Crean fired after Hoosiers fall short

Associated Press

bloomington, ind.

Tom Crean put Indiana basketball back in the national conversation.

As it turned out, there was too much talk and not enough wins. Not for the Hoosiers.

Nine years after taking over a team mired in turmoil following an NCAA scandal, Crean was fired Thursday after missing the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in his tenure. The 50-year-old coach had three years remaining on his contract, and the move comes a little more than three months before his buyout would have dropped from $4 million to $1 million.

But with so much angst among the general public, athletic director Fred Glass couldn’t afford to give Crean another chance.

“The expectations for IU basketball are to perennially contend and win multiple Big Ten championships, regularly go deep into the NCAA Tournament and win our next national championship and more after that,” Glass said. “We will look to identify and recruit a coach who can help us meet these expectations.”

Glass will immediately begin looking for a successor and will not form a search committee.

Kentucky’s John Calipari called the firing “disappointing.” Louisville’s Rick Pitino called Crean an “outstanding teacher, coach, workaholic” who would land on his feet. Crean did not immediately respond to a text message left by The Associated Press.

The biggest problem: Inconsistency.

Despite going 166-135, winning the two conference titles and last year’s Big Ten coach of the year award, his teams never advanced beyond the Sweet 16. And after last season’s surprising Big Ten title run, the Hoosiers again fell flat.

They began the season as one of the Big Ten favorites and were ranked as high as No. 3 in November after upsets of Kansas and North Carolina. But when Nebraska ended the Hoosiers’ 26-game home-court winning streak in December, the season unraveled.

Indiana lost its best defender, OG Anunoby, with a season-ending knee injury and their top scorer, James Blackmon Jr., for three games with a leg injury. They ended up a pedestrian 18-16.

Fans weren’t just upset with the mounting losses; they viewed it as an extension of a long-running narrative that Crean could only take the Hoosiers so far.