Terrible Coach Tom Crean will Not be Missed

Crean's next coaching job is on the other side of this sign at IU.

We are in the midst of what we call "March Madness", but I will wait until Monday to do my update. I do have a recent college basketball story to write about today. I want to give my take on the firing of Tom Crean by Indiana University basketball.

The Tom Crean dismissal was a long time coming, in my personal opinion. He never really did anything that was super impressive in his 9 year tenure at Indiana. First off, he cashed in on the success that was his 2003 Marquette team, led by Dwayne Wade, that went all the way to the Final Four. Yes, he was a multiple 20 game winner while coach there, but it wasn't until Dwayne Wade took the country by storm and willed them to the Final Four. He stayed at Marquette for a few more years, but when the whole Kelvin Sampson violation era hit Indiana and he got fired, Crean jumped at the chance to become head man there. His first three years started off with a whimper. Indiana was very, very bad, as expected. His first season, due to violations, transfers and guys going pro, Crean had a depleted roster and his first team at IU finished with the worst record in their long, illustrious history, at 6-25. That is not a record I think one would want next to their name. His next 2 years weren't great, but the team "improved" each season, going 10-21, then 12-20.

Then, like some kind of god damn magician, Crean pulled in a great recruiting class. I'm pretty positive that some kind of violation story will come out soon about this class, but nothing yet. The prize recruit that season was an in state kid, Cody Zeller, and he some how got him to stay home and play for the Hoosiers.

By the way, Hoosiers is the worst sports nickname ever. No ifs ands or buts about it.

Back to what I was saying. With this new class and top recruit, Indiana vastly improved to the tune of 27-9. They beat the Anthony Davis led Kentucky team, number 2 ranked Ohio State and number 5 ranked Michigan State all in the same year. They looked poised to make a deep run in the tournament, but they got ousted, by a wide margin, by the same Kentucky team they beat earlier that year.

Despite their exit, Crean was showered with all kinds of Coach of the Year awards. And he accepted them all like the smug asshole that he is. I know he is related to the Harbaugh family by marriage, but I despise Tom Crean. He looks like a used car salesman and carries himself like the sleaziest one on the lot. He also looks like he is constantly on cocaine. He could have easily been in "American Psycho" as one of the friends that work on Wall Street. He is an extreme douchebag.

Anyway, after their run to the Sweet Sixteen, the very next season, IU looked to be even better. He again had a great recruiting class that he called, "The Movement". I'll say it again, what an asshole. The players in this class included Christian Watford, Jordan Hulls, sophomore Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo. This IU team was great. They spent the majority of the 2012-13 season in the top 5 in the country. They were the outright Big Ten regular season champs after they beat Michigan in Ann Arbor and Crean acted like the sorest winner I have ever seen. He was stomping his feet and yelling at John Beilein and the entire Michigan roster. He is a real piece of work.

That Indiana squad was also a number 1 seed in the tournament, but guess what? They lost in the Sweet Sixteen again, this time to Syracuse. He could not win big in the tournament. Say what you will about Tom Izzo, Thad Matta and John Beilein, but they have all been as many Final Fours, more so in Matta and Izzo's case, and all three of them reached at least one title game, with Izzo wining one. Crean was a mid level Big Ten head coach at best. To have the players he had for 2 years and to not push past the Sweet Sixteen is insane. That is mediocrity at its best.

After much attrition to pros and graduation, IU and Crean regressed back to being a mediocre team. The year after Oladipo went pro, IU went 17-15. The next year was better, but not much at 20-14. They were regulars in the NIT, but not in the big dance.

Despite all this and his resume overall, his IU team was supposed to be good this year. They were preseason number 3. They did beat Kansas and UNC, but they did not finish well. They started great, but due to injury and Crean's ineptness, IU went down the toilet. During January of this year, I watched my Wolverines, who were struggling mightily at the time, beat IU by 30 points. I was in shock at how bad IU looked. I mean I was thrilled that they crushed Crean and IU, but the Hoosiers looked terrible. I don't think that can all be put on OG Anouby's torn ACL. They have a roster full of highly rated recruits. they should have been able to, at least, stay competitive with the players they had. But, due mostly to Crean, they looked like they quit.

Indiana finished this season 18-16. They had those 2 big wins, but they lost 16 games. That is atrocious. They, of course, did not make the NCAA tournament but were selected for the NIT. Then, in some weird bizarre, only something Tom Crean would do, as the higher seed, they did not want to play their first NIT game in Assembly Hall because it would be degrading to Assembly Hall and IU basketball. Well, I do not think if they played on Mars it would have mattered. IU came out lifeless and got stomped by Georgia Tech. I say the real embarrassment and degradation of IU basketball is not the NIT, but Tom Crean.

Fittingly, IU fired Tom Crean yesterday right before the first NCAA tournament game tipped off. I cackled when I saw that. Crean deserved to be fired. I think it should have happened a couple years ago, but the higher ups at IU gave him one last chance and he screwed it way up.

Tom Crean is a mediocre coach at best. I'm sure he'll end up as a head coach somewhere in a year or two, but it will be D-2 or some low level D-1 school. He is not as great a recruiter as I think some say he is, and he is a terrible X's and O's guy. He's a sore winner and he cannot take his team to the promised land. Good riddance Tom Crean. I hope to never see you coaching basketball anytime soon.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Did Ty predict the Crean firing before it happened? Check out the new X Millennial Man Podcast, premiering tomorrow, to find out. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

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