Michigan’s NCAA Victory Was Frieder’s Loss

On the night that the team that was once his own won the national championship, Bill Frieder stepped from an elevator at the hotel where he had watched the game on television, alone in his room.

“Say,” someone said. “Didn’t you used to be the coach at Michigan State?”

Steve Fisher was on television, telling the country that he was the happiest man alive after the Wolverines’ 80-79 overtime victory over Seton Hall, and Frieder was alone in a hotel, being mistaken for someone who had nothing to do with the Michigan team.

He might have been on television Monday. It might have been the happiest night of his life.

“It wasn’t me,” he said from his room in the early hours of Tuesday morning. “It’s one of those things.”

Instead it was Fisher, the apple-cheeked assistant who took over after Frieder had accepted the job at Arizona State and Michigan Athletic Director Bo Schembechler had forbade him to coach the team in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

“I really pulled for them,” Frieder said. “I’m really happy for them. If you know the background of some of those kids, Rumeal Robinson and Glen Rice, you’ve just got to be so happy for them.”

Frieder has pointedly reminded people that he is responsible for the Michigan team.

“I’m the architect of that team,” he has said. “I brought everyone there, the players, the assistants, the managers, the secretary.”

But there are those who believe that Michigan won the championship, not so much because of Frieder, but because he left.

“The whole thing for me is a losing proposition,” he said. “If they lost in the tournament, it was my fault. If they won, it was because they got rid of me.”

After the game, he spoke to Rice and some other players on the phone.

“I’m happy for you,” he told them again.

All week, the coaches and the players at the Final Four had talked about how special it was, how once-in-a-lifetime it was.

“I know it,” Frieder said. “But I’m happier for Glen Rice to win a national championship at this point than for Bill Frieder to win a national championship. . . . As far as I’m concerned, that’s just what I want to do at ASU. We’re going to go out and tell all the recruits we’re going to do the same thing.”

But Arizona State is more than a few recruits from a national championship. Frieder left Seattle at 7 a.m. Tuesday to hit the recruiting trail.

He expressed no regret, even if this might have been his best or only chance.

“Well, so what,” he said. “I’ve got a great family, a super wife, a healthy and intelligent super daughter.”

He might have been the architect, but in the end, he could only pace and worry.

“All I could do was root for them like any Michigan alum, like any fan, like any former coach,” he said.

And so he rooted, an old Michigan man for the Michigan team.

The blocking call against Gerald Greene that sent Robinson to the line with three seconds left in overtime was the subject of some discussion, but not by Seton Hall Coach P.J. Carlesimo.

“John Clougherty to me is one of (the best), if not the best, officials in the country, Carlesimo said. “We couldn’t ask for anybody else to make the call when the game’s on the line than John Clougherty.”

Michigan’s overtime victory was the first in an NCAA title game since 1963, when Chicago Loyola beat Cincinnati, 60-58. But it was only the latest in a series of championships won with thrilling finishes, including one by North Carolina in 1982, another by North Carolina State in 1983, one by Villanova in 1985, one by Indiana in 1987 and one by Kansas last year.

Shop owners swept up shards of glass Tuesday as University of Michigan officials tried to piece together an image left shattered by a mob of frenzied basketball fans.

Authorities expressed disbelief and dismay at the aftermath of a raucous celebration Monday night, when at least 6,000 screaming revelers defied rain and police to mark the Wolverines’ first NCAA championship.

The mob that overturned a cab, smashed windows and uprooted street signs after Monday victory.

“There are windows broken all over the place,” she said. “All we can tell you is that it’s extensive.”

An unidentified 18-year-old woman remained hospitalized Tuesday at the University of Michigan Medical Center after being hit by a car while crossing a street during the revelry, Vail said.

Police said it was not until 2:30 a.m. when they were able to disperse the crowd.