Clarion Content

As if to highlight just what kind of coach they can't stomach in Ann Arbor, fired Michigan basketball coach Tommy Amaker has been hired to take over Harvard's men basketball program. Michigan basketball, as Jay Bilas noted in the Detroit Free Press, was renown primarily for its cheating prior to the Amaker hire. Ammaker cleaned up the program, raised graduation rates and won 22 games each of the last two seasons. Unfortunately, however, each of those two squads also had double digit losses, and NIT bids, not invites to the "big dance." At Michigan, all else, is secondary. Michigan envisions its basketball program in a class with the Indianas, UCLAs, and North Carolinas. It is willing to sacrifice decency, academics and whatever necessary to get there.

Amaker didn't and wouldn't fit that bill. Harvard senses an opportunity in the Ivy League with Princeton basketball (which along with Penn has dominated league play) in transition. Harvard has never made the commitment to hire a big time men's basketball coach like Amaker. Amaker, a classy leader, should fit right in, perhaps the trail blazed by John Thompson III from the Ivy League to a major conference job to the Final Four is a path Ammaker believes he can follow.

Labels: college basketball, sports