Carlesimo Shows His Class After Losing NCAA Title

This is the kind of guy Seton Hall Coach P.J. Carlesimo is. Minutes after what had to be the most heartbreaking defeat of his career, an 80-79 overtime loss to Michigan in Monday night’s National Collegiate Athletic Association championship game, P.J. was being escorted from the interview room by Connecticut Sports Information Director Tim Tolokan.

As P.J. walked off the podium and down the blue curtained hallway behind the interview room, he and Tolokan passed the closed door to the Michigan dressing room. P.J. asked Tolokan when the Michigan players and interim coach Steve Fisher would be coming out to go to the interview room.

“Two or three minutes,” Tolokan told him.

Most coaches who had just gone through what Carlesimo had wouldn’t have even bothered to stop or ask. And of the few who would have, even fewer would have waited a split second when told that their conquerors wouldn’t be coming out for several minutes.

But P.J. Carlesimo hung around. And when the door finally opened, and three of the victorious Michigan stars emerged on their way to the interview room, Carlesimo congratulated each of them. He hugged Fisher.

People like P.J. are winners no matter how many games they lose.

Oddly enough, Michigan’s Fisher may prove to be a loser even though he won, coaching Michigan to its first national championship in basketball.

Sure, he won, had a great six-game tournament run. But Michigan athletic director-football coach Bo Schembechler wonders, when all’s said and done, if Fisher’s tough enough. Isn’t that just like a football coach?

You probably know the story by now. Fisher, 44, a Michigan assistant coach for seven years, was named interim head coach by Schembechler on the eve of the NCAA Tournament, almost immediately after head coach Bill Frieder had told Bo he’d accepted a job at Arizona State next season.

Bo is a no-nonsense guy, and besides, he never liked Frieder much, anyway, so he told him to hit the road immediately.

With Michigan coachless and the tournament set to begin, Schembechler called the basketball team together and told them to go as far as they could in the tournament and not worry about the coaching situation.

He told them he would not name a new head coach until the tournament was over and the players were back on campus, at which time Bo said he would meet with them individually to get their thoughts on the matter.

Frieder, a basketball fanatic whose intensity and tunnel vision were legendary even in a profession where such behavior is the rule, was not particularly popular with his players.

In many cases, however, that would not necessarily be a bad rap. Players, 19-year-olds, are rarely the best judges of what kind of coach is best for them.

Nor is it illogical that Michigan, in the short run, would play its best ball for Fisher. By the very nature of their positions, assistant coaches are often more buddy-buddy with their players than the head coach is. In an NCAA field with so many evenly matched top teams and none that was absolutely awesome, an emotional edge can catapult a team to a championship.

But given that Michigan began playing its best basketball of the season when Fisher replaced Frieder, how can Bo deny Fisher the job? How do you fire an undefeated coach?

It all depends who else Bo can get. That, more than anything else, may determine whether he removes “interim” from Fisher’s title.

One point can’t be argued: Given the tournament result, it’s a public relations disaster for Michigan if Bo, who has never won a national football championship in his 19 years at Michigan, doesn’t give Fisher the job. But like most public relations disasters, it will pass.

One of the toughest things for any boss, especially one in the public eye, is to make a decision that kicks public opinion in the face. We know that the players like Fisher, that they play hard for him. But how good a recruiter is he? In college basketball, 1989, there’s a much greater correlation between a coach’s record and his ability to recruit blue-chip players than his ability to actually coach them.

Which may be a good thing for Fisher. Because if Monday night’s championship game was any indication, he isn’t much of a bench coach.

When guard Rumeal Robinson made a rip-roaring reverse dunk to give the Wolverines the biggest lead of the game--51-39 with 14:17 left in regulation--it behooved the Wolverines to use as much of the 45-second clock as they could on each possession. It wasn’t as if this would have forced them to alter their style: They were already employing a half-court offense and dominating the boards.

Instead, the Wolverines hurried shots and passes, playing as if they were using the NBA’s 24-second clock, as if they were the team trailing by 12. They helped Seton Hall get back in the game.

Their worst offender was sophomore Sean Higgins, who made only 2 of 7 field-goal attempts in the second half, 3 of 10 for the game, many of them wild, ill-advised attempts.

“Coach Fisher is a little more relaxed,” Higgins said after Michigan beat Xavier in its first-round game. “He gave us more freedom. If we’d make a mistake, he’d say ‘That’s OK, do it right the next time.’ Coach Frieder would have just pulled us out of the game.”

Someone should have pulled Higgins out of this game. Someone should have gotten Michigan to run a more patient offense. Someone should have settled the Wolverines down as they set about blowing the game, a fate from which Glen Rice (31 points) and Robinson’s clutch free throws with three seconds left in overtime saved them.

That someone should have been Fisher.

It wasn’t.

Which is not to say Bo shouldn’t make Fisher Michigan’s head coach. There are more than a few successful college basketball programs run by coaches who can’t coach a lick.

But very few run by coaches who can’t recruit. Michigan is a big-time school with a big-time name. Is Steve Fisher good enough to keep its banner flying high? Who knows?

He certainly seems to deserve the chance.

What the heck. Bo can always fire him.