TOM CREAN FIRED

[HoosierX 1,502]

2 hours ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

By now, most of you are aware that I like numbers.  So, I've gone back to 2012 and used 247Sports rankings of the incoming recruiting classes for some of the names being bandied about in this thread to compare recruiting efforts.  In a couple of cases, a school's class was outside the top 100 and you'll see the 'n.a.'    Be prepared for a surprise.

247Sports Ranking - Top 100	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	As of 1/24/17	Average
Tom Crean - Our Beloved	8	4	22	29	22	35	20
Chris Mack - Xavier	26	61	17	n.a.	28	10	28
Jay Wright - 'Nova	30	32	46	30	44	22	34
Tony Bennett - UVA	15	57	41	57	7	n.a.	35
Butler (Holtman since '15)	57	50	63	n.a.	45	17	46
Archie Miller - Dayton	n.a.	60	n.a.	91	71	n.a.	74

 

I'll be more than happy to add names as long as the request list doesn't get too out of hand.

In my opinion, team rankings can be fairly misleading due to their emphasis on the overall size of the class.  Because Crean tends to bring in large classes, Indiana skews toward consistently higher rankings.

It is true that Crean has done fairly well if you look at it from a team ranking perspective.  Over the last 5 years (12-16) he averages the 6th best recruiting class behind Kentucky, Arizona, Duke, Kansas, and UCLA with an average class ranking of right around 17 (as your data shows)  As an example of how class size can skew this, Louisville had the 89th ranked recruiting class in 2016 because they only had one recruit, even though that recruit happened to be a 5 star.  So despite the fact that they have had more or less 3 top five classes in that time frame (one was 6th), they aren't close to the top 10 in average.

If you look at things by average player ranking, things look quite a bit different.  Indiana finishes 22nd in average player ranking from 2012-2016 behind Kentucky, Duke, Syracuse, NC State, North Carolina, Kansas, Arizona, UCLA, Texas, Villanova, Louisville, Connecticut, San Diego State, Marquette, Stanford, UNLV, Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Maryland, and Michigan State.  You can certainly make an argument that this way of looking at things is unfair to Crean as he tends to take flyers on lower rated kids.  Adding a lower rated kid to an otherwise talented class isn't really making the class worse but it is dragging down the average. However, I think is a valuable counter measure to looking at this purely by team rankings.

My favorite comparison is Villanova because they come in at 10th in terms of average player rating at 93.92 (Indiana 90.91).  The reason their classes are rated so low is that they are always small...in the last 5 years they have taken classes of 2,3,2,2 and 3.  Villanova seems to be everyone's favorite example of how you don't need to recruit well to win.  I would argue with anyone saying they don't recruit well, they just don't recruit high volumes. In case you are wondering, in the last 5 years Indiana has taken 5, 3, 6, 6, and 5.

[mdn82 25,482]

Who in their right mind that is employed would publically state that they would leave that job for another one without that said job in the bag already?

These guys saying they want to stay in their current job is only good until something better is presented to them. Maybe IU is better, maybe it isn't but we won't know until we offer them the job and they compare it to what they have and what they have and want may be quite fluid

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Back channels, and those leak out. Jay Wright for instance about left for BC a few years ago. It was a done deal and pulled a Donovan. He is 55 and going to turn 56 this year. Glass is not going after him. Stevens and Ainge both have stated after his most recent extension this puts bed the college questions. You still ask him imo. I honestly don't get where the Donovan pull comes from? He isn't leaving the NBA for IU. He has no ties to here. Beyond that the next tier is where we will get our coach from. We will be damn good in that tier. I don't see Glass going after an end of his career type coach cause he has a name. Not his style in the hires he has made. Plus it doesn't take an offer to gauge interest on the position. Stevens will know he is our choice before a search starts. Us having a search will be dependent on what he does. Money won't be the issue.

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[Class of '66 Old Fart 82,727]

Welcome to btb HoosierX.  Glad to have you with us.  

[MikeRoberts 6,873]

Back channels, and those leak out. Jay Wright for instance about left for BC a few years ago. It was a done deal and pulled a Donovan. He is 55 and going to turn 56 this year. Glass is not going after him. Stevens and Ainge both have stated after his most recent extension this puts bed the college questions. You still ask him imo. I honestly don't get where the Donovan pull comes from? He isn't leaving the NBA for IU. He has no ties to here. Beyond that the next tier is where we will get our coach from. We will be damn good in that tier. I don't see Glass going after an end of his career type coach cause he has a name. Not his style in the hires he has made. Plus it doesn't take an offer to gauge interest on the position. Stevens will know he is our choice before a search starts. Us having a search will be dependent on what he does. Money won't be the issue.

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Yes I suppose, but Stevens would never say "this contract extension is nice, but no Danny, this does not put the college option to bed" and no, until we fire or are on the verge of firing Crean, he won't even address it through back channels. He is not going to risk it getting out that he is truly interested until it is a forgone conclusion it is available and it is his.

There was a very recent time we could have had Calipari, Could have had Self, could have had Pitino and the list goes on. It's Indiana still means a lot to people, especially to adults that are fully aware of what basketball means here.

There aren't that many coaches that would turn down the job and that is coming from someone that was on the evaluation team the last go around


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[WayneFleekHoosier 47,428]

Good post HoosierX. 🏻


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[HoosierAloha 30,020]

By now, most of you are aware that I like numbers.  So, I've gone back to 2012 and used 247Sports rankings of the incoming recruiting classes for some of the names being bandied about in this thread to compare recruiting efforts.  In a couple of cases, a school's class was outside the top 100 and you'll see the 'n.a.'    Be prepared for a surprise.

247Sports Ranking - Top 100	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	As of 1/24/17	Average
Tom Crean - Our Beloved	8	4	22	29	22	35	20
Chris Mack - Xavier	26	61	17	n.a.	28	10	28
Jay Wright - 'Nova	30	32	46	30	44	22	34
Tony Bennett - UVA	15	57	41	57	7	n.a.	35
Butler (Holtman since '15)	57	50	63	n.a.	45	17	46
Archie Miller - Dayton	n.a.	60	n.a.	91	71	n.a.	74

 

I'll be more than happy to add names as long as the request list doesn't get too out of hand.

I, too, like numbers to backup the "eye test." I did some cool little excel work a few years ago that compared Crean to the top B1G programs and pu over his time here. The two things that stuck out to me was IU's place in the B1G (5th best before Maryland joined) and the quantity of recruits.

When comparing recruiting under Crean to other B1G teams he had something like 5 more recruits in a 3 year stretch than the next closest program. I guess his recruiting rankings should be better when he has more quantity.

[Uspshoosier 44,654]

I, too, like numbers to backup the "eye test." I did some cool little excel work a few years ago that compared Crean to the top B1G programs and pu over his time here. The two things that stuck out to me was IU's place in the B1G (5th best before Maryland joined) and the quantity of recruits.

When comparing recruiting under Crean to other B1G teams he had something like 5 more recruits in a 3 year stretch than the next closest program. I guess his recruiting rankings should be better when he has more quantity.

The next logical step in comparing numbers for recruiting rankings would be to see which top 100 recruits he landed actually contributed to the program and which ones just took up space until they moved on


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[HoosierAloha 30,020]

In my opinion, team rankings can be fairly misleading due to their emphasis on the overall size of the class.  Because Crean tends to bring in large classes, Indiana skews toward consistently higher rankings.

It is true that Crean has done fairly well if you look at it from a team ranking perspective.  Over the last 5 years (12-16) he averages the 6th best recruiting class behind Kentucky, Arizona, Duke, Kansas, and UCLA with an average class ranking of right around 17 (as your data shows)  As an example of how class size can skew this, Louisville had the 89th ranked recruiting class in 2016 because they only had one recruit, even though that recruit happened to be a 5 star.  So despite the fact that they have had more or less 3 top five classes in that time frame (one was 6th), they aren't close to the top 10 in average.

If you look at things by average player ranking, things look quite a bit different.  Indiana finishes 22nd in average player ranking from 2012-2016 behind Kentucky, Duke, Syracuse, NC State, North Carolina, Kansas, Arizona, UCLA, Texas, Villanova, Louisville, Connecticut, San Diego State, Marquette, Stanford, UNLV, Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Maryland, and Michigan State.  You can certainly make an argument that this way of looking at things is unfair to Crean as he tends to take flyers on lower rated kids.  Adding a lower rated kid to an otherwise talented class isn't really making the class worse but it is dragging down the average. However, I think is a valuable counter measure to looking at this purely by team rankings.

My favorite comparison is Villanova because they come in at 10th in terms of average player rating at 93.92 (Indiana 90.91).  The reason their classes are rated so low is that they are always small...in the last 5 years they have taken classes of 2,3,2,2 and 3.  Villanova seems to be everyone's favorite example of how you don't need to recruit well to win.  I would argue with anyone saying they don't recruit well, they just don't recruit high volumes. In case you are wondering, in the last 5 years Indiana has taken 5, 3, 6, 6, and 5.

You stated it much better than I did.

When doing my analysis I did notice Crean pulled more 5* than any of the other top B1G programs.

[HoosierAloha 30,020]

The next logical step in comparing numbers for recruiting rankings would be to see which top 100 recruits he landed actually contributed to the program and which ones just took up space until they moved on


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Just off the top of my head Perea, Hollowell, and Fischer didn't contribute while here.

[HoosierAloha 30,020]

Another note, there's an avalanche of things to "let sink in" about the state of the program.

[Uspshoosier 44,654]

Just off the top of my head Perea, Hollowell, and Fischer didn't contribute while here.

Stanford


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[Yogi's Picnic Basket 5,004]

Donovan rumors were very weird because of no ties, but last year they seemed to be around for a few months. That was also when everyone thought KD didnt like him so to keep him they would have to get rid of him. At the time they said Donovan would never be an assistant in the nba so it would be back to college, which the only big time schools that were in need were us and UCLA but since Alford had Ball everyone expected him to keep his job. Thag left us as the best choice if he got fired. It is completely different situation now and he would likely pull another head coach offer in the nba which probably wasnt the case last year. We may not have a shot but id still call.

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[Baltimore Hoosier 986]

16 hours ago, biteoftheapple said:

The Coach K pedigree is not a guarantee. See Johnny Dawkins, and Tommy Amaker.

 

Who said anything about a guarantee? I don't there is such thing in college basketball. Amaker did good things in the Ivy League and Brey is closing in on 500 wins. Coach K is Top 10 all time in terms of coaching tree. 

Wojo is a damn good coach. People are throwing out Richman and others who haven't proven much. I put Wojo right up there.

[Baltimore Hoosier 986]

16 hours ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Number of Coach K pedigree coaches have also had questionable coaching episodes - Quinn Snyder and Chris Duhon.  I'm not convinced coaching pedigrees are that big of a deal in basketball.  After all, Tom Izzo's a pretty darn coach and look what we've got.  

 

I've followed Wojo since his playing days. My best friend's father coached him in Baltimore during his high school career. He is SMART, was a hard nosed defensive minded player, well respected by his players, and has won some huge games and amassed a pretty nice record in his third year of head coaching. And he's only 40. I don't know how you don't put him on the list of desireables. He's absolutely on mine. 

[Yogi's Picnic Basket 5,004]

  I've followed Wojo since his playing days. My best friend's father coached him in Baltimore during his high school career. He is SMART, was a hard nosed defensive minded player, well respected by his players, and has won some huge games and amassed a pretty nice record in his third year of head coaching. And he's only 40. I don't know how you don't put him on the list of desireables. He's absolutely on mine. 

Completely different coaches, but if we fire Crean, most IU fans aren't gonna want another Marquette coach. Less it was Brad Stevens or someone of that level. They beat Creighton without Mo Watson and the win against Nova was great but they shot 17% from 3. I watched the whole game and Nova missed a lot of open shots. It is a good win, but nothing more. WoJo hasn't had any tourney experience and is to much of a risk. That is just how I see it. Mostly everyone but Ronald Nored that has been mentioned has a better resume. Nored coaches in the D League and was on Stevens bench on the Celtics at 26 and that is why I would throw his name in the hat.

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[Yogi's Picnic Basket 5,004]

Our last coaching search was completely horrible so if we do get a new coach please don't jump the gun on someone. We called Tony Bennett he declined, we called Crean and 36 hours later he was our coach. I guarantee most of you don't realize our next option was Brad Brownell when he was at Wright State!! Thank god our program is better than it was then!!

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[southsidehoosier 4,800]

If we are going to go outside of our dream 2 (Donovan and Stevens) then I would like for us to target someone with Indiana and Midwest ties so that there is already an established recruiting connection


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[IUHAHN81 2,176]

1 minute ago, southsidehoosier said:

If we are going to go outside of our dream 2 (Donovan and Stevens) then I would like for us to target someone with Indiana and Midwest ties so that there is already an established recruiting connection


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Copy that!  I want an Indiana boy on the sidelines.

[Dalton26 16,892]

I want a winner. Where someone is from doesnt/shouldn't matter at all.

[Alford Bailey 12,300]

Bringing in 5-6 new kids every year, especially when we arent a basketball factory, tells me the program has stability issues. No wonder we are so up and down.