Michigan Tells Amaker to Hit the Bricks

I don't even know what to say. I'm so happy!

Today is one of those days you don't expect to come and then when it finally does you just don't have the right words to express your happiness. Michigan (finally) has ended the Tommy Amaker era that was marked with the word "mediocrity."

Apparently the final nail in the coffin for Amaker was the drubbing Michigan suffered at the hands of Florida State in the NIT. It was a typical Amaker lead Michigan performance where the Wolverines looked horrible on the road against a good opponent. It almost looked like they decided to quit in the second half and were just resigned to their fate. Michigan had a lead in the first half but after the 'Noles came back and took the lead going into halftime, they just decided to stop trying. If that's not an indictment of your head coach, I don't know what is.

What Amaker will be remembered for is taking over a Michigan team that was destroyed by NCAA sanctions (thanks Chris Webber) and turned it into a clean program that was on the cusp of making the NCAA tournament but was never good enough to get over the hump. Amaker's teams were always terrible on the road and also had a habit of playing well at the start of the season and then fading down the stretch (The last two years they've started 16-4 and failed to make the NCAA tournament after a late season swoon)

I also can't name a player who has come to Michigan the past six years who has gotten much better as a player under Amaker's guidance. Most guys come in as a freshman with the normal array of pluses and minues and leave with essentially the same skills they came in with. Nobody seems to get better at all. At times, actually, some look worse then when they were underclassman (Courtney Sims) Just shows that Amaker was not the one to lead Michigan back to being a program that actually matters on the national landscape.

Where do the Wolverines go from here? That's a topic or another day. Today we should just celebrate the fact that the athletic department has finally taken their heads out of the sand and decided that the basketball program should strive for better things, instead of settling for the mediocrity that the Amaker era represented. Goodbye Tommy! Don't let the door hit on you the ass on the way out!