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Since this is sort of a Big Ten thread....I thought I'd post this here rather than a new thread..
but Indiana coach Tom Crean was interviewed yesterday by Sports Illustrated...and a few of his answers are interesting...
--first he moans and whines about how his current season was ruined because he lost Maurice Creek and Matt Roth to injury...
"We played the entire Big Ten without Maurice Creek and without one of the best shooters probably in the entire Midwest, Matt Roth. Those things are hard deals."
duhh...OK, but we seem to always be told you can't use injuries as an excuse...
but anyway...
in the only two games that Matt Roth played (and they were cupcakes so the starters were NOT needed), he only logged 4 minutes and 7 minutes, and he only took on 3-point shot and missed it....so I am not convinced his presence would have made a whole lot of difference...
Then....I have to admit the loss of Creek was tough, but the kid was just a freshman and even with Creek IU had still lost to Loyola of Maryland, Boston U., George Mason, and others...
But - seriously - the guys Crean had starting and playing ahead of Roth anyway were guys like Jeremiah Rivers, Tom Pritchard, Devan Dumes, Derrick Elston...all of whom had terrible years and were terribly unproductive...
So if MR couldn't even get but 4 minutes of playing time and those are the guys he'd have been playing behind, how come Crean is whining so loud about losing Roth?
--then there's a discussion about signing guys just to fill an empty roster...guys that maybe don't have Big Ten talent...
Crean even says...
"We got the point to where we had nobody here"
(recall, Matt Roth was already in the fold when Crean got there...)
"We had to fill the team so we had enough guys to play games.
Some of those guys have done fine. Verdell Jones is getting better every day."
...so he labels many of his players (the only one he seems to leave out of this is Jones) as not having "done fine"...
--Then Crean addresses what's being said about him on message boards!!
".. on the outside—message boards, talk shows, blogs—it turned negative faster than might have been anticipated. Have you felt that, and is it faster than you anticipated?
TC: My only thing there would be to caution anybody that's looked at it that way—they don't have anything to go back on. It hasn't happened. This is as close to the SMU football situation as it is anything else. And that was so long ago.
There were times this year that I could not stomach that we did not play with the energy and the toughness, even at our age, that we needed to play with. Part of that is youth. Part of that is inexperience. A huge part of that is lack of leadership. And that's real, and it's something that's got to be addressed. You can't compare us to other programs in the country ..."
so he compares his program to SMU that was dealt the death penalty by NCAA - and their players were forced to leave and the entire football program shut down??
Gimme a freakin' break...the NCAA didn't do a thing to Indiana....all their woes were brough about by their own greed and cheating!!..and they still have a roster full of 3-Star and 4-Star players!!!
Then in Crean's post game interview he addresses all the same stuff...but adds a bit more...suggesting an overhaul of current personnel.......
..."I had to get a lot of bodies in here over the last 2 years just to field a team, which has made us really bottom heavy. I have to find a way to make sure we're not back in this position again in a few years (losing 6 or 7 guys in a class to graduation). There is a lot of talent on the horizon and we have to be able to find a way to get them to commit and then make sure there's a schollie for them."
....With the Roth redshirt, we now have 7 schollies in one class!
It seems to me Crean is implying, rightfully so, that some in this heavy class are going to have to find somewhere else to go to make room for kids in '11 and '12. I would be shocked if we didn't at least lose 2 or maybe 3 kids from this 7 man '09 class over the next 2 years. If we don't, we won't be able to take advantage of the rich '11 and especially '12 classes and could be looking at a huge turnover when 7 kids leave the program at once and another major rebuild.
..I think he will want to hold Hulls, Elston, Watford, Creek and Capo together, but he wouldn't shed many tears if Roth and Bawa left...
Crean also talks about who he going out to recruit...and thathe needs open scholarships right now!
"I think we have a lot of needs, Bob. And I think we’ve gotta develop the bigs that we have.
We’ve got a very tough situation right now in the sense, if people have followed our program at all,
But I look at our team and we also need somebody that’s better at getting in the lane.
We need somebody that can get in the lane and create havoc, that can get into that paint
and make decisions to get the ball to shooters.
......we’re not anywhere close to being done recruiting. And that’ll pick up again tomorrow in a big way.
We’re going to address it. We have been and at the same time I have to sit here and look ahead into the future
and figure out okay, how are we going to have to not do this again. That’s what’s hard because
there’s a lot of good young players that we’re recruiting that we want and we’ve gotta make sure that we get those
and we’ve gotta make sure we have the ability to sign them when they’re ready to come.”
but Indiana coach Tom Crean was interviewed yesterday by Sports Illustrated...and a few of his answers are interesting...
--first he moans and whines about how his current season was ruined because he lost Maurice Creek and Matt Roth to injury...
"We played the entire Big Ten without Maurice Creek and without one of the best shooters probably in the entire Midwest, Matt Roth. Those things are hard deals."
duhh...OK, but we seem to always be told you can't use injuries as an excuse...
but anyway...
in the only two games that Matt Roth played (and they were cupcakes so the starters were NOT needed), he only logged 4 minutes and 7 minutes, and he only took on 3-point shot and missed it....so I am not convinced his presence would have made a whole lot of difference...
Then....I have to admit the loss of Creek was tough, but the kid was just a freshman and even with Creek IU had still lost to Loyola of Maryland, Boston U., George Mason, and others...
But - seriously - the guys Crean had starting and playing ahead of Roth anyway were guys like Jeremiah Rivers, Tom Pritchard, Devan Dumes, Derrick Elston...all of whom had terrible years and were terribly unproductive...
So if MR couldn't even get but 4 minutes of playing time and those are the guys he'd have been playing behind, how come Crean is whining so loud about losing Roth?
--then there's a discussion about signing guys just to fill an empty roster...guys that maybe don't have Big Ten talent...
Crean even says...
"We got the point to where we had nobody here"
(recall, Matt Roth was already in the fold when Crean got there...)
"We had to fill the team so we had enough guys to play games.
Some of those guys have done fine. Verdell Jones is getting better every day."
...so he labels many of his players (the only one he seems to leave out of this is Jones) as not having "done fine"...
--Then Crean addresses what's being said about him on message boards!!
".. on the outside—message boards, talk shows, blogs—it turned negative faster than might have been anticipated. Have you felt that, and is it faster than you anticipated?
TC: My only thing there would be to caution anybody that's looked at it that way—they don't have anything to go back on. It hasn't happened. This is as close to the SMU football situation as it is anything else. And that was so long ago.
There were times this year that I could not stomach that we did not play with the energy and the toughness, even at our age, that we needed to play with. Part of that is youth. Part of that is inexperience. A huge part of that is lack of leadership. And that's real, and it's something that's got to be addressed. You can't compare us to other programs in the country ..."
so he compares his program to SMU that was dealt the death penalty by NCAA - and their players were forced to leave and the entire football program shut down??
Gimme a freakin' break...the NCAA didn't do a thing to Indiana....all their woes were brough about by their own greed and cheating!!..and they still have a roster full of 3-Star and 4-Star players!!!
Then in Crean's post game interview he addresses all the same stuff...but adds a bit more...suggesting an overhaul of current personnel.......
..."I had to get a lot of bodies in here over the last 2 years just to field a team, which has made us really bottom heavy. I have to find a way to make sure we're not back in this position again in a few years (losing 6 or 7 guys in a class to graduation). There is a lot of talent on the horizon and we have to be able to find a way to get them to commit and then make sure there's a schollie for them."
....With the Roth redshirt, we now have 7 schollies in one class!
It seems to me Crean is implying, rightfully so, that some in this heavy class are going to have to find somewhere else to go to make room for kids in '11 and '12. I would be shocked if we didn't at least lose 2 or maybe 3 kids from this 7 man '09 class over the next 2 years. If we don't, we won't be able to take advantage of the rich '11 and especially '12 classes and could be looking at a huge turnover when 7 kids leave the program at once and another major rebuild.
..I think he will want to hold Hulls, Elston, Watford, Creek and Capo together, but he wouldn't shed many tears if Roth and Bawa left...
Crean also talks about who he going out to recruit...and thathe needs open scholarships right now!
"I think we have a lot of needs, Bob. And I think we’ve gotta develop the bigs that we have.
We’ve got a very tough situation right now in the sense, if people have followed our program at all,
But I look at our team and we also need somebody that’s better at getting in the lane.
We need somebody that can get in the lane and create havoc, that can get into that paint
and make decisions to get the ball to shooters.
......we’re not anywhere close to being done recruiting. And that’ll pick up again tomorrow in a big way.
We’re going to address it. We have been and at the same time I have to sit here and look ahead into the future
and figure out okay, how are we going to have to not do this again. That’s what’s hard because
there’s a lot of good young players that we’re recruiting that we want and we’ve gotta make sure that we get those
and we’ve gotta make sure we have the ability to sign them when they’re ready to come.”
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