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UM hires a coach

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MICHIGAN MAKES BEE-LINE FOR NEXT COACH

OK, so Michigan has endured a bad run of hiring basketball coaches. And that’s a vast understatement. After Steve Fisher was run out of town for cheating, the Wolverines hired Brian Ellerbe. That didn’t work out so well. Then it was Tommy Amaker. Again, not exactly the man to turn UM’s program around.


And recently, Michigan hired former West Virginia coach John Beilein (pronounced Bee-line) to run the show in Ann Arbor. And while Beilein did a good job at West Virginia, it wasn’t a very impressive hire in the opinion here.


First of all, Beilein, 53, isn’t exactly known as a great recruiter. He’s a good game manager in terms of adjustments and is known for his tough 1-3-1 zone defense. However, he’s not a guy who is going to go out and pound the pavement and land excellent recruits. I just don’t see him beating out Tom Izzo and Thad Matta for some of the region’s best players. And Michigan can no longer afford to land second-tier recruits. It hasn’t worked out well for them over the last decade.


In addition, Beilein has a strange $2.5 million buyout hanging over his head due to his departure from West Virginia with five years still remaining on his contract. And get this: Michigan refuses to pay it! In all of my years following sports, this is nearly an unprecedented move. I always felt that it was assumed across the board that the new school – the one stealing the coach away from the former school – would always pay whatever buyout was necessary. It’s just another way of showing that you really want the coach.


But Michigan’s less-than-impressive athletic director Bill Martin had this to say about the subject to ESPN:


“(The buyout) never came up because there is no way Michigan was going to pay it,” Martin said. “To John Beilein’s credit, he said, ‘The buyout is my responsibility.’”


And that’s all well and good. But Beilein has no intentions of paying the buyout. In fact, he is currently trying to wiggle out of it, but the contract is clear as day. Beilein thinks the buyout is excessive, but he should have thought about that before signing the contract.


According to ESPN: “A number of coaches (have said) they don’t understand why Beilein could even question the buyout.”


So who knows if this will affect Beilein’s tenure at Michigan, but a distraction like this surely can’t help. Michigan could have done a better job of finding its new coach after a decade of futility. And I can’t get over the fact that Michigan didn’t even offer to help pay for the buyout. But maybe UM needs all the money it can get to help refurbish some of its outdated facilities.
http://www.bucknuts.com/news/story.php?article=851

Thoughts on this hire? I'd like to get George's opinion, if he'll grace us with it.
 

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