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The Agony and Ecstasy of Tom Crean

By Brian Fox

Nov 22, 2015; Maui, HI, USA; Indiana Hoosiers coach Tom Crean waits to shoot a free throw in a coaches charity free throw competition during the Maui Jim Maui Invitational press conference at the Sheraton Maui. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 22, 2015; Maui, HI, USA; Indiana Hoosiers coach Tom Crean waits to shoot a free throw in a coaches charity free throw competition during the Maui Jim Maui Invitational press conference at the Sheraton Maui. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /
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Life with Tom Crean is anything but boring. IU’s clapaholic, Diet Coke-loving coach annually leads the Indiana faithful throughout a decade’s worth of peaks and valleys. This season was at times extremely trying (more on that later), and yet the Hoosiers were able to win their second outright Big Ten title in four years, with Crean being named the Big Ten Coach of the Year.

The gripes about Crean have been pretty consistent over the years: he’s a great recruiter and developer of talent but he’s not a good in-game coach. Throughout his tenure, Crean has been great at finding players that other major programs overlook, like Victor Oladipo or OG Anunoby. But this season helped prove (to me at least) that Crean is a pretty good in-game coach too.

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The Hoosiers stumbled out of the gate, and watching Indiana play it was pretty easy to see why. Guys were playing without discipline, throwing jump passes at an alarming rate, and spending a good portion of the Maui debacle yelling at each other. Then of course (as revealed in Nick Zeisloft’s senior speech), Crean gave his troops the “do you play at Indiana or for Indiana?” talk. And while that didn’t fix everything in one fell swoop (see: Duke 94, Indiana 74), the Hoosiers slowly started to buy in on both sides of the ball.

The true turning point for Crean this season was the Notre Dame game. Bonzie Colson was crushing Indiana inside and Notre Dame’s lead had ballooned to 16 when Crean made the decision to switch to zone for basically the rest of the game. Indiana has always struggled with playing zone. Bob Knight famously hated it, and under Crean the Hoosiers always looked lost trying to play it. And Notre Dame is a team pretty well equipped to beat a zone, with shooters like VJ Beachem, Steve Vasturia, and Demetrius Jackson. But the Hoosiers proved their head coach’s wisdom by shutting down the Irish, chipping away at the lead, and eventually finishing on a 17-2 run to knock off ND.

After that, things really started turning around–including a new tenacious commitment to the defensive side of the ball. While James Blackmon Jr’s injury forced Crean to shuffle lineups around (which he did phenomenally well), it’s unfair to attribute IU’s defensive improvement solely on an injury to a player. Crean gave more minutes to strong defensive players like Anunoby and Juwan Morgan, and was able to get the rest of the team to really buy in to playing defense. That could have happened with a healthy JBJ, too.

Big Ten season was where Crean really proved his worth. Using Robert Johnson or Anunoby as the primary defender, the Hoosiers were able to shut down a lot of the Big Ten’s best players, most notably Iowa’s Jarrod Uthoff. The Hoosiers cruised to a 15-3 record but still were written off by almost everyone following the loss at Penn State. But Indiana thrived down the stretch, clinching the title by winning a close one at Iowa, and Crean was finally vindicated as a coach.

People were quick to call for Crean’s head after a Big Ten Tournament opening loss to Michigan (because as MSU and Purdue proved, that tournament is really important). But it’s hard to find any fault with Indiana’s postseason run. The Hoosiers blitzed Chattanooga, and then Crean completely outcoached John Calipari in Indiana’s improbable win over Kentucky. I know people want to find fault with Crean for “not making adjustments” during IU’s loss to North Carolina. But Crean game-planned that perfectly. The way to beat UNC this season has been to pack it in and force the Tar Heels’ bad shooters to beat you. Carolina made a lot of tough shots, and IU can do nothing but tip its cap.

Now that the bitterness from that loss has subsided, you would have to be the wettest of wet blankets to suggest that Indiana and Crean should part ways. As someone who has long been critical of Crean, he proved to me that he does indeed know what he’s doing. This year’s in-season turn-around has been the biggest in recent memory, and Crean is to thank for that. Life with Tom Crean can be both agonizing and ecstatic, but right now, Indiana fans should be ecstatic with how this season went. Even better things are still to come next year.

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