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SN Archive: One risky decision delivered Michigan’s last basketball national championship (April 10, 1989, issue) originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Michigan won the 2026 NCAA men’s basketball national championship, its first since 1989. This article, ‘Wolverines Complete Mission’ by Paul Attner, originally appeared in the April 10, 1989 issue of The Sporting News.
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After Michigan had squeezed out an electrifying, 80-79 overtime triumph over Seton Hall for the NCAA basketball championship April 3, interim coach Steve Fisher stood by himself on the sideline as his players celebrated at mid-court.
He soon was walking around holding his two young boys in his arms, a fitting picture for this quiet family man who heretofore had spent his college basketball years as a silent, behind-the-scenes assistant. As much as he wants to tell everyone he had very little to do with Michigan’s shocking rise to the national title, don’t believe him.
He gave the Wolverines much-needed direction and firmness, and his nearly daily conferences with his best players gave them a clear sense of their responsibilities in each game. As a result, they are now celebrating an NCAA crown that a month ago even they couldn’t possibly have thought they would win.
Until the eve of this tournament, this was Bill Frieder’s team.
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A brilliant recruiter, Frieder had assembled the kind of talent in Ann Arbor that most coaches could only dream of signing. His latest squad had everything: Enormous size, depth, quickness and so many good shooters that the Wolverines led the nation in field-goal accuracy.
But despite seven straight 20-victory seasons, Frieder could never get the Wolverines to a regional final, much less the Final Four. Then, after the end of this regular season, he signed a lucrative contract with Arizona State and Michigan Athletic Director Bo Schembechler…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sn-archive-one-risky-decision-113002148.html
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Publish date : 2026-04-07 11:30:00
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