Hooiser havoc

Tom Crean left Marquette and inherited a mess at Indiana. Now he has the tall task of returning the Hoosiers to prominence

By: Didier Morais

Posted: 11/13/08

Tom Crean can't help but smile at his current predicament. At this point, there's not much else he can do.

During the past off-season, the first-year Indiana head coach and former Marquette front-man was hired to salvage a basketball team in peril. In the process, he inherited a program plagued by recruiting violations and NCAA sanctions stemming from former coach Kelvin Sampson's time as head coach.

Since Sampson's resignation in mid-February, six scholarship players transferred, two declared for the NBA Draft, and three others graduated. That left senior forward Kyle Taber and sophomore guard Brett Finkelmeier, neither of whom played critical minutes last season, as the only two returning players from last year's roster. Of the team's 13 eligible players, eight are true freshmen.

Certainly not the start Crean had in mind. But he has accepted the adverse circumstances, and has prepared his team for a season filled with stress and uncertainty.

"We're going to be our own reality show this year, no question about it," Crean said in his weekly press conference. "Anything could happen. But that's where we're at. If we don't smile and enjoy it a little bit, then it's going to be a very disheartening experience."

It's that mentality that made Crean such an attractive candidate to Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan.

Now, Greenspan and Hoosier Nation expect him to clean up Sampson's mess and return the Hoosiers' program back to prominence in college basketball. Except it's hard to achieve that goal when your team's leading returning scorer - Taber - averaged 1.3 points.

But that's out of Crean's control. Unfortunately for him, he has paid a hefty price for Sampson's mistakes, losing three athletic scholarships for this upcoming season due to the NCAA sanctions. Sampson's errors will have lingering consequences on the IU program for years to come.

Still, the scandal shouldn't have been much of a surprise to Hoosiers fans. Greenspan knew Sampson's history when he took the gamble of hiring him.

At Oklahoma, Sampson had a reputation of recruiting players with questionable character. He also possessed one of the worst player graduation rates in Division I basketball, ranking 269th out of 317 teams from 1995 to 1999.

But his worst offense came between 2000 and 2004, when he violated NCAA policy and made 577 illegal phone calls to 17 recruits, leading to numerous self-imposed penalties for the Sooners.

Three years later, Sampson committed virtually the same violation at Indiana. He participated in 10 impermissible conference calls with recruits.

The resulting allegations stirred an outcry from former Hoosiers players. All the rich tradition earned from those 20 Big Ten championships and five national championships became afterthoughts in the midst of the controversy.

"As a former player it was very disheartening, and as a fan it was gut-wrenching to sit there and watch a program disassemble," said Todd Leary, a point guard with the Hoosiers from 1989-94. "You look forward the NCAA tournament and the end of the year, because it's the most fun, but that was all thrown into the toilet because of the negative atmosphere. It made the end of the year terrible."

Indiana bought out the remainder of Sampson's contract and promoted Dan Dakich to interim coach, which prompted a players' boycott. It was one of the darkest times in Indiana basketball history. A far cry from a decade ago, when Bobby Knight stalked the sidelines, and Indiana was arguably the face of college basketball.

Now, nine years and two coaches since Knight's departure, Crean's hiring has restored hope among Indiana alumni. Phil Isenbarger, a guard on the Hoosiers 1981 national championship team, met Crean recently and came away impressed by Greenspan's latest hire.

"I know he is very good about honoring the tradition and wanting to get back to where we were before," Isenbarger said. "He brings all the passion and energy for the job that you want to see from your head coach."

Crean knows it won't be a quick fix. Having limited time and resources after his hiring, Crean was forced to reassemble a team composed of walk-ons, junior-college transfers and freshmen - a tremendous decline from the talent that made the program a national contender nearly a year ago.

The rebuilding process has also caused recruiting to take a major hit. Due to the coaching change, Devin Ebanks and Terrell Holloway, both top recruits landed by Sampson, retracted their letters of intent and instead chose to attend West Virginia and Xavier, respectively.

Lacking veteran presence and team chemistry from his players, Crean now has to reconfigure his coaching methods to address those weaknesses.

The team's most underrated liability is its lack of legitimate big men. Only three players on the roster are taller than 6-foot-6, which will constrain Crean to playing a smaller rotation this season.

The responsibility has placed an additional burden on Crean's agenda, one that most college coaches have never had to handle.

"I read a story about Kansas' game and how bad their freshmen played," Crean said. "It's like, 'Wow these coaches are so concerned about two or three freshmen not playing well, when we have a team of newcomers.'"

Still, Crean does have a solid track record as a coach. At Marquette, he developed many of his players into NBA talents, including Indiana Pacers guard Travis Diener, Los Angeles Clippers forward Steve Novak and most notably Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade.

Despite low expectations for this season, Hoosiers fans have a reason to be optimistic for the future. In fewer than eight months at the helm, Crean has already lined up one of the nation's top recruiting classes for 2009, landing guard Jordan Hulls, forward Christian Watford and guard Jeremiah Rivers, a transfer from Georgetown and son of Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

Crean could be poised to return the Hoosiers back to prominence in the near future. And the prospects alone have Hoosier Nation flashing the very same smile Crean is currently sporting.

"There's a little more positive energy," Leary said. "For the past few years, the fit hasn't been exactly right for whatever reason that might be. This particular coach, I think, fits and feels right for this program at this time. There's just something about Crean, but I feel it's the right fit."

dsmorais@syr.edu