OT: Duke misses tournament and still could sign the number 1 recruiting class for 2021

Not one single member of the Fab 5 was “paid to go to Michigan.”  Not one.

This is the comment of a person that knows nothing about Michigan's basketball history, and doesn't care one bit either way.

Are you even a Michigan fan?

If you want to call yourself a Michigan fan, you should study up on Michigan history.  Even per the official NCAA report, Michigan's sanctions were due to Chris Webber receiving illegal benefits (i.e. he was ineligible) but explicitly not in a pay for play scenario to attend Michigan (i.e. he received those benefits for his own future earnings potential, not to go to Michigan).  It is well known that Ed Martin was also providing benefits to athletes that attended Minnesota, Michigan State, Syracuse, and other schools.  Also, no other Fab Five members were implicated in the report.  And, mind you, this is a report that was made with the full cooperation of the university and the subpoena power of the FBI as part of Ed Martin's prosecution...this isn't the NCAA being unable to prove that money changed hands because the university stonewalled and nobody left a paper trail like is typical today.  

Trolliest of comments (and ill-informed).

This is a two flusher. Spray some Glade on your way out dude.

Take my downvote you scoundrel, I have but one to give

Everyone picked apart the first sentence of this post let me go after the second. The original question posed was how does a team that is struggling and coming off of a poor season sign a top rated recruiting class. OSU and Alabama are both coming off of dominant season after dominant season. It is literally the worst example you could make for this instance. 

I’ll pile on here just to underscore how much of a dumbass you are...

I almost WISH the Fab 5 were paid to go to Michigan, because then at least it would lend a little sense to Michigan’s decision to fall on their sword. But they they didn’t, and Michigan will go down in history as the last major sports program to willfully punish themselves in excess of what was mandated by that clown-show we call the NCAA.

Notwithstanding the fact they are easily a top 10 program of all time—Michigan was THE premiere program in the entire Midwest and arguably the entire country in the late 80s and early 90s. They won 154 games in 6 seasons from 1984-1989, including back to back Big Ten titles in 85 and 86. They of course won the whole thing in 89. 1989 also happened to be the year that Chris Webber and Jalen Rose were top flight high school sophomores getting ready to decide where to attend college. Ed Martin had nurtured relationships with athletes from Rose’s Detroit Southwestern since the early 80s. He was buddying up to Webber when the kid was in 8th grade even though Webber spurned SW for Country Day. Martin was obviously giving all the kids perks, but the thing is... he had no a priori connection to U of M. In 89 Martin convinced a SW kid to go to Boston College despite the SW coach favoring Kent State. Michigan recruited Rose and Webber because they were two top 5 players in the entire country and Michigan was (and is) an elite program. Ed Martin was an awkward nuisance and everyone knew it was unwise to spurn the guy. Now could Michigan have been more vigilant and more holier than thou through all of it? Sure. But to be honest, Fischer was just playing by rules that look outright puritanical compared to what guys like Calipari and Krzyzewski do today. Looking back, the Fab 5 scandal was a nothingball driven mainly by Michigan arrogance and dare I say a tinge of overt racism. And with DraftKings today being valued in the billions, I’m inclined to go so far as to say Ed Martin did nothing wrong.

I am incongruously pround to have given this comment the 100th dislike.

Logged in to neg.  it takes a truly bad post to make me do that. Nice work. 

Dude they have 5 national championships since we last won one. They have 2 championships in the last 10 years, same amount of final fours we have. 

Ignoring the fact that Duke absolutely DOES “win shit” and one bad year doesn’t take away from that; 

Did it ever occur to you that kids who are only looking to spend a year, two max, in college don’t give a rats ass if they “win shit” or not? You think they might be interested in increasing their own exposure and own brand? You think they might realize that a program like Duke is going to put you in the spotlight whether the team is competing for a national championship or not?

Winning championships is nice and all, but it’s a bonus. These kids have NBA aspirations. And playing at a program like Duke and playing for someone like Coach K is going to put you squarely on the radar of NBA teams. 

Just stop 

A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me they were pretty good, but certainly not the Duke we know. Kryzezewski has been there since 1980(!) so yeah, all of modern basketball really, since the 3-point line.