Old Friend

And I love all of you. (but especially you) We care. I wonder sometimes if anyone in administration does.

When I was born, my dad brought me home from the hospital and put me down, in my bassinet, in front of an IU vs. Ohio State basketball game which was on television. I was 2 days old in 1969. "Get used to it, son" he said. It's my favorite story from when I was a kid. I remember watching the IU v Kentucky game from my parents' best friends' basement in Bloomington, in 1975. I remember sprinting to the bus stop as a first grader to tell my friends "WE DID IT!" in 1976 after we'd finished the undefeated season. I remember vividly beating Purdue in the 1979 NIT Final. I remember IU playing on Monday nights, and going home with my dad after he'd pick me up from a religious studies class so we could watch games together. Martha the Broom Lady was a welcomed guest in our house before every IU game, and those games had a palpable feel. I remember later on an African American lady yelling "OSCAR!!" to bring her young son home off the basketball court. I remember Amax coal commercials and Hilliard Gates. I remember where I was when they announced Ronald Reagan would be okay and the national championship game would be played as scheduled; and won by my beloved Indiana Hoosiers. I was with my cousin on DePauw's campus in the spring of 1987 when Keith Smart hit "the shot." We drove to Bloomington where by happenstance, I met another cousin walking down the street. I went to IU's opening round game in 1993 vs. Wright State in the Hoosier Dome...sat in great seats. Should have taken a date, and in fact THOUGHT about taking the girl I really should have married. Took a friend instead. Didn't marry that girl. Have regretted it ever since. I was torn up that year AND the year prior because I truly believed Indiana had the best team in the country, and it was filled with kids I knew..because I'd watched almost all of them since they were in high school. I went to the Final Four in Atlanta when the 2002 team took its magical ride. I celebrated when Eric Gordon agreed to play basketball at Indiana. Thrilled at Christian Watford's jump shot which cemented Indiana's return, however briefly, to national relevance. Yes, I have been an IU basketball fan literally all my life. In many ways, it defines my extracurricular life. Appointment television. Passion. Expectations. A love of something I have truly enjoyed and want to share with my sons. Fellas, I DVR'd the Pacers game tonight instead of the IU game.

Sort of a system guy, Marshall. Don't think his act would play in the Big Ten

Greenspan had NOTHING to do with the hiring of Kelvin Sampson. Zero.

Phinisee is a very important get for Indiana and for Crean. He needs to start succeeding in state and needs to start building a roster instead of a bunch of kids who do the same things and need the ball in their hands.

Sigh. Well, time to start over and rebuild. Is Crean the guy for that? I sure don't think so. Sucks all the way around.

The "starters" didn't play at all. He started Uwe Blab and 4 freshmen (Hillman, Smith, Sloan, and Eyl, I think). Knight wanted nothing more than to send a message to the "starters."

That place is a clown show. Lots of guys who somehow believe they're important because they have 20,000 posts on a free chat board and claim to be connected. Facts never matter with them, and they're very self important. One in particular has a comical God complex and very thin skin. (I would even bet he reads this and posts something here or there in relatialtion.)

http://chriswesthoops.blogspot.com/2008/04/tom-creans-leaving-huh.html?m=1

2) In the conversation every year instead of a roller coaster. Indiana can and will always attract better overall talent than Wisconsin will have. They made two final fours and never finished below 4th without McD's all Americans or really many national recruits at all. I would expect better results at Indiana if we were in the same position Wisconsin is in the Big Ten every year.

I would honestly like to know what the expectations truly are. How is he being measured? Peaks are great, but he's had his share of valleys, too. And I don;t just mean his first couple of seasons. I've said before I truly want to know whether or not Indiana University wants its men's basketball program to be an elite program or just a generally successful program.

Ft. Wayne has lost to South Dakota, South Dakota State, North Dakota State, and Western Illinois. We lost to them. We lost to Nebraska who just lost at home to Rutgers. Don't kid yourself....We can lose anywhere.

I've said that for 3 years. Couldn't agree more.

This is very well said. Continuity for the sake of continuity is not a good idea when a team is mediocre. IU is mediocre by IU's standards. If we play a good team, Crean is never the best coach on the floor. Indiana wins when we make 3 point shots (and are allowed to get them in transition), and we lose when we don't. Against good teams, that's generally the formula. If we aren't making shots and teams make us guard for 15 seconds, we won't beat .....Nebraska. Crean has done some really nice things at IU. He did a good job when he got here of righting the ship, but I think year 3 was worse than it needed to be. But then...after Zeller and Oladipo left (along with Hulls), he finished 8th and 7th in the Big Ten. Elite coaches don't have that problem when they lose kids. He's a decent leader of a program, but he is not a great basketball coach.

1) You missed the point completely 2) Koenig - no it wouldn't. Hayes - yeah it would and I said so.

Yep. And they had the ball in the hands of the right people for a change. Is it an anomaly or a trend?

Omit true data? What data did I omit? It was a crap league, and I'll get to that in a second. You've had a personal "thing" for me for way too long and it's kinda old. And kinda' childish. C-USA was not a difficult conference in which to finish 4th or higher. It just wasn't; which is why I don't give him credit for doing so. Especially when you have Dwayne Wade (did you KNOW Crean used to coach him?) and two other NBA players on the roster for multiple seasons. In that conference? By the way, his only two truly successful seasons while in C-USA. Seems to me a decent coach could lose fewer than 8 games every year in that conference even without a historically great player, but I digress. Alas....in his last year in C-USA, his team in 2005 finished 7-9 in 9th behind Alabama Birmingham, Houston, DePaul, and Texas Christian. In 2004, he was 8-8 and 8th, behind Charlotte and UAB. He did fine with a hall of famer. C-USA had a few decent teams, but a coach worthy of a job at Indiana ought to be consistently able to finish ahead of UAB. Even while there he missed the post season once and went to the NIT 3 times. This is a league with Tulane, Eastern Carolina, Southern Miss, UAB, Charlotte, Texas Christian, Alabama Birmingham, and Houston. It was absolutely a crap league. I didn't say all teams were bad, I said it was a crap league, yet in his final two seasons..playing those teams, he couldn't even have a winning record or finish above 8th? Nit pick all you want, but the case against him isn't harmed by your pissing contest with me., Let's cut the bullsh*t, okay? You've taken enough pot shots. I dropped the name so you can, too. Unless you've got some agenda for using it; which would be no surprise. Spin things however you want in order to make yourself feel better. You DO realize you've cherry picked and ignored a lot of your own facts, right?

The guy's been a head coach for 18 seasons and he's made it past the sweet 16 once. And never while at Indiana in 9 seasons. He's finished above 5th just 3 times in 12 seasons in BCS conferences (sorry, I think C-USA was garbage while he was there...just can't bring myself to credit him for that). He finished 11th in the Big Ten his 3rd year at Indiana, and 8th, then 7th in years 6 and 7 at IU. Even if you take away his first 2 seasons at IU (which I think is fair), his conference record is 62-52. That is not good enough at Indiana, and I don't care how you measure things. OG getting hurt provides yet another excuse. Crean seems to either do just enough or have just enough excuses; and it's maddening. I would like to know...and I mean really know whether or not the IU administration wants to be an elite level program or not. And if they don't, we can all stop caring.

Hate it for the kid. Absolutely hate it. Hope he gets well quickly and recovers fully. Here's the rest of that story. Crean has done well sending kids to the NBA. Nobody can doubt that, and it's fun to see IU kids doing well at the next level. That said, it has hurt and will continue to hurt the success of IU basketball. What are we really after? Are we after consistent success in Bloomington, or are we interested in becoming an NBA factory? Crean hasn't come close to getting the kind of kids Kentucky does, so we have not and will not contend on a national level consistently. If we want to become an NBA factory, we need a significant upgrade in the types of kids we recruit. Losing a kid like OG kills IU because we don't have a viable "next man up." The alternative is to do things the way, say, Wisconsin does them. They are in the conversation for a Big Ten title every season. Bo Ryan was there 14 years and never finished below 4th in the league. Ryan never recruited kids with NBA stars in their eyes, even as he sent a few that direction; but he did recruit basketball players...kids who would stay 4 seasons and he generally had lots of upper classmen playing significant minutes. This season's team is no exception, and once again, they're in the conversation. Gard's kids finished 3rd a season ago. Wisconsin has not finished below 4th place in the Big Ten since 2001. I think every IU fan would be okay with that. And, IU can usually get enough talent to have NCAA tournament success. Wisconsin's had their share, and I believe conference success breeds post season success most of the time. Michigan State is another obvious example. Both programs focus on recruiting locally (Wisconsin spent $60,000 recruiting in 2015, IU spent > $600,000), they recruit kids they keep around for a while, and they just keep re-stocking. The formula's there in my opinion, and this injury - if I were Fred Glass - would lead me to a meeting with Crean to perhaps change focus and do things a little differently, using Wisconsin as the example. If they lost....Bronson Koenig, for example, they'd be okay. They'd struggle if they lost Hayes, but he's a senior. Losing OG as a sophomore hurts IU from the standpoint of this season's team, and moving forward. You just don't replace a kid like him, and now, having hurt his knee, he's a very likely NBA departure because the risk simply is no longer worth it to him. So Crean finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He is neither building a roster for long term success nor succeeding with the short term kids he does get. I hate this for OG and I'm praying for him, however from a bigger picture standpoint, I think some good can come from it.

Every IU fan should be asking the same question, and Fred Glass should, too. We played passively for the last 10 minutes. Allowed them to come back from a 13 point deficit to tie it. When we're up 2 and need a bucket or at least an opportunity from the foul line, we stand around for 27 seconds, and then give it to our 6'11" kid (who already had 4 TO's) 30 feet from the rim. Seriously; what idiot draws that up? We have nothing to fall back on if the secondary break isn't there. We have no clue how to move without the ball or screen effectively. This has been a consistent problem for 9 seasons. Crean hasn't changed and hasn't learned a damned thing. This brand of basketball is embarrassing. 17 turnovers? Really? You're a team that's guard heavy and you get just 15 FT's and make just 9? And late in the game, you allow a freshman to get the ball....twice? When we had a real coach, our best FT shooters got the ball in that situation. Always. No exceptions. IU almost never had more TO's than assists, and now we almost always do. Crean's brand of basketball is slop. This man makes $3.5 million to play a very elementary brand of basketball that requires almost no thought once a game plan is installed. What great adjustments does he make? Is he difficult to prepare for? Good road win. Yahoo. But if people can't see his shortcomings, I have no idea what to say. Oh, and our starting point guard had 0 assists, took one shot, and had 4 fouls in 18 minutes. I love how Crean develops players. Um....

His video looks a lot better than his ranking. I like it. Welcome.

I'm having a really difficult time understanding the euphoria after today's game. We did take better care of the ball, and we saw a team that didn't come in, out hustle us, out-rebound us by 9, and show us exactly what it looks like when you "play hard," but you're careless with the ball. They had 5 assists and 21 turnovers. The level to which that's awful is laughable. We - finally - had more assists than turnovers, and we won comfortably. We were able to run, created turnovers for touchdowns, and I just don't understand why this formula is so difficult. That said, we did not play well, and didn't exactly impress against the last place (0-6) team in our league. Why are so many looking at this and seeing signs of a turnaround? Only the lack of turnovers for....35 minutes or so (last couple of minutes of each half were bad) were much better than we've seen, and 4-22 from deep will get us beat 90% of the time.

Set play out of a secondary break. I have consistently said Crean's secondary break is pretty solid (I know this was out of a dead ball, but still a similar scenario). It's the ha;f court offense that doesn't move. Not any given set play.

Eyeball test doesn't lie. Lots of guys here know what they're seeing; and anybody who's coached at the high school level can easily teach the game the way Crean's teams play. It's just not that hard; and the half court offense struggles to find decent looks on a consistent basis. You can teach a fat kid in flip flops to move. The comments are indeed hyperbole. Just a line that says "Crean's offense is embarrassingly easy, and we don't guard, anyway." Same was true under Davis. I went to a game v Notre Dame one time, and they played a very simple 2-3 zone. We lost 46-45. Our offense was to flash a guy to the high post and look to kick opposite. The problem? The guy at the high post kept his back to the rim, and never ONCE turned to look at the baseline, and we had guys open down there all night. But....we never looked, ND never really allowed our offense to do much; and we scored 45 points in a loss that any decent high school coach could have avoided with the simplest of adjustments. Basketball is a very simple game. Crean teaches spacing well. He teaches tempo well. But there are so many little things that seem to get missed, and talent has masked a lot of his deficiency, along with weak scheduling.

Man, is THIS exactly right,