In 1989, the Michigan and Seton Hall men's basketball teams both met their peaks. They met in the NCAA championship in Seattle, and staged a spectacular match that was decided by two last second free throws by Wolverine point guard Rumeal Robinson.
Both programs maintained solid teams in the early 90's, and Michigan would continue to put out solid teams until 1998, but both schools fell off track, and both have looked to the same man to right the course. A man who is not a stranger to rebuilding projects.
Tommy Amaker was at the Final Four in Seattle that year in his first season as an assistant coach at Duke, just two years after his career as a point guard for coach Mike Krzyzewski had finished. His Blue Devils had fallen to Seton Hall in the national semi-final, but Duke was a team on the rise.
He joined the Blue Devils as a player just as Krzyzewski was starting to build the Blue Devils back to status as a national power.
When Amaker arrived at Duke in 1983, the Devils were coming off their second straight losing season, and their third straight year with a losing conference record. While there, he helped them to four NCAA tournament berths, including a national runner-up finish in 1986. While Amaker was an assistant, Duke reached the Final Four four more times, and won two National Championships in 1991 and 1992.
"I've always enjoyed being a part of something at the ground floor," Amaker said at Big Ten basketball media day in October. "And trying to mold and shape it and being a part of the process.
"I was involved in a process that started as a player at Duke when Krzyzewski came off two losing seasons, and I still wanted to go there because I believed in something there and I believed in him. It's the same thing I like to think about Seton Hall."
Experience under Krzyzewski is the best thing any assistant college basketball coach can put on a resume, and it was no surprise that when the Pirates were struggling after the P.J. Carlesimo era ended, Amaker was their choice to get back on track.
Amaker didn't make the Pirates an instant superpower, but in his four years in South Orange, he took them to three NIT's and guided them to the Sweet 16 two years ago. Last season, he brought in one of the top recruiting classes in the country, including the class's top freshman Eddie Griffin. However, some team chemistry problems threw Seton Hall into a midseason tailspin, and though they garnered four victories against ranked opponents, they finished just 5-11 in conference. They made a run for the Big East tournament championship, but fell in the semifinals, then in the first round of the NIT to Alabama.
Though his Pirates didn't climb all the way back to being a Final Four team and perennial conference contender, Amaker got Seton Hall back on the map. When Michigan came calling in March after firing Brian Ellerbe, who coached his teams to two 10th place finishes and a seventh place finish in the Big Ten in the past three years, Amaker set out to turn around another program.
"I had a very good situation obviously at Seton Hall, and we were doing some pretty good things there and had some great kids," he said. "But Michigan doesn't come around every day, and I was very lucky and fortunate that they looked in our direction to ask us to be the new leadership of our basketball program. I was very honored to have a chance to try to bring our program back to where it belongs."
Amaker inherits a squad with a mix of inexperience and youth with six seniors. However, none of those players have seen the success the Wolverines had become used to. The most advanced round of post season play any of the Wolverines have experienced was a loss to Notre Dame in the first round of the NIT after the 1999-2000 season. Before the current seniors arrived in the 1998-99 season, the Wolverines had qualified for the tournament in 12 of the previous 14 seasons and reached at least the NIT in each of the past 15.
There is talent to be worked with, however, especially in swingman LaVell Blanchard, a preseason All-Big Ten first team selection, and the leading scorer among conference returnees with 17.8 points per game last season.
To resurrect the program, Amaker is not trying to force his squad to take examples from the Duke teams he's been involved in, but trying to make them remember who they are.
"We talk about always trying to be Michigan," Amaker said. "And not so much getting caught up into what schools that we have to go against. We're trying right now to be the best that we can be. We're competing against ourselves right now."
His attitude and enthusiasm has won his players over, along with his fairness and desire to teach. He earned the respect of the team's senior leaders, and with them came the rest of the squad.
"Coach is a very good teacher," senior guard Leon Smith said. "He's very fair. He expects everything the same out of everybody. He tells you when you're doing really good, and he tells you when you're doing really bad. He looks for the good that you do. He doesn't look for the negative."
The result has been a squad much more enthusiastic than in previous years.
"There's definitely a lot more positive feeling in everybody," senior center Chris Young said. "That's starts out with coach, he's at practice everyday hyped. That gets the captains hyped, which gets the other seniors hyped, and it just trickles down to everybody, and by the time practice starts we're excited, we're ready to go."
The Wolverines haven't seen instant results on the floor yet. The 3-3 Wolverines have suffered losses to Bowling Green and Western Michigan. Amaker will get a visit from his old coach when Duke comes in Saturday, and his team gets two more non-conference games to try and pile on victories before beginning the Big Ten slate against Penn State in The Bryce Jordan Center at 8 p.m. Jan. 2.
It hasn't been an easy beginning, but after his past experiences, its nothing Tommy Amaker doesn't know about.
"I think we've known it was going to be a challenge," he said. "I think any time you're taking over, starting new or taking over a program, there's lots that has to be addressed and things that have to be looked into whether you actually change things or not. But I think we recognize the challenges that lie ahead of us, but we're excited about it."
