Every year it seemed Tom Crean's name would come up as a potential coach for the ______ job. Crean had 1 eye on Marquette and one eye on Michigan State, Kentucky, Indiana, and many other schools. Crean would talk about his love for Milwaukee and his desire to stay hear leaving his legacy at the Bradley Center and continuing to improve the Marquette basketball program year in and year out. That all changed on Tuesday night, when it was reported Crean had accepted the position as the next head coach at Indiana.
Crean was introduced at a news conference Wednesday. He replaces Kelvin Sampson, who resigned before last season ended amid NCAA allegations of recruiting violations.
Crean held up a T-shirt that read "Crean & Crimson," a play on the team's colors of cream and crimson. He will try to restore the reputation of a team that changed coaches three times since Bob Knight's firing in 2000.
Crean's contract is for eight years, with an average salary of more than $2 million.
Crean leaves behind a program that has produced such stars as Dwayne Wade, Travis Denier, Steve Novak, all are currently in the NBA. If I need to go into depth on what a star Wade has become, I'll tell you later about a guy named Favre and what he had done for the Green Bay Packers. He also was making $1.65 million a year, which put in as one of the top paid coaches in the NCAA at Marquette.
Marquette has their big three still intact, Jerel McNeal, Dominic James, and Wesley Matthews, ready to make yet another deep run next year in the NCAA tournament. However, they've already lost out on Nick Williams a high school player who had already committed to Marquette, and Wednesday had asked to be let out of his letter of intent.
Indiana on the other hand has to deal with NCAA sanctions, lost scholarships as punishment from former coach Sampson, and the loss of all starting 5 players from this year. Eric Gordon, IU star freshman will most likely declare early for the NBA. DJ White, IU's other star will be graduating and Interim coach Dan Dakich announced earlier Tuesday that he'd kicked Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis off the team, though Crean could conceivably bring the two starting guards back. He's got a lot of work ahead of him restoring IU image, and basically starting over from scratch.
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