansas and played in a Final Four.

Here was the sales pitch:

"Hey man, you need to come run with us, because we're going to change the game," Rose says. "We might be wearing black shoes, black socks, long shorts, and we might have a documentary in 20 years. What about you?"

Hard to argue with that.