April 5, 1993, 30 years ago: The most famous timeout in the history of sports is one that didn't even exist. But then, officially, neither did the team that called it.
In 1989, the University of Michigan won college basketball's National Championship, under new head coach Steve Fisher. Two years later, the school had its greatest recruiting class ever. From Detroit came forward Chris Webber and guard Jalen Rose. From Chicago came forward Juwan Howard. From the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas came guard Jimmy King. And from Austin, Texas came forward Ray Jackson. (I thought they had a couple of players from Flint, Michigan, known as "The Flintstones." I had that confused with the Michigan State National Champions of 2000.)
Webber, Rose, Howard, King and Jackson became known as the Fab Five, and the question that was being asked wasn't if they would win a National Championship, but how many.
Such questions had been asked of professional would-be superstars, but this was the first time that ESPN had allowed such a thing to be a nationwide discussion in college sports.
In their freshman year, 1991-92, the Michigan Wolverines went 25-9, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament's Final Four, at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. They reached the Final, and, with the 1st all-freshman starting five in the event's history, lost to Duke University, the defending National Champions, 71-51.
It was a bad way to end a really good season, but everything up to that point -- including beating arch-rival (in football, anyway) Ohio State in the Reginal Final, and a very good University of Cincinnati team in the National Semifinal -- had been very encouraging. Few people expected them to go all the way the 1st year, but getting that close raised the expectations even higher.
In 1992-93, they got back to the Final with a 31-4 record and the Number 3 pre-Tournament ranking, taking the floor at the Superdome in New Orleans against the University of North Carolina. Coached by Dean Smith, the Tar Heels came in at 33-4 and ranked Number 4, so this was going to be a battle. Furthermore, Smith had won his previous National Championship in 1982, on the same floor, against Georgetown University, when, with Carolina leading by one point as the clock ticked down, a Georgetown player made a key mistake to seal the Carolina victory.
And the game was tight the whole way. With 46 seconds left, Jackson hit a jumper to close the Wolverines to within 72-69. At this point, Michigan called its last timeout.
Carolina blew the inbounds pass, giving Michigan the ball. But Rose missed a would-be tying 3-pointer. Webber got the rebound, and made it 72-71 with 36 seconds left. Carolina's Pat Sullivan was fouled, and made his 1st of 2 free throws, to make it 73-71 Carolina.
He missed the 2nd, and Webber got the rebound. He traveled -- and the officials didn't see it. He got surrounded by sky blue jerseys, and, nervous, he called timeout -- a timeout the Wolverines didn't have. This gave the Heels 2 free throws and the subsequent possession.
Donald Williams made both free throws, to make it 75-71 Carolina. With 8 seconds left, Williams was fouled, and his shots made the final score North Carolina 77, Michigan 71.
For the 3rd time, North Carolina had won the NCAA Tournament. For the 2nd time, it was under Smith's leadership. (The 1st time was in 1957, under Frank McGuire.) For the 2nd time, it was because of a mistake that wasn't as big as people made it out to be, since, in each case, Carolina were already ahead at the time. And both games were at the Superdome. And the locations of the mistakes in question were within a few feet of each other.
In spite of this, Webber took the brunt of the criticism. It wasn't fair. In hindsight, Coach Fisher probably should have reminded his players in their last timeout that it was their last timeout, and that none were left. But he didn't, and Webber operated on instinct.
Still, the Fab Five had 2 more years of eligibility left. Except they didn't use it. Here's what happened to the Five after the '93 Final:
* Webber declared for the NBA Draft, and the Orlando Magic selected him as the 1st pick. Imagine a team with, all at the same time, a young Shaquille O'Neal, a young Scott Skiles, a young Dennis Scott, and a young Chris Webber. You'll have to imagine it: The Magic immediately traded Webber to the Golden State Warriors for Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway, but, partly due to Hardaway's injuries and Shaq's skedaddling to Los Angeles after only 4 seasons, only got 1 NBA Finals berth out of it.
And the Warriors only had Webber for 1 year. Despite his winning Rookie of the Year, they traded him to the Washington Bullets, who traded him to the Sacramento Kings. Twice, he got the Kings to the Western Conference Finals; twice, the Kings were robbed by the referees in favor of Shaq and the Lakers. Webber made 5 All-Star Games, and has been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
* Rose played 1 more year for Michigan, and bounced around the league for 13 seasons, making the 2000 NBA Finals with the Indiana Pacers, losing to Shaq and the Lakers. It could have been Rose's Pacers (actually, Reggie Miller's Pacers with Rose) against Webber's Kings, but it was not to be. Rose is now a basketball analyst for ESPN.
* Howard also played 1 more year for Michigan, and, for a time, was a teammate of Webber on the Bullets. Both were still with them when they changed their name to the Washington Wizards in 1997. Howard played 19 seasons, including 1 All-Star season, and closed his career in 2012 and 2013, winning NBA Championships with the Miami Heat of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
* King played all 4 years for Michigan, and in 1995 became an original member of the Toronto Raptors. He also played in 1997 with the Denver Nuggets, and played several seasons in the minor leagues, including 2 seasons in Venezuela. He became a high school coach in the Detroit area.
* Jackson played all 4 years for Michigan, and is the only one of the Fab Five who never played in the NBA. He played in the minor leagues, and in the pro leagues of France, Argentina and Venezuela (though not as a teammate of King). He now runs a moving company in his native Austin.
There were 2 weird postscripts to the Fab Five. In 2002, Webber was charged with lying to a grand jury, as part of a larger investigation into Ed Martin, a Michigan booster. As it turned out, Martin had been giving money to Webber since the 8th grade. Not only did Michigan have to forfeit its Final Four appearances -- meaning that, officially, his college basketball career, the Fab Five, the Final Four trips, and the timeout gaffe itself, never existed -- but even his high school, Detroit Country Day School, had to forfeit the 3 State Championships he led them to.
This one may be even weirder. In 1999, the new NBC drama The West Wing showed a pickup basketball game near the White House. On one side was President Jed Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) and 4 Secret Service Agents. Talk about a good defense. On the other side were some of the President's staff, led by White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), wearing a City College of New York (CCNY) sweatshirt.
The President's team is losing, so he makes a substitution. It's a ringer, a man newly hired by the President's Council on Physical Fitness. Toby thinks he looks familiar, and the new player admits he played basketball for Duke. Toby yells out, "Duke? This guy was in the Final Four!" Ironically, he was played by Juwan Howard, who had played against Duke in the Final Four, for Michigan, and lost in the 1992 Final.
In 2019, Howard was named head coach of Michigan. He guided them to a Big Ten Conference regular-season Championship and the NCAA Elite Eight in 2021, and the Sweet Sixteen in 2022.
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