Indiana fires Tom Crean after 9 seasons
BLOOMINGTON, Ind.—Tom Crean put Indiana basketball back in the national conversation.
As it turned out, it was too much talk and not enough results. Not for the Hoosiers.
Nine years after taking over a team mired in turmoil following an NCAA scandal, Crean was fired Thursday after missing the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in his tenure. The 50-year-old coach had three years remaining on his contract, and the move comes a little more than three months before his buyout would have dropped from $4 million to $1 million.
But with so much angst among fans, athletic director Fred Glass couldn't wait that long.
“Tom Crean brought us through one of the most challenging periods in IU basketball history, led his players to many successes in the classroom and on the court and represented our university with class and integrity,” Glass said. “While winning two outright Big Ten titles in five years and being named Big Ten coach of the year, Tom worked tirelessly to develop great young men and successful teams. However, ultimately, we seek more consistent, high levels of success, and we will not shy away from our expectations.”
Crean finished his career at Indiana with a record of 166-135, tenure plagued by inconsistency.
Despite winning the two conference titles and being ranked No. 1 for most of the 2012-13 season, his teams never advanced beyond the Sweet 16. And this season, one year after a surprising Big Ten title run, the Hoosiers again fell flat.
They entered the season with three legitimate pro prospects, were considered one of the Big Ten's preseason favorites and rose as high as No. 3 in November when they upset Kansas and North Carolina. But when Nebraska ended the Hoosiers' 26-game home-court winning streak in late December, the season unraveled quickly.
The Hoosiers (18-16) lost their best defender, OG Anunoby, to a season-ending knee injury and their top scorer, James Blackmon Jr., for three games with a leg injury.
Fans weren't just upset with the mounting losses—a 30-point blowout at Michigan, a double-digit defeat at Northwestern, on a put-back at Minnesota in the closing seconds, a season sweep by rival Purdue and a loss in the NIT to Georgia Tech.
They viewed it as an extension of a long-running narrative that Crean could only take the Hoosiers so far.
There were other issues, too.
In a state rife with basketball talent, Crean struggled to get some of Indiana's most talented players.
Crean won some in-state battles, getting 2009 Mr. Basketball Award winner Jordan Hulls and 2011 Mr. Basketball Cody Zeller, who formed the nucleus of Crean's first conference championship team. He also got point guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell, a four-year starter who became the school's career leader in assists.
But four of the last five Mr. Basketballs— Gary Harris, Zak Irvin, Trey Lyles and Kyle Guy—attended college out of state. The lone exception, 2015 winner Caleb Swanigan, wound up at Purdue.
So Crean went outside the state's borders to get lottery picks Victor Oladipo and Noah Vonleh and NBA hopefuls Thomas Bryant and Anunoby.
That didn't play well in the state, nor did a series of embarrassing problems off the court.
The worst event occurred on Halloween 2014 when freshman forward Emmitt Holt hit sophomore teammate Devin Davis with a car, leaving Davis with a brain injury. The police report said alcohol was a factor.
Davis was booted off the team the following spring after he was cited for possession of marijuana. Holt was kicked off the team the following August after being arrested for illegal possession of alcohol.
Eventually, Indiana University President Michael McRobbie spoke up, too.
“I want to see the world-class accomplishments of our faculty and students celebrated, as well as the accomplishments of our student-athletes,” McRobbie said at a coaches meeting in August 2014. “What I do not want to see is any more stories of repeated student misbehavior. They embarrass the university, they embarrass all of you in athletics and they are a complete distraction from our primary role as an educational institution. This misbehavior simply has to stop.”