Fascinating read on Tom Crean ...

[Mark Miller]

This kind of stuff makes you shake your head and wonder ...

Like him or not, nobody deserves some of the stuff Tom Crean has been put through at Indiana.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebask...sy-being-crean

[Goose85]

I always cheer for Crean's team because of what he did for MU basketball in his 9 years here.

I can't believe a college professor would do that with his kid in class. Unbelievable.

[dw3dw3dw3]

Interviewed for Kansas in 2003, don't remember that tidbit anywhere.

[TulsaWarrior]

Some college professors get there rocks off by playing "Center of the Universe" and show contempt for their students. The Indiana prof would have known better if he was a mature adult rather than a narcissistic tweet.

[Markedman]

Could be just a matter of semantics but I'm pretty sure IWB said Crean talked to Illinois after Self took the Kansas job?

[CaribouJim]

Could be just a matter of semantics but I'm pretty sure IWB said Crean talked to Illinois after Self took the Kansas job?

That was my recollection as well.

Can't believe it has already been 7 years - geez.

[IWB]

First off, talking to people and interviewing are different things, I want to make that clear. The years that Buzz was happy he talked to everyone that called. Didn't mean he was interested, didn't mean he was being interviewed. There was one in particular that he talked to a couple of times. Told me he had no interest, but he had to play the game because of who they were. Didn't want to burn bridges. Then, when that school finally hired someone, they asked him who should be on their staff. Buzz made a recommendation and that coach was the first assistant hired.

Again, interviewing and talking are two different things.

Kansas - I never really did get confirmation that he interviewed with Kansas. Either way, that situation was over before it started because Self took that job immediately.

Illinois - He did not 'interview with them'. Their people contacted him. He was interested, so told them how much it would take. That was the end of that. (at the time Crean was making more than Illinois' football coach).

The only other one I knew he was actually interested in was Ohio State. I believe he actually met with them, but that was the same result. Too much cash.

With Indiana, they went after him a few years prior when Sampson was hired, but he was not interested. He loved it at MU. When they came calling again after Sampson was let go, he again said no, then called them two days later and said he was interested.

[MUfan12]

When they came calling again after Sampson was let go, he again said no, then called them two days later and said he was interested.

After his coaching job against Stanford, I'm surprised Indiana took that call.

[Nukem2]

After his coaching job against Stanford, I'm surprised Indiana took that call.

TC did a lot of things well, including game prep. Unfortunately in-game adjustments were generally not his forte. That Stanford game was a very good example. Most of us really hated how his departure went down, but TC surely did a lot for the MU program.

[unclejohn]

As someone mentioned, Crean knew the job was dangerous when he took it. Fans are crazy, and some of this stuff is clearly uncalled for. Picking on a high school kid is just mean, and if the professor knew that Crean's daughter was in his class, so is the April Fools joke.

To Ix4 fans, I would say that Crean is who I told you he was. He runs a clean program, his players have to go to class. His recruiting and coaching are hit or miss. He recruited some players who were not as good as he thought, panics when there is an empty spot on his roster, and has a lot of players transfer. Coaching, his teams sometimes look like a well-oiled machine and sometimes look like they just woke up. So there is something for fans to complain about when his recruits turn out to be busts or head cases and his team plays terribly.

But I think what hurts Crean more than anything is that there is just an unlikable quality about him. As the article noted, he comes across as a used car salesman. In interviews he is typically either spouting cliches or sucking up. He does not come across as sincere. Add to that the fact that I have witnessed a few incidents of Crean just treating people like dirt and heard of a several more. You can afford that if you are winning all the time. Hey, for all his good points, Bobby Knight pulled some stuff that was just out of line and would not be tolerated from someone who had not won a couple national championships. So when criticism arises, there are not a lot of people out there who remember what a nice guy Crean is or how kind he was to them. There are reporters who remember how he kept them waiting while they were on deadline, waiters he was rude to, and others who just do not like the guy.