Open Mic:Fab Five, 2003 Tigers among worst Michigan sports disappointments

It’s difficult for me to pick out any one disappointment in sports history and call it the greatest of all of time.

If I had to pick a recent one, it would be the New England Patriots 2007-2008 season. Tom Brady and Co. went 16-0 in the regular season and made it all the way to the Super Bowl only to lose in the closing minutes to the eventual champion New York Giants.

Given the media build-up and the popularity and talent of the Patriots, they seemed destined to take their place in history as the greatest team of all time.

The Giants had other plans and put together a great effort for the win. With the way the Patriots breezed through the regular season, a championship seemed inevitable.

They walked away empty-handed.

Instead, I’ve highlighted several disappointing moments in Michigan sports history in the past 20 years. These are four events/moments I consider to be some of the biggest disappointments in recent Michigan sports history.

The failure of the Fab Five-

Five players—Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, Ray Jackson, Jalen Rose and Jimmy King—took Ann Arbor by storm in the fall of 1991. These five freshmen are still considered by many to be the greatest recruiting class in college basketball history.

With their collective talent, these guys made the Wolverines a dominant power for two years, with their street ball style and hip-hop fashions on the court. They went 55-13 and went to back to back NCAA title games as freshmen and sophomores, losing both times.

As good as they were, the Fab Five never reached their ultimate goal of a title, though if Webber had stayed another year, they might have. They often played poorly against lesser opponents and only seemed to show their full talent range against powerhouses like Duke. Unfortunately for them, their legacy as basketball players is often best remembered by Webber calling the timeout he didn’t have in the waning seconds of the 1993 title game and turning the ball over.

The Fab Five was simply a great team that couldn’t finish.

The Michigan basketball scandal hasn’t helped their standing either. After allegations and sanctions and court appearances, the Fab Five’s records have been vacated and officially they don’t exist in the record books. Webber isn’t allowed to associate with Michigan and the school can’t celebrate one of its best teams of all time.

There’s no doubt the Fab Five had talent. With eye-popping slams and a knack for trash talking, they ushered in change to college basketball. But given their hype and talent, they seemed to underachieve just a bit. They didn’t even win a Big Ten Title for crying out loud!

The Tigers 119-loss season-

After spiraling into mediocrity in the late 1990s, the Tigers put an exclamation point on their awfulness in 2003, going 43-119, finishing one loss short of tying the record for most losses in a season.

How bad were the Tigers in 2003?

-Three of their starting pitchers had 15 or more losses, capped by Mike Maroth losing 21.

-They finished in last place in the AL Central, 47 games behind the Minnesota Twins.

-The team battling average was .240. The AL average was .259. Dimitri Young led the team with a .297 average.

As a fan, this was painful to watch given the status of the team for the previous few years. After losing their first nine games, they were 5-25 after 30 games. For the season they had 10 streaks of 6 or more losses. Watching the games on TV, there was often no reason to watch beyond the third or fourth inning because the team was so bad.

A season like this and some of the ones that preceded it, have made Tigers fans truly cherish the team’s resurgence under Jim Leyland. Sure, there was disappointment when they lost in the World Series in 2006, but I think the fact that they actually got there still made it a great moment for the team and a city aching for good baseball.   

Michigan football loses to Appalachian State in its 2007 season opener-   

Going into the game, Michigan was ranked No. 5 in the polls and was expected to show the Mountaineers that Division II’s best teams couldn’t play with the big boys of Division I. With returning seniors that included Mike Hart, Chad Henne, and Jake Long, this was supposed to be a cakewalk for Michigan. Instead Appalachian State took a 34-32 late in the game and blocked a late Wolverine field goal attempt to seal one of the biggest upsets in college football history.

Standing inside Spartan Stadium surrounded by cheering fans as the final score flashed on the giant screens in the midst of Michigan State’s game with UAB, it was a bit disheartening. Knowing that the Wolverines’ championship hopes were essentially gone after the season opener was disappointing. This was the start of a lackluster season for the Maize and Blue that was happily ended after a hard fought win over Florida in the Capital One Bowl.

The Red Wings 62-win season-

This makes the list only because the Red Wings had the best record in NHL history and lost in the third round of the playoffs to the Colorado Avalanche.

After being swept the previous year by the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Wings added a few veteran players and were poised to make another run at the Cup. Instead, the Avs bested the Wings in a six-game series which culminated with Avs goon Claude Lemieux smashing Kris Draper’s face into the boards, starting the Avs-Wings rivalry.

Much like the Patriots, this is disappointing because the Wings dominated the regular season and in the end, didn’t even have a chance to complete for the championship.

The Wings’ near misses were finally vindicated the next two years as they won back to back Stanley Cups, but the fact that one of the best team’s in the leagues history had an early playoff exit remains a little disappointing.

 Feel free to add to my list; I’m sure readers have their own impressions of these events/moments and countless others.