Yes, these are the results of former Marquette huckster Tom Crean taking over a storied but troubled program. That is, a redshirt freshman center came into Crean's office, started shouting, a potted plant hit the floor, and Campus Security was called. After smashing potted plants and getting the cops called on him, that kid, a center named Eli Homan, will apparently not be on Indiana's basketball team next season, leaving the Hoosiers with only 5 returning scholarship players, if Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis aren't allowed back. Hilarious. If you too are in the mood to point and laugh at a rival who's down, the story is here.
Uh oh. After further review, the news is even worse-- Indiana is now down to four returning starters. Bassett and Ellis are not going to be allowed back on the team, and DeAndre Thomas, the round mound of lay-up, is also not returning. This article from the Worldwide Leader outlines the damage.
Showing posts with label Tom Crean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Crean. Show all posts
Friday, May 02, 2008
Thursday, April 03, 2008
The Gold Is Blinded By The Shine
According to the Journal-Sentinel, possible Crean replacements at Marquette include--
Tony Bennett (Wash. State head coach), Sean Miller (Xavier HC), the Davidson head coach, and Chris Lowery (So. Illinois HC). They must be kidding. Bennett and Miller turned down the Indiana job, or at least excluded themselves from consideration. That's the job Crean left for, dunderheads. No way Miller or Bennett are interested in the MU job. Plus, Bennett's style of play would be anathema to MU's current, run and gun, foul and turn-the-ball-over players. And the Davidson coach is far too old, far too East Coast, and far too entrenched with his sweet deal at Davidson to leave. Plus, Lowery turned down several high profile jobs after SIU's excellent season a year ago, and he's an SIU grad. Again, it seems very unlikely that he'd leave for the Marquette job. Did Marquette beat writer Todd Rosiak just pull those names out of a hat? Ridiculous.
The other two names he suggests are somewhat legit, in my estimation-- the coach at Virginia Commonwealth, who's racked up a good Colonial League record and who managed to beat Duke in the first round last year; and the coach at Wright State, who's had similar success in the Horizon League, though his team was better last season. Really, I don't think MU is going to be able to snag a successful head coach from another large conference. They have nice practice facilities, yes, and they play in a relatively high profile league, but that's pretty much all they have going for them. The school is just ok, the Marquette interchange is not that pleasant of an area, Milwaukee doesn't produce that much talent, the Bradley Center stinks, the "tradition" of Al McGuire is sort of a millstone since it creates unreasonable expectations, being in the Big East means tons of lengthy travel (road trip to Tampa, New Jersey or Morgantown anyone?), and the league will likely be dominated by G'Town, Louisville, UConn, Pitt, West Virginia and the 'Cuse for the foreseeable future. Looking for a successful coach from a smaller league, or for a talented assistant from a successful program (Crean came directly from Izzo's staff at Sparty) is probably their likeliest bet.
Tony Bennett (Wash. State head coach), Sean Miller (Xavier HC), the Davidson head coach, and Chris Lowery (So. Illinois HC). They must be kidding. Bennett and Miller turned down the Indiana job, or at least excluded themselves from consideration. That's the job Crean left for, dunderheads. No way Miller or Bennett are interested in the MU job. Plus, Bennett's style of play would be anathema to MU's current, run and gun, foul and turn-the-ball-over players. And the Davidson coach is far too old, far too East Coast, and far too entrenched with his sweet deal at Davidson to leave. Plus, Lowery turned down several high profile jobs after SIU's excellent season a year ago, and he's an SIU grad. Again, it seems very unlikely that he'd leave for the Marquette job. Did Marquette beat writer Todd Rosiak just pull those names out of a hat? Ridiculous.
The other two names he suggests are somewhat legit, in my estimation-- the coach at Virginia Commonwealth, who's racked up a good Colonial League record and who managed to beat Duke in the first round last year; and the coach at Wright State, who's had similar success in the Horizon League, though his team was better last season. Really, I don't think MU is going to be able to snag a successful head coach from another large conference. They have nice practice facilities, yes, and they play in a relatively high profile league, but that's pretty much all they have going for them. The school is just ok, the Marquette interchange is not that pleasant of an area, Milwaukee doesn't produce that much talent, the Bradley Center stinks, the "tradition" of Al McGuire is sort of a millstone since it creates unreasonable expectations, being in the Big East means tons of lengthy travel (road trip to Tampa, New Jersey or Morgantown anyone?), and the league will likely be dominated by G'Town, Louisville, UConn, Pitt, West Virginia and the 'Cuse for the foreseeable future. Looking for a successful coach from a smaller league, or for a talented assistant from a successful program (Crean came directly from Izzo's staff at Sparty) is probably their likeliest bet.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Ha Hanh!
Thank you Indiana and Marquette for brightening my day. Indiana is about to announce the hiring of current Marquette men's basketball coach Tom Crean for their opening. Yes, he of the spray tans, ugly glasses, ridiculous sideline pacing, pro-style (one-on-one) offense and foul-happy defense. My initial reaction was-- "wow, you'd think Indiana could have done better" and I'm sticking to it.
If I recall the cover of this morning's Trib correctly, Crean has amassed a .660 winning percentage at Marquette, won only one conference title (Wade's last season), won no conference tournament titles in either the Big East or Conference USA, and taken the team to one Final Four (again, in Wade's last season). Until this past March, Crean had yet to ever win an NCAA tournament game without Dwyane Wade on his team. This year, with a team led by three highly reputed three-year starters, the team won one game, squeaking by an injury-riddled Kentucky before losing to Stanford in the second round. (Stanford went on to get pounded by Texas, who was in turn pounded by Memphis.) Sweet redemption!
And it's not like Crean's record is built on playing cupcakes at home or anything. Far from it! This season the Gold beat Sacramento State, Florida Gulf Coast, Coppin State, Chaminade, Savannah State, IUPU-Fort Wayne, and, wait for it, Utah Valley State (that's a different school than basketball powerhouse Utah State). The Gold went on to lose this season to Syracuse by 15, Louisville twice by a combined 34 points, West Virginia by 15, and UConn by 16. And this is a team with four players who are all-conference caliber in McNeal, James, Mathews, and Hayward. Yep, Crean is an excellent coach. It's not like he's made a living off his one star-driven Final Four run or anything. No, not at all. Bwah-ha ha ha!
Sure, opposing Big Ten fans can expect him to do a better job at Indiana. Though IU isn't the national basketball powerhouse it likes to think it is, it is the nicest state school in a state that produces a fair amount of basketball talent (though again, not as much as IU fans would like to think that it does). And his handsy, pressing defense should speed the pace of the league up a bit, which is what I was hoping for with the Indiana hire. (I was actively against Tony Bennett at IU for the same reason.) Alas, Crean is going to have a tough row to hoe his first couple years at IU, with what looks like every returning starter leaving or getting kicked off the team (though I bet he'll invite Bassett and Ellis back), and several key recruits abandoning their commitments after Sampson left. I'm sure he'll get them back to decent after a year or two, and they should be regularly competitive at some point, but I'm not at all afraid of Crean at IU, and as a Badger fan, that's all you could ask for.
The question then becomes-- what happens to Marquette? Who will replace Crean? (No idea.) Will some of their recruits welsh? (Pretty likely, if the school releases them from their letters of intent.) Will they retreat back from relative success to general mediocrity? (Probably, at least in the short term.) Does this abdicate high profile Wisconsin state recruits to UW? (Jerry Smith and Reece Gaines going to Louisville and the Badgers' high academic standards and ego-less mentality indicate no.) Will UW even more firmly cement its status as the state's best basketball program? (It certainly looks that way.)
If I recall the cover of this morning's Trib correctly, Crean has amassed a .660 winning percentage at Marquette, won only one conference title (Wade's last season), won no conference tournament titles in either the Big East or Conference USA, and taken the team to one Final Four (again, in Wade's last season). Until this past March, Crean had yet to ever win an NCAA tournament game without Dwyane Wade on his team. This year, with a team led by three highly reputed three-year starters, the team won one game, squeaking by an injury-riddled Kentucky before losing to Stanford in the second round. (Stanford went on to get pounded by Texas, who was in turn pounded by Memphis.) Sweet redemption!
And it's not like Crean's record is built on playing cupcakes at home or anything. Far from it! This season the Gold beat Sacramento State, Florida Gulf Coast, Coppin State, Chaminade, Savannah State, IUPU-Fort Wayne, and, wait for it, Utah Valley State (that's a different school than basketball powerhouse Utah State). The Gold went on to lose this season to Syracuse by 15, Louisville twice by a combined 34 points, West Virginia by 15, and UConn by 16. And this is a team with four players who are all-conference caliber in McNeal, James, Mathews, and Hayward. Yep, Crean is an excellent coach. It's not like he's made a living off his one star-driven Final Four run or anything. No, not at all. Bwah-ha ha ha!
Sure, opposing Big Ten fans can expect him to do a better job at Indiana. Though IU isn't the national basketball powerhouse it likes to think it is, it is the nicest state school in a state that produces a fair amount of basketball talent (though again, not as much as IU fans would like to think that it does). And his handsy, pressing defense should speed the pace of the league up a bit, which is what I was hoping for with the Indiana hire. (I was actively against Tony Bennett at IU for the same reason.) Alas, Crean is going to have a tough row to hoe his first couple years at IU, with what looks like every returning starter leaving or getting kicked off the team (though I bet he'll invite Bassett and Ellis back), and several key recruits abandoning their commitments after Sampson left. I'm sure he'll get them back to decent after a year or two, and they should be regularly competitive at some point, but I'm not at all afraid of Crean at IU, and as a Badger fan, that's all you could ask for.
The question then becomes-- what happens to Marquette? Who will replace Crean? (No idea.) Will some of their recruits welsh? (Pretty likely, if the school releases them from their letters of intent.) Will they retreat back from relative success to general mediocrity? (Probably, at least in the short term.) Does this abdicate high profile Wisconsin state recruits to UW? (Jerry Smith and Reece Gaines going to Louisville and the Badgers' high academic standards and ego-less mentality indicate no.) Will UW even more firmly cement its status as the state's best basketball program? (It certainly looks that way.)
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