Indiana and Tom Crean

Yeah, they're almost a full season removed from winning a Big Ten title and going to the Sweet 16.

I agree he's been mostly a failure there, but he had two well-timed decent seasons that made people think he was headed in the right direction.

 

The likes of a Missouri or an Iowa celebrate such things like they are special.

 

We must hang in different circles, because that is certainly NOT the assessment I hear from "most" on Crean's coaching ability. The guy has long been known as one of the most illogical in-game decision-makers, he doesn't know how to get his best players enough shots (the way he wasted Vonleh this past year was absurd), and he uses about the most irrational substitution patterns I've ever seen.

At Marquette, he had one season where he rode an NBA superstar (Dwayne Wade) alongside at least a couple other future NBAers (Novak, Diener, etc.) to a surprise final four run. Minus that one season he was rather mediocre there, and did worse than his successor Buzz Williams did there with far less material after he left.

Basically Crean owes his entire career to the day he got lucky and landed an under the radar recruit named Dwayne Wade. Take away that fortunate break and he never becomes a "name" coaching prospect, never lands the IU job, and probably fades out at Marquette years ago.

 

"There's going to be two principles at play here, and one is, I'll speak for myself, I'll speak for IU, we will not tolerate drunk driving," Crean said. "Second principle is we're firm believers in due process. And I ask for your understanding on those two principles."

 

Wait - Gregg Doyel left CBS and is in Indy now? When did this happen?

And anybody who knew anything about Tom Crean had to see this was going to be a disaster as his entire resume of doing anything noteworthy reads:

"Hey, I coached Dwyane Wade and he carried my sorry ass to a Final Four once....."

 

What I find interesting is the apparent lack of discipline at IU. Crean is a prick and I don't think he a great basketball coach but he didn't have kids running wild at Marquette as far as I know. Buzz Williams was an entirely different story but under Crean, kids went to class and when they did mess up they were punished. At least this was what I saw when I was around the program.

 

Doesn't help Crean's case that Dakich was already all over him yesterday - before the two kids got suspended for the drug test - based on what happened this weekend with the two kids drinking and the one getting seriously hurt.

A lot of IU fans and alumni that I'm friends with are openly pining for Brad Stevens. I think there's about a snowball's chance of that happening right now.

 

There's a whole thread about it.

 

This situation isn't so bad. I mean, none of his players murdered another one, right?

 

Tom Crean is an average coach -- at best -- who had two BIG years. One came at MU and one at IU with superior talent.

When he doesn't have superior talent you can bet that nine times out of 10 he'll get his ass handed to him by the guy on the other bench.

I'm very familiar with him from his days at Marquette and now at IU.

 

Half of the Big Ten can coach circles around him, and that's before Izzo, Beilein and Bo Ryan step in the room. Indiana had a loss to Purdue -- just awful last season, too -- that was about as ugly as you'd want to see.

The whole state sucked for major college hoops last year. Indy, Purdue, Butler, ND, all of them.