*2nd Round of the NCAA Tourney in '98, vs. UCLA. Baron Davis, Earl Watson, Toby Bailey, JR Henderson and some dude I don’t recall named Kris Johnson who killed us that game. I think that Baron blew out his knee that game.
Sad to read that they were not good guys. Tell me at least Maceo was. He was one of my favorites.
I won’t bother getting into specifics into any of them other than to say I have nothing to say about Baston, and always heard Jerod Ward was a nice guy.
My recall was Bailey ripping us apart in that game. If Baron played, he was invisible, at least to my recollection.
I found the game. I wish I’d stuck with learning Spanish.
Wild that that UCLA team was only a 6 seed.
At the 15:05 mark of the video (around 11 minutes left in the first half), Davis crosses Bullock over and goes baseline for a 2-handed dunk to put UCLA up 21-16, but he lands awkwardly and leaves the game almost immediately. The box score shows that he played 14 minutes so I guess he tries to give it a go later in the game.
I’m pretty sure he tore his ACL there. UCLA lost in the Sweet 16 to Kentucky and Davis didn’t play.
This was also my era at Michigan and you hit the nail on the head. Bullock was indeed a good player, perhaps even very good. But he could have been great. Same with Maurice Taylor. They went through stretches where they just didn’t seem to put in effort or handle adversity. Frankly, my biased and uneducated opinion is to throw some blame on Fisher also. I felt like he was often a “roll out the ball” coach who benefited from the elite 1989 roster and Fab Five but didn’t do much to put his teams in position to win schematically.
Now, I know the Fab Five documentary highlighted some of his teachings and he went on to have a solid career at smaller schools with less talent. Maybe it was also the inability to get through to guys like Bullock and Taylor who were taking tons of cash at the time.
Bullock was so talented and one of the best shooters I’ve ever seen. The fact that he and the rest of those players never did anything in March means I can’t given him more than “good” as a compliment.
But damn did he look impressive doing it I recall
Bullock gets a pass from me for life because of that Duke comeback. As a kid I already had Michigan intuition and knew something special was happening and hit record on the old VCR. I probably watched the last part of that game 200 times.
I could be wrong, but this was either 1 or 2 years after their title with the O’Bannon’s, and Bailey and Henderson were the only leftovers from that team. Watson was a freshman nobody at this point, and Davis was good but like their third banana.
Lou shot us out of that UCLA game. Don’t recall his stats but he missed a ton of threes.
I don’t know, I think Bullock maxed out his potential. He was an undersized shooting guard without a great handle but had a beautiful stroke. He and Tractor Traylor fully panned out IMO. The rest, not nearly as much. Mo Taylor was especially the guy who I felt didn’t reach what he could have become. He had all the ability in the world but didn’t dominate like he could have.
Taylor left the year before this UCLA game right? When they won the NIT?
Yes he did
Yeah, he wasn’t on that team but the previous ones. How that ‘97 team missed the tournament I will never understand. I was at the IU game that year when we led by like 18 at the half and collapsed. Steve Fisher’s last couple of teams were so different than his previous ones.
We’re getting a little sidetracked here but I’m going to dive deeper. Does anyone know why either Olivier St. John and/or Albert White transferred? St. John was like a Ray Jackson-type but with more offense and White reminded me of a mini-Larry Johnson.
Iirc, White was in some kind of academic or disciplinary trouble. Saint Jean otoh I think just looked at the future depth chart and decided it would be too crowded. He was ahead of those monster classes.
That’s my recollection re White as well, but things were much less transparent back then.
For White academic issues was the official reason given, but I remember there was talk that he had some disputes with the coaching staff. His playing time was just a few minutes off the bench by the end of the season. There was no question he was talented, but he saw less and less minutes off the bench.
Edit: I seem to remember he was in the starting lineup for a few games, replacing the Tractor, who broke his arm on famous Taylor’s Ford Explorer rollout
Olivier St Jean (Abdul Wahad) saw the writing on the wall and bolted. His recruiting was pure luck for Michigan. Basically his father committed for him. He was a high IQ player, and a pure talent (as seen with his success in the NBA).
I will not let you slander Kris Johnson. His father Marques Johnson played at UCLA, won a NBA title with the Bucks. He also had an iconic line in the movie White Men Can’t Jump.
