By the way, I can’t let this go during the tournament. Did you notice how careful Indiana was to fire their head coach minutes into the NCAA tournament on Thursday to ensure that it would not get lots of press? Then again, Indiana cares about those optics – they turned down a home NIT game this year (which is what would have given the Hoosiers the best chance to win and keep their season alive) in order make sure television cameras didn’t catch a half-empty Assembly Hall – since it was Spring Break, and Indiana fans don’t normally get excited about NIT games.
But I just want to put this in perspective. Tom Crean was the coach to lift Indiana out of the hell that Kelvin Sampson left them in. When Crean took over for the Hoosiers, he inherited a program that had three years of sanctions – because of those, IU’s star player left early for the NBA draft, there were graduations, and 5 left either by transfer or being kicked off for disciplinary reason – so he started with 2 walk-ons who had a career 36 points between them. That first year was a disaster, but Crean managed to get recruiting to get some more talented players, and sure enough, made the tournament in his 4th season (the first one after sanctions were lifted), where they made it to the Sweet 16.
If you look at the last 6 years (the ones where they didn’t have sanctions), Tom Crean has coached the Hoosiers to 3 Sweet 16s, 2 regular season Big Ten championships, and a record of 138-69 (66.7%). To put into perspective how successful that he has been, here are the list of schools that were able to go to more Sweet 16s in the last 6 years – Wisconsin had 5, Kentucky, Michigan State, Louisville, Florida, North Carolina, Kansas and Arizona had 4. He has been to the same number of Sweet 16s in the last 6 years as Hall of Famers Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Boeheim. So, only 8 programs have done better from the perspective of making the second weekend of the tournament, and the two coaches that have won the most games in NCAA history only were able to go 3 of 6. I don’t see Duke fans and Syracuse fans screaming for their head coaches to be fired for that level of success.
But this is Indiana basketball – they are supposed to do better. So, lets look at their history. In the 14 years before Tom Crean took over this storied program that was left for dead because of sanctions, the Hoosiers had made 1 Sweet 16 (the 2002 season when they made it all the way to the finals), they won the Big 10 once (co-champs in that same 2002 season) and the best record of any of those teams was 25-8 (the 2008 team that was the last season Kelvin Sampson coached). In the three seasons, Tom Crean led the Hoosiers to the Sweet 16, his teams also won 27+ games (going as good as 29-7 in 2013). Tom Crean’s last 6 seasons were even better record-wise than the last 6 that Hall of Famer Bobby Knight coached. You had to go back to 1991-1996 to find the last time the Hoosiers had a better winning percentage and three Sweet 16 appearances. Obviously, Bobby Knight had more success before those years – but that is the point. No one since a Hall of Famer from the 1990s had done as well at Indiana as Tom Crean has done.
Tom Crean made Indiana basketball relevant again. And they looked like they were going to have a great year – knocking off both Kansas and North Carolina. Then injuries killed this team and they went into a free-fall during the conference season. I don’t see how that becomes the coaches fault (maybe you could argue that they don’t have enough depth – but I guarantee you that similar things would happen to a lot of teams if they lost one of their stars). And because fans stopped showing up and started complaining for the coach to be fired, that is exactly what happened.
You could argue that he didn’t win enough National Titles – but the last time the Hoosiers won the whole thing was 1987. You could argue that he was losing the recruiting battle in-state – yet, I never remember hearing the press mention that he had a bad recruiting class. You could argue that he missed the tournament 2 of those 6 years, which doesn’t happen at Indiana. You could argue that he couldn’t beat Purdue enough – since the Boilers had a winning record against the Hoosiers during Crean’s tenure. But I can tell you that somewhere in the United States, there is going to be a college basketball program who is going to be thrilled to death that Tom Crean is available to be their coach – and he will win games the way he did at Indiana and Marquette.
Indiana might get lucky and find someone who can finally lead them to the promised land of college hoops. Maybe Indiana can convince someone big to join them. Smaller programs like Wichita State, Xavier, Dayton and Butler all have outstanding coaches that might be finally willing to jump for a chance to coach the Hoosiers. Maybe they will steal Steve Alford away from UCLA to bring us back to the days when he played for the Hoosiers. But if you base success on having teams that can make the Sweet 16, there are only 17 programs that have made 3 or more like Crean. And likelihood says those coaches are staying with the program they lead to Sweet 16 every other year.
When Tom Crean took the job 9 years ago, Indiana fans should have been forever grateful for him to come and try to clean up their program and get them winning again. And he did exactly that – and won more than any of the coaches after Bobby Knight. But because he was not winning national championships, Indiana boosters and fans complained loudly enough to get rid of the person who brought them back to being a team that was feared. Sometimes, sports fans don’t realize when they have a good thing – only time will tell if Indiana fans get what they believe they deserve or fall to being a mediocre team constantly firing their coach every few years as they search for the next Hall of Famer.
