RealGM

Seriously, no April Fools joke here.

Andy Katz of ESPN is reporting that Tom Crean has signed an agreement to leave Marquette to take over the program at Indiana University. IU trustee Phillip Eskew confirmed the agreement. A news conference is scheduled for 11 am tomorrow to announce the hiring.


IU's had a very tough year or so lately, and I personally feel that Tom Crean is a tremendous, home-run hire for the Hoosiers.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3324439

What is the outsiders opinion of this hire?

If you talk to most/any Marquette fan out there, you're looking at an angry bunch that want his head on a stake...including myself.

He talked highly of Marquette and how being here was his "dream job." Well guess what, he used his "dream job" to get that better on over at IU. He didn't talk to his players before the hire. None of the incoming recruits got a call from him. According to ESPN, the contact from IU was made on Sunday, they negotiated for 36 hours and came to an agreement. He basically turned his back on the university. I've definitely lost ALL respect for that guy.

Isn't that how every single hire has happened forever, including when you guys hired Tom Crean in?


Coaches don't go to their teams to tell them their leaving until it's a sure deal. Otherwise, there'd be a lot more bridges burned between players and their coaches.


I can certainly understand how frustrating it is that he constantly was looking for other jobs. I mean, I live in the Indy area where no one has anything against Butler and we all love to see them succeed. However, we've had to deal with 3 guys now leave that school after professing it's the last stop for them and they don't want to be anywhere (Collier, Matta, and Lickliter). However, that's just generally the way the game works. Either you're next coach will do that, or you'll have to fire him. Most likely though, you're next coach will notify his players the same way that Crean did.

I understand how the coaching carousel works. I know the face you have to put out there before you make your next move as a coach. I honestly...just don't like how he handled it. As much as I despise him, especially at the moment, I wish him the best.

Keno Davis would be a great fit to take over at Marquette. Put those level of athletes (James, McNeal, Hayward, Matthews) in that wide open, European perimeter style of offense. I'd love to see it happen.

I'm a Marquette guy, and I was very, very surprised when I heard this news. Not because of how it went down, or because Crean left at all, but because right now, the IU job doesn't seem any better than the Marquette job. Hardly any worthwhile returning players, likely facing sanctions, Marquette's arguably had more recent success, in a higher profile conference, has a great cast returning, and he's basically bulletproof at the school after treating us to the Dwyane Wade Experience. Oh, and the fact that he didn't have any interest in the job the last time it opened up, just two years ago.

I understand that IU's a great job when everything's rolling, but things aren't really rolling for the Hoosiers right now.

It's a good hire for IU, and I expect that Crean will be able to get the program through the possible sanctions and rough year or two coming up. He can recruit from the Indiana and Chicago areas, and the style that his teams have played recently has been pretty fun to watch. It'll be interesting to see where Marquette goes from here, and what happens with Jerel McNeal and Dominic James.

It's funny how different IU fans see their program from Marquette's. IU fans think their program is top-5, and Marquette's fans see a comparable program: pretty good, but nothing special.

Not an IU fan, but I admit that IU is historically a top 10 program. However, that's historically. Last twenty years has caused a lot of that shine to fade. During that time is their pedigree any better than Michigan St., Ohio St., or Wisconsin? I would say they've settled around Purdue or Illinois level in the 2nd tier of the Big Ten.

With the lack of returning players, recruiting restrictions, and possible additional sanctions, it isn't a great situation right now.

Bottom line is the money, which is sad because Marquette was paying Tom Crean real well (like over 1.68M per year guaranteed), but the Indians deal is reported as 18M over 8 years which figures out to be over 2M per year. Give IU credit for some smarts, they made the buyout for Crean if he decides to go elsewhere very high.

I think this is a good time to take the Indiana job, there won't be a lot of pressure and I doubt anybody expects a quick fix. Not to mention you can turn things around with a single good recruiting class in basketball. The only problem in terms of recruiting would be NCAA sanctions, but he should probably target 2010-2011 recruits anyway so it is not a huge deal if sanctions are not long term.