Jalen Rose on the Fab 5 Reunion

Jalen Rose joins the show a day after Chris Webber stopped by with the news. The Fab Five are back together for an alt-cast at the Final Four. For the world at large, this is rare air. For Rose, it is historically rare.

Since 1993, the original five have been in the same place at the same time only a handful of times. Rose does the math out loud. There was 2002, when he hosted a celebrity game in Chicago that coincided with Michigan playing Louisville in the championship, the game where Trey Burke got a phantom foul that Rose is still mad about, in the same way he is still mad about the Bill Laimbeer foul against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1987 for his Pistons. Then there was the stretch when Juwan Howard was coaching at Michigan. Now this weekend makes three times in 35 years.

The plan for the reunion night is simple. Break bread. Champagne. Crab and lobster dinner. Enjoy the moment because the moment is not guaranteed to come around again.

Rich pulls up the iconic photo of the Fab Five and asks what Rose sees when he looks at it. Rose goes straight to the guy on the right, bald head, bad skin, bad teeth, wearing number five. He is talking about himself. He says that guy was hazardous to his health. Fearless. Did not care about anything. Would go through hell in gasoline drawers.

Then he reframes. What he really sees is brotherhood. Love. A blueprint for how the game looks now. The long shorts. The black shoes and black socks. Players today are paid for play. The Fab Five sold products, jerseys, shorts, shoes, socks, without ever seeing that revenue. They stood on the shoulders of the Georgetown teams with John Thompson and the UNLV teams with Jerry Tarkanian and helped elevate the game.

If he had to embody the picture in one word, Rose says it is love. Love for the University of Michigan, which he calls the greatest university in the world. Love for the group that is still tight enough 30-plus years later to show up for each other on national television.

The alt-cast is tomorrow night. The dinner is tonight. Rose says the gratitude is real.

That is what happens when five kids from 1991 grow up and stay connected long enough to become the OGs.