TrueHoosier62

Let's assume, or shall I say, "dream", that Tom Crean were to wake up today and have an epiphany, and that epiphany was that he just wasn't suited for coaching basketball, (I know, the rest of us woke up to this realization about three years ago, but bear with me). What would be a good alternate job position for the ex coach Tom Crean? Here are a few ideas that came to mind   *Snake Oil Salesman *Public advocate for the legalization of Pot in Indiana *Public advocate for dropping the legal drinking age to 15 in the state of Indiana *Spokesperson for Pearle Vision *Celebrity advocate for Rittalin *Used Car Salesman for "Lemons-R-Us". *Summer Camp Counselor *Low security prison guard *Cheerleader *Personal Valet for Jim Harbaugh *Athletic Director at St. Mary of the Woods *Adult film star under the stage name "Uncle Perv" *Circus clown for Ringling Bros   Please feel free to add your own ideas.

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You guys are really nailing the hell out of this thread. I am so proud. :biggrin:   Here are a few more ways that you can if "You might have a problem with the IU basketball program"   1.) You're given a choice of watching another IU game or going on a date with Courtney Love and you choose Courtney, because "she has more potential".   2.) You're giving serious consideration to sending photos of James Blackmon to a local dairy so they can put his defensive stats on the back of milk carton   3.) You've begun to offer penance at your local church for having thought ill of Bobby Knight   4.) You've begun to offer penance at your local church for having ever said anything supportive of Tom Crean   5.) You're actively praying for Got to speak directly to Brad Stevens about coming to IU   6.) You've contacted the agents for Kentucky's ball players, asking if they might have anyone over 6'-8', they'd be willing to sell us.   7.) You've contacted the agent for Rosanne Barr in hopes of persuading her to sing the national anthem at home games. You figure no matter how bad our team is, if she's on the court, it's got to look better.   8.) You've sent a letter to Jim Delany, asking if we can eliminate Nebraska, Purdue, Wisconsin and Michigan State from our annual schedule, to be replaced by an extra game with Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, and Ivy Tech.   9.) You've consulted with the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis to see if Ray Tolbert has any years of eligibility left   10.) Having been told he didn't, you inquire about George McGinnis

OMG! Bwahahahahahahaaha! I think I just peed myself. lol

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to TMZ, writer Angelo Pizzo is penning a sequel to "Hoosiers" where coach Norman Dale, now well in to his nineties, comes out of retirement to save the Indiana Hoosier's basketball program. Reuniting his players from Hickory, most of which are now in their seventies and suffering from various ailments associated with advanced age, they employ a little used defensive scheme called the "man to man", and like the Phoenix, rise from the ashes to hang yet another banner in Assembly Hall. In one scene of particular poignancy, Gomer Crean, the local small town lush, stumbles on to the court, swearing to all and sundry that "it wasn't his fault, it wasn't his fault, it wasn't his fault". Approached by new AD, Robert Knight, Crean is calmly escorted off the court to behind the mezzanine, where he is soundly beaten by Knight, using Martha the Mop Lady's bucket. 

If we could have fielded players from the Helen Keller school of gifted athletes, we'd have witnessed a better defensive showing. In fact, Helen Keller herself, who died in 1968, given a proper uniform and deodorant after exhumation, would have looked more fluid in the post.

Well, to paraphrase coach Knight, "When disappointment is inevitable, you may as well lie back and enjoy it".  And certainly, under coach Crean, disappointment is inevitable. Once we all understand this, our frustration level will go down exponentially.

I'm not learned enough in the whole process to know for certain what is best, but my instinct tells me that yes, trustees, or those who's main interests are the University itself, should have the most influence over the Athletic department's direction.

I vote for "C": Neither.   Collegiate Athletics are almost by definition, owned by the Universities that support them. Consequently, it should be the administrators who have the most influence, perhaps aided with input by the Alumni.

Alright then.

Regardless of the institution or sports program, fans in general are not willing to fork over their hard earned money for tickets, endure the traffic and foul weather, put up with the mass of humanity, and over pay for concessions, if they don't believe their team has a chance, or hope of winning national titles. Additionally, the more success an institution has had, the more difficult it will be for the school/AD to entice those fans to keep coming if the product, in their eyes, has diminished.  Our basketball program has five banners, but none since 1987, (nearly 30 years). We've gone from a legendary coach who guided us to three of those banners, to a nice, albeit incompetent coach, to a slimy coach who ruined our school's pristine reputation, and most recently to a coach who has, after seven years at the helm, failed to win a championship or convince us one is coming soon. His teams have been, to put it mildly, inconsistent. For those of us old enough to have lived through the past three championships, we constantly judge the current teams by viewing them through the prism of past glories, and frankly, they just don't measure up. We don't mean to be harsh or critical, but neither do we look to be fooled in to believing something that isn't true. After seven years, fans have seen enough to know that spending their money, time and emotion supporting this program will only produce frustration, disappointment and a lower balance in their bank account. We can talk about demographics all you like, but in the end, fans will support their team, and attend their games in mass, when the product on the court convinces them that their investment may actually yield titles, not just wins. I suspect the number fans who truly still believe coach Crean can win a national championship at IU has fallen considerably in the last two years.

Good sized guard that would be nice to get, but the competition for his services is tough.

The land of hope, glory and five banners: 86   The land of cowsh*t, ugly women, and delusions: 60

Damned, would be nice to land this kid....

I thought you were going to offer up a Peter Jurkin joke. Oh well.  :lol:

Whether it was the "General's way" or some other coach's way is irrelevant. This team has no discipline whatsoever, and it shows up game after game after game in the way of turnovers, shoddy defense, and mental breakdowns, particularly, but not exclusively against upper echelon teams. When their threes are dropping, everything appears great. When they're not falling, every flaw is exposed, and one sees how far this team actually falls short of competing for a championship. And it isn't just about having a big man in the middle. That is the lie we keep buying in to. This team has fundamental flaws that coach Crean has been unable to correct. Fair or not, that is fast becoming the "Crean way".

If I were a trustee or someone who had a say in the matter, I'd be more upset with Crean for not taking those steps, regardless of his past accomplishments or limited successes. Losing a game or two in order to get a point across is forgivable. Allowing your program to drift in to a sea of mediocrity isn't.

To the extent that it's the kids who play the game, "yes", it can be their fault. But who's job is it to recruit the various pieces of a puzzle, pieces that aren't just talented, but pieces that can blend together on the court and in the dorm rooms? Who's job is it to instill discipline, not just in their game, but in their lives? Who's job is it to see that these players are committed to developing their game to the extent that it helps the entire team and program, not just their own trajectory to the NBA? Who's job is it to prepare game plans, and who's job is it to make changes in those plans when things go wrong, so his charges can learn to adapt to change and adversity? It may not seem fair, but it's what a coach must do and should be. It's why they make big money, and why there are so few of them worth the money they make. Yes, kids make errors on the court and in life, but it's the coach who takes the heat. It's just how it is. It's how it has to be.

I wish I could agree with you, but ultimately, everything must be placed on Crean's shoulders. He recruited these kids, has presumably taught these kids, and fair or unfair, is responsible for their actions on and off the court. Their play on the court is maddening. Even in a win, (a win I might point out that came at home against a team so decimated by injuries and graduations as to render them pathetic), they show a complete indifference to defense, and make so many fundamental errors in ball handling as to be embarrassing. I say embarrassing, not because I think badly of the kids, but because by this time in their careers, basketball players with any degree of coaching and DISCIPLINE, should not be found to be jumping up, ball in hand, without the first clue as to where to pass the ball. I say, sit their asses down on the bench until they've figured it out. No defense? No PT. Jump passes, no PT. Poor decisions from the PG, no PT. In essence, real costs for shoddy, sloppy play. If you have to start the last five guys on the bench, including the ball boy and team manager, better to get the message across, than to let them continue to replicate such sloppy habits. That is why this is 100% Crean's problem, and Crean's fault for not taking the necessary steps to fix it.

Defense, is probably one of the easiest, if not THE easiest part of the game to teach. What's difficult is convincing your players to actually do it, then holding them accountable when they don't. Defense doesn't always need great athletes, or kids with 7' wingspans, (though that's nice to have), but it takes desire and commitment. Knight used to sit your ass on the pine if you wouldn't give your all on defense. And if you still wouldn't play defense, you might as well transfer. There really is no excuse for the lack of defense this team shows. In my opinion, it's on Crean. He either holds them accountable for it, or he doesn't. Perhaps he isn't as concerned with defense, thinking it might usurp energy from his players when on offense; who knows? Either way, there's no excuse.

Boy, is this topic ever going sideways!

True enough, but then, we've not had a great coach here since Knight, and Knight's teams weren't all that great towards the end. I think this had more to do with his attitude towards the game than the game having passed him by. At the rate our University's leaders are going, we may not see another great coach like Knight at IU again.

  Well, it's not meant to be really. It's only meant to show that in my opinion, we're kidding ourselves if, (as Purdue fans have for years), we think this program is going to win a championship or is likely to win one in the coming years. It'd be like trying to kill an elephant with a pop gun. Crean will always put together pop gun teams. Duke, Kentucky, and others bring serious artillery to the fight.  

The topic of this thread hurts my brain to read it, and I'd promised myself to never get involved in these types of threads again, but...........     I'm not convinced that we'll ever be able to be "Indiana" again. Presumably, what's implied is a type of basketball program that resembles or rather resembled those teams produced under coach Knight during the seventies and eighties. For starters, the kids we're taking now would not have made it under coach Knight, (and, in my opinion) he would not have recruited them in the first place. What Crean has assembled to date is, for all intents and purposes, a group of varying sized guards and small forwards. Some are slashers, some are shooters and a few can pass, but none can play, or do play, defense. They'll always be brittle in their game, blowing away a good team here or there, and losing to teams they have no business of losing to. Part of the problem is the makeup of the team. If ever a team was the embodiment of the axiom, "live by the three, die by the three" it is this team. Of course, without a front court, what else is there to do? The fact that there isn't a front court is either by design, by injuries, or by attrition, but it still doesn't matter. After seven years, this program is exactly what you see, and will see, for as long as Crean is coaching here. We are fast becoming a southern annex of Purdue basketball, always seeing and believing the best is just around the corner, just a another McDonald's All America player away from a championship, just a good break away from excellence. It  doesn't happen like that, and it won't happen like that under Crean. Shooting the lights out of the three is a lot like wallpaper; it covers up a multitude of sins, but there just isn't enough wallpaper for this team. Ok......so everyone doesn't go apesh*t on me again, I'll leave and lurk in the background....