Fab Five (University of Michigan)
[4] They are the subjects of The Fab Five, the highest-rated ESPN Films documentary ever produced,[5][6] one of the featured teams in two of the highest-rated NCAA Men's Basketball Championship games ever played in terms of households (although not viewers),[7][8] and a marketing juggernaut whose merchandise sales dwarfed even those of the national champion 1988–89 Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team.
But most of their wins and both of their Final Four appearances were vacated because Webber accepted financial aids from Ed Martin that compromised his amateur status.
[16] In the elite eight round of the 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, Michigan had a rematch against a Jimmy Jackson-led Ohio State Buckeyes team that had beaten them twice during the regular season by double digits.
Rose grew as a player between 1999 and 2003, leading the Indiana Pacers in scoring the year they reached the NBA Finals, 2000.
Webber was an NBA All-Star and the leading scorer on the Sacramento Kings team that reached the Western Conference Finals, in 2002.
Though he was old by NBA standards at that point and played limited minutes, his leadership and high basketball IQ were huge assets for both the 2012 Heat and the 2013 team that repeated as champions; Howard's time in Miami led to his becoming an assistant coach of the team after he retired from playing, and that in turn led to his being hired to coach his alma mater, where he remained until 2024.
After graduating from Detroit Country Day School, where he led his team to three MHSAA basketball titles and won state and national high school Gatorade Player of the Year awards and McDonald's All-American Game MVP, Webber attended the University of Michigan for two years.
That season, Webber was a first team All-American selection and a finalist for the John R. Wooden Award and Naismith College Player of the Year.
Rose attended the University of Michigan, where the Wolverines reached two NCAA Finals games in 1992 and 1993, finishing as national runners-up both times.
Of the players called before the grand jury (Robert Traylor, Webber, Rose, Maurice Taylor, and Louis Bullock), he was the only one not listed as having received large amounts of money.
[citation needed] Rose left Michigan after his junior year, and was picked by the Denver Nuggets in the 1994 NBA draft.
Although the Fab Five final four appearances were later vacated,[24] he was not among the players called before the grand jury (as were Robert Traylor, Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Maurice Taylor, and Louis Bullock).
Howard has played for eight different NBA franchises including the Washington Wizards, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Orlando Magic, Houston Rockets, Charlotte Bobcats, Portland Trail Blazers, and Miami Heat.
Howard won his second NBA Championship, repeating against the San Antonio Spurs, winning in the American Airlines Arena closing out a Game 7.
King and Ray Jackson were the only two members of the Fab Five that did not leave school early for the draft, staying with Michigan for their entire four years of eligibility.
In a phone interview on The Jim Rome Show on November 30, 2006, King stated he was currently working as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch on Wall Street.
Although the Fab Five Final Four appearances have been vacated,[24] Ray Jackson was not among the players called before the grand jury (Robert Traylor, Webber, Rose, Maurice Taylor, and Louis Bullock)[25] in the University of Michigan basketball scandal and was not found to have received large amounts of money.
Sports, Jackson says that: "It took me a long time to get over the fact that I was the only one that didn't make it to the NBA from the Fab Five, but I'm over it because I'm back home and I'm happy with what I'm doing with my life."
Jackson now lives in Austin, Texas, where he runs a moving company and Rise Up Inc., a not-for-profit organization that assists children socially, educationally, and on the basketball court.
