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southernindianahoosier2

Thoughts on Crean after one and one-third years of Archie?

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I didn’t love the hire at first. Really hated the long rebuild and constant excuses. The 2 great years with Zeller had me rooting for him and thinking with the right recruits he could do well.

From that next season on I was done. Recruiting began to dip. He was losing with good talent.

Creans success at Indiana was largely Zeller and Dipo, with a pinch to Yogi.


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I thought it was about the right time. I started getting worried after we had the best team in the country and got waxed by a totally inferior Syracuse team in the NCAAs -- and all because Crean was terrified of, and had no idea how to attack, that 2-3 zone. Anybody with some decent coaching chops could've taken that team at least to the the Final Four. And then "The Movement" was a total failure and after that, the state's top talent wouldn't even consider us. Still, I was willing to ride it out a little -- especially after we won the B1G regular-season title in 2016.

But going from No. 3 in the country to a first-round NIT exit was kinda the last straw -- at least to me.  It was proof positive that it was time for a change. We had gone as high as we were gonna go under Crean. And besides, he was making way, way too much money for the kind of performances we were seeing. For as much money as he was making, the NCAAs should've been a given every year -- with an excellent chance to make the Sweet 16 and a decent chance to make the Final Four. 

One argument I would make for an earlier exit was that we missed out on Brad Stevens. At any point when he's at Butler, I think if we fire Crean and offer him the job, he takes it. And not to sound arrogant, but I think if he were here, he wouldn't leave for the NBA. 

As far as the move coming too early, I can't see any argument backing that. If we truly wanted Archie, I can almost guarantee you that if we didn't hire him when we did, Ohio State would have. 

Yeah I am happy with Archie so far. The problem with Crean is he would have an offense around the top 10. Then have a defense around 200. He had a couple of years with good defenses but we were still one trick. I like Archie in a sense that we are currently top 40 offense and top 30 defense. We aren’t a one trick pony. If we can improve on some things, we can most definitely be a top 30 offense. That’s pretty good with the roster. Continue to grow. The way he recruits I think he is going to be here for a long, long time.

 

 

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I never liked Crean as I’m sure everyone is shocked. I knew it would end badly after his cheerleading impersonation after beating IL at home year 2 or 3. I won’t go into the weirdness, coach speak crap, or his total inability to take 6, 1000 pt scorers on 1 team to a final four. He was way in over his head and he figured it out when he heard 17k fans collectively boo his in game decisions. Good luck Tom at UGA; I think you will need it.

Archie can coach just look at Dayton. He can recruit and high school coaches like him. He played the game and didn’t wash jock straps to climb the ladder. He wasn’t in my tier one group but was near the top of tier 2. If he can keep bringing in the local talent combined with some outside studs, I think he can hang banners.

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I first want to start off thanking Crean for coming here when the program was a dumpster fire! Some coaches turned us down because of it, but he wanted to coach here. Started off well and things seemed to be going in the right direction, but things started going south with IU’s Sweet 16 loss to Syracuse. To me, that was the downward spiral of IU and Coach Crean.

I felt Crean should have been fired the year before he was, but I wasn’t surprised it lasted another year. I’m not saying Archie is the perfect fit (no way of knowing for a couple more years), but he brings a lot of qualities that IU fans appreciate. I really hope he can put together a proven winner at IU with post-season success, get us truly back to being a current elite program.

I think everything points to him doing that, so hopefully the trend will continue. Plus, who doesn’t love that he’s constantly heavily recruiting the state of Indiana, which is so important to its fan base! If the offense can get going, this team will have success in the post-season, and can’t wait to see what the future holds. I think IU is in much better hands with Coach Miller than Crean!


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6 hours ago, southernindianahoosier2 said:

You bring up a good point... Had Zeller not come to IU then maybe Crean is fired and we get a new coach after the 2011-2012 season (BRAD STEVENS ARE YOU THERE!). My friend thinks that Indiana would have got a commitment from Zeller pretty much regardless of who the coach was. 

Yeah if Zeller chooses UNC or Butler I think he is gone. 

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1 hour ago, Josh said:

Crean needed to go a couple of years earlier, but he had that massive buyout.  Dude simply couldn't coach.

As long as I'm being honest, I haven't seen anything on the court to say Archie is an upgrade.  Yes, our defense is better, but our offense is worse.  And those blowout losses at home last year followed by another first round loss in the Big Ten Tournament...yuck.  Obviously he has time this year to improve upon it, but one and one third years of Archie seems similar to Crean imo.

Come on man.....'m not saying Archie is the second coming of RMK and I agree we should take our time to evaluate him but he is head and shoulders better than Crean. Archie has pulled in more in state talent in two years than Crean ever did at IU in nine years at IU. 

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7 minutes ago, HoosierFan1994 said:

Come on man.....'m not saying Archie is the second coming of RMK and I agree we should take our time to evaluate him but he is head and shoulders better than Crean. Archie has pulled in more in state talent in two years than Crean ever did at IU in nine years at IU. 

I'm not worried about in state talent.  I honestly couldn't care less what zip code our players came from.  Crean's great Indiana kid class "The Movement " was a bust, so I'm not sure you can say that classes of Indiana kids are the answer.

 

Hopefully Archie is better than Crean.  His results will show.  Thus far those results are Meh.  I'm not saying they'll stay that way, but they are what they are.  Hopefully he becomes a great coach 

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Many mentions of the Syracuse game which was, to say the least, very disappointing.  Crean never did learn how to attack a zone.  I have a friend that is a Syracuse alum and before the game he surprised me by saying he was sure they would crush us because we would not be able to handle their zone and that their guards (both 6’6”) would dominate  our “midget” (his word) guards (Hulls and Yogi at 6’ and both went totally scoreless).  No doubt that not handling the zone is on Crean.  Not to defend Crean but it is also not as if Syracuse was Indiana State. They started out the year ranked 9th, spent part of the year ranked 3rd and 4th, and one of those starting 6’6” guards, Michael Carter Williams,  was a lottery pick and the NBA rookie of the year.  Because of the size of their guards and our inability to handle zones it was one of the worst matchups we could have encountered. After beating us they then held 3rd seed Marquette to 39 points.  
That being said, many of us (except Fred Glass) definitely tired of his lack of knowing how to attack a zone, the turnovers, pointless weaves, too much dribbling, puzzling substitutions (make three in a row and you get yanked), horrid plays out of time-outs and terrible team defense.  I do, however, have some appreciation for him taking over the steaming pile left by Samscum and did admire how he got his totally inferior first year team to play very hard even though they knew they were going to get their butts kicked.  9 years was definitely way too long.

I think what solidified my mindset of “he needs to be gone” is when we played Syracuse in the ACC challenge the following year and we still didn’t look all that competitive. A great competitive coach would have been studying how to beat a zone all year and came back with a vengeance to embarrass Syracuse in the ACC challenge the same way they embarrassed us in the S16.... later after Crean was fired he said one of his bigger regrets was not hiring a PR firm to lessen the expectations of the program for the 2013-2014 campaign since he lost so many players... 1 roster management is on him, and 2 what great coaches at any other programs thinks like that? ... Fred Glass should have been able to see through the bull by Creans 4th year to know he wasn’t the right fit ...10 years from now his record will show that he rode D wades coattails to the FF and caught lightning in a bottle. Never again to get past the S16


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7 hours ago, Stromboli said:

Clearly, this excitement would not have happened if the AD hadn't finally made the switch.

I still believe that was forced upon Cool Dad by benefactors of IU and IU athletics; I don't think he would have fired Crean whether it was lack of performance or the buyout price tag. 

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In the position that Sampson left this program, I'm really not sure what people really think we were going to bring in.  We brought in a coach who recruited pretty well but didn't coach very well.  Not sure we were going to entice someone who did both well at that point.

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I was done with him after 2010-2011 season. Then started to think my judgement was off in 2011-2012 only to be reassured of my opinion by the end of that season. So my answer would be I thought 3 years was enough but getting Cody saved him. However, how he was saved for 5 more years is beyond me. I hated the pass he was being given at the beginning. I get the 1st year but to give him 4 years???? It shouldn't have taken that long to start winning games.

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1 hour ago, southernindianahoosier2 said:


I think what solidified my mindset of “he needs to be gone” is when we played Syracuse in the ACC challenge the following year and we still didn’t look all that competitive. A great competitive coach would have been studying how to beat a zone all year and came back with a vengeance to embarrass Syracuse in the ACC challenge the same way they embarrassed us in the S16.... later after Crean was fired he said one of his bigger regrets was not hiring a PR firm to lessen the expectations of the program for the 2013-2014 campaign since he lost so many players... 1 roster management is on him, and 2 what great coaches at any other programs thinks like that? ... Fred Glass should have been able to see through the bull by Creans 4th year to know he wasn’t the right fit ...10 years from now his record will show that he rode D wades coattails to the FF and caught lightning in a bottle. Never again to get past the S16


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I heard that interview and recall him saying this. It was one of the strangest things I've ever heard a coach say. To this day, I still don't understand what he meant. Was he serious about hiring a PR firm, or was he just spitballing? ... Did he want advertisements and posters saying "Come on out to the games, but be warned: We're not gonna be very good." or "From Big Ten champs to middle of the pack: Meet your 2013-14 Hoosiers." ... You should never want to lower expectations! ... And as you said, the loss of talent was on him. I can't imagine that Vic or Cody leaving were big surprises. And if they were, that's on him, too -- for not being very aware of what's going on in his own program. ... To me, him saying something like that was exactly the reason a change was needed. The lowest bar we should set is to make the NCAAs every year. There are 68 teams, and if we're not in that field 90 percent of the time, there's a problem. 

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Clappy’s Wizard of Oz’adry finally wore off, leaving all to recognize the weird man left standing behind the curtain for what he was. Decent guy mostly, good at promotion - though often doublespeak. Not great coach, not great at owning accountability, and limited discipline which was reflected in how many of his teams played as well as in his recruiting strategy. Archie’s authentic and appears to know the game on and off the court. Will see where it goes, but better than cautiously optimistic here.

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I'm not worried about in state talent.  I honestly couldn't care less what zip code our players came from.  Crean's great Indiana kid class "The Movement " was a bust, so I'm not sure you can say that classes of Indiana kids are the answer.
 
Hopefully Archie is better than Crean.  His results will show.  Thus far those results are Meh.  I'm not saying they'll stay that way, but they are what they are.  Hopefully he becomes a great coach 


The problem with “The Movement” class was Crean offered way too many in-state prospects way too early in a deep class. If he showed patience and withheld offers until later in the process, we could have ended up with Gary Harris, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, Mitch McGary or even Glen Robinson III added to Yogi.


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The problem with “The Movement” class was Crean offered way too many in-state prospects way too early in a deep class. If he showed patience and withheld offers until later in the process, we could have ended up with Gary Harris, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, Mitch McGary or even Glen Robinson III added to Yogi.


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Im sure we could of gotten mcgary. Offering jurkin that early was really dumb.

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In the position that Sampson left this program, I'm really not sure what people really think we were going to bring in.  We brought in a coach who recruited pretty well but didn't coach very well.  Not sure we were going to entice someone who did both well at that point.


Did Crean have to dismiss those players? Also, could a different coach have kept all the incoming recruits while not dismissing the players? I heard they had a drug problem, but it seems like a coach could have installed discipline... I get having his first 2 years wiped clean, but his 3 year he lost more big ten games than in year 2. That should be red flag 1 and red flag 2 should be when he pulled Matt Roth’s scholarship in favor of peter jerkin


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I don’t really buy that a coach cares what shape a program is in all that much.  In some ways that helps because you can offer PT.

There are maybe 5 schools that rival us in resources for the program.  Would we have had to overpay for an up and comer probably. 

The ability to hire any assistant you want and spend a million a year recruiting is pretty alluring 

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3 hours ago, HoosierFan1994 said:

Yeah if Zeller chooses UNC or Butler I think he is gone. 

Landing Cody and the sweet 16’s extended Crean’s shelf life.

The “hard to take” reality is that IU made it to one sweet 16 from the ‘95 through 2011 seasons. One sweet sixteen in 17 seasons! Crean went to three in his last six years. Not a defense of Crean (I repeated his many faults earlier) but I think that might have blinded Freddie.

 

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