Walking Boot of Doom

Haha yes, I didn't want to dive into the moral dilemma of the Indiana fanbase that would have cut that list in half.  

So you're willing to settle for another mediocre hire?   See what I did there?

After 3-4 more years of less than mediocre basketball, bringing in terrible recruits, hurting the program, making it less attractive to other coaches, making it even harder to find a Final Four caliber coach.

No, we shouldn't rush into another bad coaching hire which would further damage the program's image. It does make complete sense.   I too would TOTALLY settle for Izzo. Man, wish we could do better than someone who has only been to seven Final Fours though...

Or the possibility of being even worse. I don't feel like taking a chance at taking a step back.

More food for thought, Indiana fans are not going to be satisfied until we have sustained success. Because of Branch McCracken and Bob Knight, that means multiple national championships over the course of a multi-decade career. We want Coach K, plain and simple. Here are all the coaches in HISTORY who would have satisfied Indiana fans, and we've already had two of them:   Titles - Coach 10 - John Wooden 5 - Mike Krzyzewski 4 - Adolph Rupp 3 - Bob Knight 3 - Jim Calhoun 2 - Branch McCracken 2 - Henry Iba 2 - Phil Woolpert 2 - Ed Jucker 2 - Denny Crum 2 - Dean Smith 2 - Roy Williams 2 - Billy Donovan 2 - Rick Pitino

What body of work is good enough for Indiana to consider investing $3 million a year, for 3-5 years? Right now, we know what we have, and Crean's leash is pretty much year-to-year. You bring in a new guy, and we'll have to give them another few years before we can really judge them. Even more time if they've never coached in a top conference with a body of work to look back on.

Yes. Better than doubling down on a guy who really has proven nothing, even less than what Crean had proven at Marquette.

Once again, those four were huge successes. How many other programs thought they were hiring a coach like them, and ended up with a dud? Indiana should not be messing around offering another 5 year, multi-million dollar contract to someone who got hot at a MVC/WCC caliber team and maybe made a small run as a Cinderella in the tournament. Five years from now, we'll have a "Fire Coach ____ Thread" discussing the same "do we stay, or do we go" scenarios.   If Crean can close out the season strong, perform well in both tournaments, at least we know we're getting a coach that can bring us moderate success while we look for the elite coach Indiana wants. Or maybe Crean, being a coach who has actually coached his team to a Final Four, does it at Indiana, making him one of 12 active coaches in college basketball to have coached multiple Final Four teams. It really becomes difficult to justify a firing at that point, unless Brad Stevens were available.

All in for this. If Indiana is making a move, it needs to be someone like Billy Donovan, Brad Stevens, etc. Coaches who have coached in a major conference and have gone to the Final Four. Everyone else is just another potential Crean.

Drew, who has never been to a Final Four? Who has never coached in a Power 5 conference? I understand your sentiment, but our resources can't make a coach elite. Drew seems awfully promising, but no matter what, an unproven coach (I'll define that as no Final Four appearances) has pretty unfavorable odds of becoming a consistent Final Four coach (elite). Legitimately, there are about three or four coaches in the NCAA right now that have done what Indiana fans want Crean to have done over the past five to six years.

If we continue to extend him, yes. As of right now, Crean is essentially year-to-year, pending the availability of an elite caliber coach. Right now, there doesn't really seem to be any available, and seeing as only 11 active coaches have gone to multiple Final Fours, essentially what this fanbase will demand, there is an extremely limited supply of coaches that should be considered qualified to be hire by Indiana

Yes, luckily for those programs, since 1990 they've had:   Program - Coach (Final Fours w/ Program)   Duke - Coach K (12) Kansas - Roy Williams (4)  and Bill Self (2) Kentucky - Rick Pitino (3)  and John Calipari (4) North Carolina - Dean Smith (4) and Roy Williams (3)   UCLA has had a rough go of late, but had Howland (3) made a good run in the 2000's.   Since the 90's, Indiana has had:   Bob Knight (1) Mike Davis (1) Tom Crean (0)   Outside of us and UCLA, the four other Blue Bloods have hired and retained elite caliber coaches. Indiana has not. Every coaching hire that isn't an elite caliber coach puts us another three to four years out from the right hire. 

Look, a Final Four would be great, but I'm more concerned about year-over-year consistency. A Final Four this year could just be a flash in the pan after two seasons where we bottomed out.    Did you know there are only 27 active coaches in college basketball that have been to the Final Four? Crean is one of them (so are our previous two coaches, excluding Dakich, oddly enough...). Only 11 have been more than once. If Crean makes it to another Final Four, he'd join the likes of Bill Self, Thad Matta, Larry Brown, and Bob Huggins with two a piece. Calipari and Boeheim(!!!) for all their years of coaching and winning have only been four times a piece. Then you have the truly elite coaches Izzo (7), Pitino (7), Roy Williams (7), and Coach K (12) demonstrating complete dominance over extended careers.    It takes special teams coached by special coaches to make it to the Final Four. Crean has demonstrated that he can be the caliber of coach to get to a Final Four, but do you really believe this team is Final Four caliber? I'd say it's a stretch that that would be a realistic expectation.   So, if a coach who has done what only 26 other active coaches, two of which we've already burned through, is to be fired for not making the Final Four, who do we replace him with? Without viable options like a Brad Stevens who has the potential to become elite like an Izzo or a Coach K, you're most likely going to hire another guy who has a flash in the pan run at a Final Four, but fails to consistently get you there.

Final Four or fired? Woof.

After what we've seen so far this year, wanting Crean gone just doesn't make sense anymore. There aren't any solid options readily available, as far as we know, and he's demonstrating a lot of improvement as a coach.   I think the only fair determination of his coaching after the season we've seen thus far, is that we all want to see more. We need to see him close out the season strong, win the B1G Title, perform well in the B1G Tournament for once, and at least make another Sweet Sixteen. If he does all of that, there is no question that he should continue coaching at Indiana. If he fails to accomplish any of the above points, it's time for Indiana to seriously shop around for other coaches, but depending on who is available, it may not be time to move on from Crean.   At this point, I don't think there is a situation where Crean isn't making goofy faces and running one of the top offenses in the country Indiana next year.

No I definitely think that's an issue. I do think it was impressive that with our three main bigs with 4 fouls a piece and or two freshman bigs at 3 a piece we held together against arguably one of the best front courts in the B1G/(maybe) country, but more timeouts should have been used, and I wish we had just stuck to our normal offensive aggressiveness instead of running down the clock. In the end though, we played a good game, and won against a team I thought would crush us at the beginning of the year looking at the matchup on paper.

I think that Wisconsin game is a big time landmine

Would really be great to see. He could be a truly iconic Indiana player if the team finishes strong this year.

Updated, thank you!

Very cool that Troy hit his 1,000 points on five straight - a three, followed immediately by a steal and dunk.

Hoosiers are back on top! [attachment=3468:ImageUploadedByBtownBanners1456069457.209287.jpg] Indiana should get both the home win against Maryland and the win on the road against a short-handed Illinois team, and can accept a road loss to Iowa. With OSU, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan, all teams in the top six in the B1G, Iowa could easily lose two more. Maryland also has Michigan at home, and Indiana and Purdue on the road, and could also be looking at two more loses. As long as Crean and Co. can continue to adjust our defense to our opponents while playing our game on the offensive end, Crean's shot at his second B1G Title in four years looks pretty strong.

Watched the RoJo injury replay a few times, and I didn't see any contact with his left ankle. It looked like the contact was higher up closer to his knee or thigh. Not sure what the injury was, although they were examining his ankle in the floor. Hoping for a speedy recovery. We really need him on the floor for us.

Yeah, but he didn't against a huge opponent. People wanted him off the team after the MSU loss. Pointing out what he can do. I agree though, consistency is missing and necessary.

Troy played out of his mind. Two games in a row now where he was the x-factor. Oh, by the way, he had zero turnovers.