Running on Empty: Rose Seeks Alma Mater to Excuse Fab Five Fraud

Bring in the clowns! His brain running on empty much like our vehicles these days because of high gas prices, Jalen Rose added fuel to a simmering fire when he expressed his displeasure about Michigan's school president adamantly reaffirming her opposition to retrieving the Wolverines' 1992 and 1993 Final Four banners from storage and rehanging them at Crisler Arena.

Rose must not have taken a logic class while in college. Resembling an egomaniac extorter, Rose distributed a classless tweet implying he might ask for a $250,000 donation back from his alma mater. But rather than smugly humiliating ESPN colleague Skip Bayless for embellishing his Oklahoma H.S. playing career with "water-Pistol whipping" drive-by ridicule, Cracklin' Rose (a genuine #1 hit at same time frame in early 1970s) should get on board by focusing more on restoring his own credibility after he was pulled from the air briefly by the Worldwide Leader following his failure to disclose a DUI arrest.

Rose could call an authentic "timeout" on his self-absorbed commentary similar to the documentary he helped produce last year blasting Duke's Dynasty for preferring to recruit "Uncle Tom" African-American student-athletes. While Rose continued to fail to comprehend there are consequences to actions disgracing a revered school, President Mary Sue Coleman was infinitely more concerned with integrity. She told the Michigan Daily: "It was a very difficult time and we were ashamed of what happened because the university has higher standards than that."

Why would grandstanding Rose want to celebrate the lower standards of losing two NCAA title games, anyway? Perhaps UM could appease him by hanging a Big Ten Conference championship banner. Oh, I forgot! The Wooferines never achieved that feat from 1991-92 through 1994-95.

Why doesn't Rose offer to purchase the meaningless banners for an amount equal to the $616,000-plus money launderer "Uncle Ed" lent to UM players and he can hang them wherever he wants? They could be placed by all of the banners Rose (13 seasons) and college teammates Chris Webber (15) and Juwan Howard (18th) garnered in a cumulative 45 years in the NBA. Oh, I forgot! None of the Fraud Five ever achieved that distinction, either.

Rose might bloom as a discriminating analyst if he had also accosted colleague Screamin' A. Stiff with his water pistol and dwelled on Stephen A. Smith's player prowess with Winston-Salem State. Much like overstating Skip Baseless, the "First Take" from this corner is that Hatin' Jailin' seems to be talking a better game (on and off the court) than he played, too.