Michigan's Championship Teams of Yesteryear Saluted on a Night When Current Wolverines Dug Deeper into Last Place
Sean Higgins, a star of the 1989 national champions, shares what it will take for this team to become winners, while recalling past glories and how Rice motivated him to become all he could be
Sean Higgins posed courtside, not far from the Crisler Center’s overhead scoreboard, Saturday night after a reunion with his championship teammates from 35 years ago.
Steve Kornacki, who covered the 1989 national champs as a beat reporter for the Detroit Free Press, posed with members of that team (left to right) Sean Higgins, Glen Rice and Rob Pelinka at their 30th reunion in 2019.
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The obvious juxtaposition was here for all to see on the Crisler Center court Saturday night.
Michigan’s 1989 national champions and 1964 and 1974 Big Ten basketball champions were being honored at halftime to celebrate the anniversaries of their memorable title years. They were led by players like Glen Rice, Campy Russell and Cazzie Russell.
The past glory.
The Wolverines’ last-place team had the court for the 40 playing minutes, and while putting up a good fight until failing to score in the final seven minutes, they couldn’t keep Michigan State from claiming a 73-63 victory. They are 8-18 overall and 3-12 in the Big Ten after losing to the Spartans at home for the first time since 2019.
The current sad story.
And, yet, Michigan coach Juwan Howard’s great success stories provide real recent echoes. In 2021, his Wolverines celebrated a Big Ten championship before reaching the NCAA’s Elite Eight. They reached the Sweet 16 the next season.
Two short years later, the proud program’s first season finished in the basement since 1966-67 is a real possibility.
Howard, who played in two NCAA championship games and one Elite Eight, has never been anywhere close to the cellar as a Wolverine.
“Juwan has to keep doing what he’s doing and stay consistent,” said Sean Higgins, one of the stars of the ’89 champs. “And keep instilling in them. And this is good for Juwan because he’s earning his chops right now. You got to fail before you’re successful.”
Howard passed Higgins in the locker room tunnel prior to the second half. I was talking there with Higgins after the halftime champions’ introductions, and asked him what this team needs to do to get the Wolverines back to where they are expected to be.
“Because a lot of these guys are new,” said Higgins, “they’re still getting familiar with each another. So, everybody has some hesitation to take over. But I also see a little bit of effort issues. Not where there is no effort, but it’s got to be consistent.
“Then things will take care of itself from there because basketball is a game of mistakes. You’re going to make mistakes. Teams are going to make runs. But that effort has to be consistent. But, I think a lot of times, we get down on ourselves from making mistakes.”
The Wolverines had a season-high 22 turnovers against the Spartans.
Higgins said, “It’s about buying in and being together off the court. My teammates, we generally liked each other and hung out together.’’
Terry Mills, one of four first-round NBA Draft picks from that team, said he enjoyed dining with his lifetime teammates Friday night.
He didn’t sense bitterness or frustration from them about the current team.
“The guys were upbeat,” Mills, now the team’s radio analyst, told listeners. “They were as positive as they could be under the current circumstances.”
Howard took his players and assistant coaches up to meet the championship players Friday night after they dined at Crisler.
“It was truly an honor to have the guys who paved the way for me and for our team,” said Howard. “To do some special things here at the University of Michigan. To represent the maize and blue as champions -- that’s something you can always appreciate.
“But their years of being called winners, and to have an opportunity to meet them, and our players getting a chance to shake their hands, and hear why they chose Michigan. And to hear stories of their journey, and their time here, it was a wonderful opportunity – something we’re always going to appreciate.”
Higgins was a hero in the championship run. He scored the winning basket in the 83-81 win over Illinois in the Final Four semi-final, tallying 14 points. The 6-foot-9 swingman averaged 17.3 points in the final four NCAA games, becoming the perfect complement to Rice, who was voted the Most Outstanding Player of that tournament after scoring a record 184 points for a 30.7 average.
He combined with the 6-foot-7 Rice to provide opponents something nearly impossible to defend -- two big gunners on fire beyond the arc. Higgins made 11-of-22 treys in those four big wins, while Rice was 19-for-33.
But it was that 8-foot shot to beat the “Flyin’ Illini,” who beat them twice by a total of 28 points in the regular season, that Higgins is most remembered for.
Mills cast the long shot that missed and was rebounded and put back for the winning bucket by Higgins at the long-ago demolished Kingdome in Seattle.
Higgins said: “The main thing I remember about that shot is that Terry’s shot – I thought it was going in. But Coach [Steve] Fisher always told us the ball would come off of the weak side from that shot, and so I got in that position, and it did. And it worked out.
“But the thing about that shot is that that’s my spot. I always made that shot in high school [Los Angeles Fairfax]. I was in a familiar spot.”
Higgins, 55, has bought and sold commercial and residential real estate in Las Vegas for the last 15 years. “I’m playing a lot of golf,” he said with a chuckle. And he has two grandsons from his two sons that he enjoys.
He was raised in Ann Arbor, the son of Earle Higgins, a star at Eastern Michigan and an NBA player. He recalled “sneaking into games” in what was then called Crisler Arena to see the stars of the 1970s such as Phil Hubbard, Rickey Green and Campy Russell.
“We had wooden seats in here then,” said Higgins. “I’m ‘Go Blue’ to the fullest!”
He grinned before adding, “My dad used to babysit Brian Dutcher.”
Dutcher, who last year took San Diego State to the NCAA championship game a few years after replacing Fisher there, was a first-year assistant under Bill Frieder in 1988-89.
Jim Dutcher coached Sean’s father and Hall of Famer George Gervin at EMU before going onto become Minnesota’s head coach.
When Schembechler replaced Frieder with Fisher after news leaked that Frieder would be moving onto Arizona State the next season, Higgins drew the ire of Schembechler. While Fisher was the interim, his appointment as the full-time coach didn’t come until after he won all six NCAA games he coached.
“There was some rumbling in the paper saying I was going to transfer or potentially go pro if I didn’t like the new (coaching) hire,” Higgins told me at the 30-year reunion of the ’89 team. “My words were taken out of context. And, so, Bo came down on me with that raspy voice: ‘Son, if I hear one more word out of you I’m going to have the transfer papers on my desk by lunch!’
“It was said that it turned my game around, but what it did was turn the whole team around. He chewed into all of us. He didn’t just single me out. He just got into my butt a little harder. But I was just amazed that Coach Schembechler knew who I was because to me, it was, ‘Man, that’s Bo Schembechler.’
“What people don’t realize is that I grew up in Ann Arbor and went to Bryant Elementary. That’s why I went to Michigan. I used to wake up on Saturday hearing the band play from University Townhouses. I played Vince Lombardi Football for the Ann Arbor Packers and Bo Schembechler came and spoke to our team when I was eight or nine years old. Football was my first sport, and Bo was like a god in Ann Arbor.”
On Saturday night, he added the details of what his response was to Bo: “Yes, sir. I’m going to be on the bus…And did you see that smile on his face after we won the national championship? It was a Kool-Aid smile.”
Michigan beat Seton Hall, 80-79 in overtime in the national championship game, on two free throws by point guard Rumeal Robinson with three seconds remaining in OT.
“Frieder – that’s all he talked about was national championships,” said Higgins. “We never talked about Big Ten.”
Ironically, Higgins’ three Michigan teams never won a Big Ten championship. Though, Frieder’s teams won a pair of conference titles in 1985 and 1986 – winning the first just two years after finishing ninth.
Higgins was a big-time recruit who also visited UCLA, Louisville, Kentucky and Texas. “But I knew I was coming to Michigan,” he added. “There was a little hiccup, but I got over that. And now we have history.
“What else can you say?”
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
Higgins said it was Rice who impacted him greatly in finding what he believes these Wolverines are lacking.
“In terms of playing hard every day – I learned that from Glen Rice,” said Higgins. “Consistency, I learned that from Glen Rice. I would come in some days and just go through the motions.
“And Glen would go at me. So, it made me pick up my spirit. By the time I was ready to play the full season, I was ready to roll.”
Higgins averaged 9.8 points as a freshman, 12.4 as a sophomore in 1988-89, and 14.0 as a junior before leaving for the NBA.
He was a second-round pick by the San Antonio Spurs and played six seasons for six teams in the NBA.
But his greatest glory came with the Wolverines.
He stared at the court before posing for a photo just after halftime.
“I feel like I’m going to run out here and play right now,” said Higgins.
Champions get to do this – come back and relive their past glories. It’s a sweet experience – one that these current Wolverines seem a million miles away from.
However, a million miles can be covered in two years in college sports.
And maybe there will soon be a Michigan player who becomes an All-America and inspires others to be great. When that happens, you can have another Rice and Higgins nailing threes and championships.
Sean Higgins was quite a character!
Watching the MSU game (at Crisler) was both frustrating and annoying. Watching Michigan give up 27 points on 22 turnovers, watching MSU slam dunk after slam dunk, watching Michigan take ill-advised shots (not exactly how I want to express it) and hearing the countless number of Spartan fans cheering is a pretty gruesome embarrassment. This is year 5 of the Juwan Howard experiment and his teams have regressed every season. There is no fundamental knowledge of how to play defense. The offense looks like playground ball and the coaches just shrug their shoulders and pretend to look for solutions. Warde Manuel sits right behind me at the games and if he wasn’t angry with what he witnessed, particularly the multitude of fans walking out in the last 7 minutes, this program is destined to reside in the depths of the B1G ten. Unacceptable. I’d like someone to justify how they can charge $80 for a ticket for a team that is on a downward slide with no real plan to address the real problem. And if a fan like me is this ticked off, I can only imagine how others with more influence feel.