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Here is why you like this coaching hire, if you are an Indiana fan and your blood flows both cream and crimson: Tom Crean has no phone issues, at least that we’re aware of.
Oh, and he began his college coaching career under Jud Heathcote.
Oh, and he’s a Midwestern guy, born and raised in Mount Pleasant, Mich., went to college there, too, at Central Michigan.
Oh, and he served four years as Tom Izzo’s right-hand man, and who doesn’t like Tom Izzo? Recruited Mateen Cleaves and Morris Peterson for Izzo, the two linchpins of his national championship team. Put fans back in the seats after getting the Marquette job in 1999, where he’s averaged more than 20 wins a year in nine seasons, and put Dwyane Wade and Travis Diener and Steve Novak in the NBA, and has increased attendance better than 70 percent.
And did I mention he has no phone issues?
Oh, yeah. I did.
Which is why this is a fine hire for IU, a solid hire, one with no residual wariness attached. Unlike his immediate predecessor, Crean does not come to Bloomington trailing an NCAA rap sheet. Unlike his immediate predecessor, he gets the Big Ten and the Midwest ethos. Unlike his immediate predecessor, he recruits solid citizens, as evidenced by his best recruit, Wade, who is as solid a citizen as graces an NBA roster these days.
So he’s got that going for him. And Indiana’s got the supreme saving grace that, as it turns out, there aredo-overs in sports.
Crean, after all, was a name some floated the last time this happened, when Indiana was searching for someone to take Mike Davis’ seat. Mark Few from Gonzaga came up, but he was probably too much a West Coast guy. John Beilein, then at West Virginia, was athletic director Rick Greenspan’s top pick, or so it’s been rumored.
Instead, then-President Adam Herbert and the board of trustees hijacked the process, and IU wound up with Kelvin Sampson, a hire it had to sell mightily to Hoosier Nation from Day 1. As it turned out, Hoosier Nation’s judgment was far more on point than Herbert and Co.’s were.
And so now we get Crean, finally, whom Indiana probably should have more strongly considered the last time. First impression is usually the most unerring impression, after all. And if he was on the radar the last time, why he wasn’t more strongly considered is one of many questions Indiana fans have every right to be asking of their athletic leadership right now.
To be sure, lots of other quality names came up this time. Sean Miller at Xavier. Brad Brownell from Wright State. Kevin Stallings and Lon Kruger and Mike Montgomery and Scott Drew, Homer’s kid, down at Baylor.
Not to mention, of course, Rick Pitino – who frankly never sounded right for this job, and who would have come at far too dear a price for a school still trying to pay off half its football and basketball hires from the last eight years.
And so: Tom Crean.
When last seen he was getting Marquette into the NCAA tournament for the fifth time, and winning 20 games or more for the fifth time, and getting a player (Dominic James) on a national player-of-the-year ballot for the last six years. Scandal has never breathed on him, through all of that. And if that was something Indiana never had to consider before, it certainly did this time, remembering the boos that rained down on Sampson’s head after evidence strongly suggested he had strayed from the righteous path again.
With Tom Crean, that’s not an issue, as least as far as we know. With Tom Crean, you get what you could have gotten two years ago, if only the people in charge had been a trifle more astute.
Here is why you like this hire, if you’re Hoosier Nation: Because finally, and clearly, IU can hear you now.
