Hoosier Coach?? Tom Crean jumps ship
Written by Justin Phillips on April 1, 2008 – 5:09 pm - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
UPDATE: The Warrior, Marquette’s Independent News Source has confirmed the story with a player as well.
Yes It’s become official that Marquette’s Tom Crean is heading a few states east to take over the coaching position at Indiana.
And in response Marquette posted this at monster.com: Wanted: Over-paid and over-rated basketball coach to take over Marquette’s soon to be floundering program
Qualifications: Must be willing to accept top dollar to end season outside of top 25
Win 1-2 Big East Tournament Games and 1-2 NCAA tournament games ever 3-5 seasons.
Able to be a ‘big –time recruiter’ by recruiting under-developed 3 and 4 star guards, 2 star big men, and fill bench with unsuccessful 5’9’’ catch-and-shoot 3 point guards
Have odd affinity for Diet Pepsi
Must donate part of salary to other athletic teams to pretend to be with school for ‘long haul’
Be able to tolerate hack athletic director that has less knowledge of college basketball than 15 year old with latest XBOX 360 NCAA March Madness video game.
If the way we hired an AD is indicative of how we’ll find a coach here is your short list of replacements
Tim Buckley
Bennie Selzer
Buzz Williams
Jason Rabedeaux
Other likely candidates:
See Above
Fr. Andy Thon
Dwyane Wade
In all honesty I don’t blame Crean for leaving. He asked for an athletic director, we gave him a lawyer. He may or may not be better off (Ok he’ll be better off but for how long?). IU is a storied program in shambles right now. He could rebuild it, will he have the time to do it? As for Marquette: We are screwed…to the wall…royally. There is zero reason why we’ll be able to perform at all next year. A brand new coach, our best players about to leave, and a less than stellar foundation for the future is a great way to be excited for suck that will be next fall. (A suck so bad, I question if it’s worth buying tickets.) Hopefully MU fans can get excited about hanging an NIT Final Four banner up soon!
My sincerest apologies to Lazar (my favorite player) Wes (since I have your jersey) Jerel and Dom… we’re really gonna suck next season, no one will blame you if you want to leave too.
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Tags: Basketball, Indiana, Tom Crean
Posted in Marquette Golden Chickens |
April 1st, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Gee.
What do you REALLY think?
April 1st, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I’m a huge fan and not so sure I like this hire. I don’t he was high on any IU fans list. I think he is a very capable coach. But he wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Best of luck to both schools.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I guess the “Big East is better than the Big Ten” talk was all a bunch of hooey. Obviously Crean thinks that jumping to an also-ran in the Big Ten is better than staying at Marquette.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:12 am
This is not like Stu Jackson (Sorry, Kid, different school and way before your time)
Crean is going to a school with a true athletic program where more than one sport that generates revenue.
He gave MU 9 great seasons and brought the team back from the wilderness.
Like UWM was with Bruce Pearl, you should be grateful for the time he was there.
And you should pray hard that your next coach can get you back to the NCAA tourney within 5 years.
Oh, and Go Bucky!
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Hey Fraley,
You said, “Crean is going to a school with a true athletic program where more than one sport that generates revenue.”
Are you saying that caoching basketball at Duke, UNC, Kansas is some sort of slap in the face? These are all schools who only have one sport that “generates revenue.” I do believe that they are all in the final four and are the most respected jobs in the nation. Marquette will be fine. Why would a coach not want to be one of the top five or ten highest paid in the nation, for a school that is dedicated to the team?
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Joe,
Not sure if you’re aware of it, but Duke, UNC, and Kansas also all have football programs. Regardless their varying degrees of success (Duke - horrible; Kansas - last year quite good), they do generate revenue for the school. In fact, all of the major bball powers have a football team: Duke, UNC, Indiana, UCLA, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan State, etc.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Nothing amazes me more than Marquette fans that just want to complain. Many of the same people calling Crean a traitor today were calling for him to be fired in the last month.
Quit your whining. He gave Marquette some good years, Marquette is not one of the top 5 coaching jobs in NCAA hoops (or in the top 25 even), Indiana is. This was the right move for Crean and holding that against him is just denying reality.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Marquette should have stayed in their old conference. Their inability to retain a top tier coach has proven they aren’t an elite program.
I used to think an elite basketball program could be purchased with a ridiculously large endowment. I am glad to be proven wrong.
(GO BADGERS and PANTHERS!)
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
You mean a top tier coach like Bo Ryan who has an astonishing 1 win vs. single digit seeded teams in the NCAA tournament?
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I will take Bo Ryan over -fill in the blank?- everyday of the week.
I would even take Bo Ryan over Crean. Without Wade Crean’s tenure would be far less impressive.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Tom Crean better than Bo Ryan? Luke, April Fools was yesterday…and mind altering drugs are illegal.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Luke, that’s a bit of a straw man. No sane person would argue that a IU job isn’t better than an MU job.
People are moreso upset about how he handled the transition.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Tom Crean 1 Final 4, Bo Ryan 0. Just saying I never get tired of the fact Bo Ryan has never beat a team better than him in the tournament and lost to worse teams twice.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Third Way-
Would any of these schools that lost coaches to the following schools not be considered at bare minimum very good programs?
Pitt: Ben Howland to UCLA
Illinois: Bill Self to Kansas
Texas A&M: Billy Gillespie to Kentucky
MU: Crean to Indiana
There’s great jobs, and then there’s dream jobs. UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky, and Indiana (along with Duke and UNC) are in the dream job category; all the others (like Pitt, Illinois, Texas A&M, and Marquette) are just great jobs.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I am not saying the MU job is comparable to the IU job, the disparity proves my point. It is unbelievable that some MU “fans” thought Crean should be on the chopping block but the Mecca of College hoops is willing to take him.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
So far the only thing that has been proven is the MU coaching position is a great paying job. Before Crean your hoops program was abysmal. Wade and Crean stepped it up a notch, but you now find yourselves overmatched in an extremely tough conference.
I hope dangling millions in front of a hotshot coach can be the beginning of a new era for the program. Very good programs are built on the shoulders of coaches that spend a career (or at least half a career) with the same school. The salary MU offered Crean was intended as the foundation of such a program. For a while it looked like Crean was your savior, but his jumping ship is a definite set back.
Good luck against UWM next year.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 am
Luke,
This obsession Michigan State and Marquette fans have with Bo Ryan and Final Fours is really quite unhealthy. Hate to break it to everyone, but the Final Four is just another game. You get trophies for games that matter. Bo has 4 national titles at Plattville, 2 outright big ten regular season championships, 1 co-championship in the regular season, and 2 tournament championships, 2 sweet sixteens and an elite 8….in 7 years at UW. Tom Crean has never won even a conference USA championship and won 1 tourney game in the last 5 years, do you really want to compare the two?
The Final Four you reference for Crean ended in a 40point embarassing loss. Since Mr. Wade has left town Mr. Crean also managed to lose a home NIT game in front of 10 people at the Bradley Center to the Michigan School of the Blind.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am
in other news the postseason is not just another game. We are talking about a large body of work here. Since 2002 Bo Ryan has failed to reach the final four despite inheriting a program that had been there (pretty much a fluke) in 2002. In his 2 most storied runs (05 and this year) he made it all the way to the elite eight, but he played a slate of second rate talent (I will admit Davidson is the best 10 seed ever). In those two runs to the elite eight the best team he managed to beat was a 10 seeded NC State.
It is easy to be focused on Bo’s lack of Final Fours because everywhere else in the Country that is the agreed currency by which NCAA coaches are evaulated. Only in Wisconsin where Bo Ryan simply can’t get to one are these other things like DIII titles pushed into a place of prominence.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:55 am
Coaches are measured in championships…not almost championships.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 am
I can agree that championships are key, but the final four is a huge factor. Also Final Four > Big Ten championships and anything at another level like Girls JV or Men’s DIII
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Getting to the final four is a big deal. After the embarrasing way Creans squad performed when they got there I wouldn’t be so quick to draw attention to MU and the final four. If there is any team in the last ten years of final four history that looked like they didn’t belong there it is MU.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Bill,
I agree that Crean hasn’t had a consistent, solid body of work, but you obviously do not know basic facts about the Marquette program. Marquette won the regular season championship of Conference USA in 2003.