BLOOMINGTON — Indiana University introduced new men’s basketball coach Tom Crean in the Hoosier Room in the bowels of Memorial Stadium on Wednesday.
The setting was apropos given that Crean exuded enthusiasm not unlike a football pre-game speech. Crean couldn’t find the perfect words to illustrate his emotions at being hired as IU’s 28th basketball coach.
Not that he didn’t try. During a lengthy opening statement, Crean gushed, he showed off a T-shirt that said, “Crean and Crimson”, he swelled with optimism, he sounded like someone who had just realized a dream.
But he probably captured it best at his most succinct.
“It’s … Indiana. That’s all I can say as far as what this means to me, it’s Indiana,” Crean said. The printed word doesn’t get across the enormity of what Crean meant by that.
What “Indiana” has always meant as far as its men’s basketball program is concerned is substance over style in the best possible way. No elite program has fans that value a substantive style of winning more than Indiana does.
Substance as it’s defined at Indiana is winning, but it’s more than that, it’s the tradition of winning the right way, without cheating, and without embarrassment to the university or the state itself. Bob Knight’s programs embodied it, even if the man himself didn’t always live up to it.
“This basketball program, for as long as I can remember, has been bigger than any one person,” Crean said. “There’s been household names that have coached it, there’s household names that have played in it, but all along the way, it stood for class, integrity, doing the right thing, it stood for being the right way, it stood for treating people with respect. And the only way to get respect is to have self-respect. We’re not going to be overwhelmed by the challenges, we’re going to embrace them.”
Crean is in Bloomington because former coach Kelvin Sampson failed miserably embracing the substance of Indiana basketball. The embarrassing NCAA violations that eventually forced Sampson to squander a dream job cast a pall over the program and its shadow will loom over the early years of the Crean era too.
Crean has a substance reclamation project as much he does anything else. Sampson won, Sampson recruited well, but he grounded none of it in the substance of winning the right way, and IU’s program is substantively in a bad place as a result. Winning the way Sampson did ultimately rang hollow. It was a style foreign to IU over its time-honored substance.
There’s no reason to believe IU hasn’t found a man of substance with Crean.
Crean’s a winner. It’s almost forgotten that Marquette’s fall was long and hard after its Al McGuire glory days of the 1970s. As recently as the early 90s, Marquette was playing in what is now the Horizon League. Marquette’s down years are largely forgotten based on the winning Crean brought back to the school. Kevin O’Neill and Mike Deane won before him, but Crean made the Golden Eagles consistent winners, culminating in a 2003 Final Four appearance.
Crean recruited well given a limited talent pool in Wisconsin and even plucked away one of Indiana’s best recruits of recent years — Richmond’s Dominic James — to keep the Golden Eagles in the Big East hunt.
Most important to IU’s future, Crean has never been in NCAA hot water. It was obviously vital that IU hire someone who was spotless as far as any NCAA sanctions were concerned.
Stability? Crean stuck with Marquette for nine seasons. After the 2003 Final Four appearance, Crean was perennially listed as a candidate for higher profile jobs than Marquette, but until Wednesday, he stayed in Milwaukee.
Of course Crean’s eight-year, $18.24 million contract doesn’t hurt in that regard, but that’s a smart move by IU. Stability equals substance. Elite programs are rarely elite when they’re turning coaches over at a regular rate.
“I walked away from a very long contract and I got one that I’m very proud of here,” Crean said. “The years meant a lot to the security of your family, but the years say volume about recruiting. I want the people who look at the university, including the four young men [who committed to IU], to know I’m here for the long haul. We’re here to build it in a way that’s outstanding.”
Restoring substance is Crean’s first challenge in Bloomington, more so than winning, which is going to be a major challenge anyway given IU’s potential roster turnover going into next season.
“We’re going to deal with this head-on. We’re going to deal with it with our eyes wide open. It’s probably going to be a greater challenge than even I realize, and I’ve thought about it a lot. We have an incredible tradition and it’s a challenging time at Indiana. We’re going to build on the tradition, and the only way we do it is to go full boar. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Enthusiasm is a good start for Crean. Time will tell whether the substance comes with it.
Todd Golden is sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at todd.golden@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4272.
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