Whitlock: Steve Fisher incompetent, Albom a hack

Thanks to reader BiggieMunn who just forwarded the link to this article by Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock. He uses the Fab Five to illustrate that it’s a bit early to determine whether Kansas State has built a sustainable college hoops program.

Here’s the blow at Steve Fisher, the Fab Five, and the out-of-touch Mitch Albom:

Steve Fisher won a national championship, recruited the Fab Five, coached in back-to-back NCAA title games and at no time was he a competent coach. I covered his Fab Five teams for the Ann Arbor newspaper.

By the time history and NCAA investigators judged the Fab Five, their legacy, along with Fisher’s, was erased from the record book. All that they left behind were baggy shorts and a myth-laden book written by then-in-the-closet-novelist Myth Albom, who had the audacity to write that Chris Webber couldn’t afford McDonald’s despite a lavishly furnished apartment and pulling up to each Michigan home game in a new SUV.

Reaction: Love the swing across the bow at Albom who deserves it. Yes, I’m sure Whitlock is jealous of Albom as Mitch sleeps each night on a large pile of money.

The shot at Fisher was cheap. Fish deserves a lot of credit for that run of success in the 1989 tournament and for leading a group of five freshmen to two finals and a final 8 to boot (minus Webber). No, Fisher wasn’t Bob Knight but would have five freshmen seen the court under Knight?

And I guess the debate over the legacy of the Fab Five will never end.