Tom Crean.
It's going to be said often, but this is a solid hire. Not an obvious home run, but not a stretch by any means. Crean is 42 years old and has a Final Four on his resume and eight years as a head coach (about a .650 winning percentage at Marquette). The biggest knocks: a hot temper (come on, we've seen worse) and a less-than-stellar NCAA Tournament record absent Dwayne Wade. Still, IU hired a successful coach from another power conference program despite NCAA issues hanging over the program. It could have been worse.
Here's a link to Crean's Marquette bio.
He's been subject to quite a bit of well-deserved criticism, but once again, Rick Greenspan managed to hire a coach without much media coverage of the process (although certainly the Bennett pursuit was an exception).
6 comments:
Great hire.
Why do you classify this hire as "not a home run"? Who would have been a hone run? I'm thrilled with this hire. I just wish he'd been more interested two years ago.
I'll be interested in seeing how well he recruits.
He'll recruit well. I think it will be interesting to see if he can talk Crawford into staying, Holloway and Ewbanks into coming, and how he'll handle Bassett and Ellis.
I may be biased since Crean has Spartan roots, but I think this is a very good hire for IU. Established guy who's still relatively young. Most of his recent recruits have come from Illinois, which should translate to Indiana. Scares me a bit in terms of him and Izzo having more head-to-head battles for the same recruits, since they run very similar systems.
I guess I would consider a home run someone with a title--someone like Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino, etc., someone with a demonstrated, sustained record of success at the highest level. Looking back at a hastily written post from a few days ago, I think it gives the wrong impression. I'm very pleased with the hire.
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