Thursday, April 3, 2008

Thoughts on Tom Crean and Indiana

Just when the Indiana basketball program looked like it was going to turn into a big disaster it announced the signing of new head coach Tom Crean, the former coach of Marquette.


Crean has a Final Four under his belt and has lead Marquette to the NCAA Tournament 5 of the past 7 years.

Crean will be a great fit for this program but he will have a lot of work to do after recent allegations from the NCAA for recruiting violations by Kelvin Sampson.

Interim coach Dan Dakitch also dismissed Jamarcus Ellis and Armon Bassett, two starters for skipping a team appointment.

Eric Gordon still has to make a decision to leave for the NBA or stay another year. Most expect Gordon to leave, which would leave Crean with all 5 starters gone for next season.

Crean still has a few more tasks at hand. They're also short a scholarship next season, because of Sampson's illegal phone calls and he also needs to maintain the two recruits they've already signed-- Terrell Holloway and Devin Ebanks. Both of them have asked out of their national letters of intent.

So who knows how good Indiana will be next season. The Hoosiers only return two significant players, junior DeAndre Thomas and freshman Jordan Crawford. Eric Gordon may still return, but Indiana fans don't get your hopes up; And who knows what they'll have for recruits.

Overall, this is a great hire by Indiana. Coach Tom Crean is a great fit to revamp Indiana's program. This great basketball program is a disaster right now and Crean has the credentials to fix it and bring Indiana basketball back to prominence.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Couldn't agree with you more Stefan. Great hire by Indiana, kind of suprised though i never thought he would leave Marquette

Anonymous said...

Same here. I agree it was a great hire, but I'm not so sure it's a vertical move for Crean.

Ed The Sports Fan said...

Its definitely a vertical move for Crean in the standpoint of, "Hey, I can get a Conference Championship here in the Big Ten+1 versus the Big as $#&@ East w/16 teams and more powerhouses. Who's the powerhouse in the Big Ten+1? Michigan State? Ohio State? Is it already Indiana? Crean will need 2-3 years and he'll have 'em good.

Oh and Eric Gordon should stay another year, his jumper is SUSPECT. However, because of this I hope that he goes to the Indiana Pacers in the lottery. F THE PLAYOFFS PACERS!

-Ed.

SoulOnIce said...

Tom Crean just saved their ass.

This was a GREAT move by Indiana; I never even gave the possibility of them gettin' someone as qualified as Crean much thought, but they pulled it off.

His first move should be to get Dwayne Wade on the phone, and tell him to tell Eric Gordon to take his ass back to Bloomington next season.

Anonymous said...

I think it was quite the risky move myself...

Anonymous said...

Without Tom, they would have gotten killed

Anonymous said...

You can get the “Crean & Crimson” t-shirt the Coach was holding up at the press conference at IUGear.com.