Indiana basketball continues to make strides under Tom Crean

Ann Arbor, Mi, United States (AHN Sports) – Tom Crean may not have a team quite ready yet to make a serious run at a national championship.

But the 28th men’s basketball coach in Indiana University history seems to have his team on the right track with hopes of bringing back the championship tradition to Hoosier basketball.

The program has made huge strides in Crean’s four seasons although he didn’t like what he saw on Wednesday when his squad fell 68-56 at Michigan in a Big Ten Conference loss.

The Hoosiers fell behind 13-0 and lost 68-56.

“The crazy thing early were all of our turnovers,” said Crean, whose squad committed 14 miscues compared to six for Michigan. “Michigan made us pay. I’m proud of the way we did come back. When you play a team like Michigan, you can’t spot them a lead like that. They’re a really good team. I wasn’t concerned with what they were doing. I was concerned with what we were doing.”

Crean has battled for his team to stay consistent.

“We didn’t have the necessary movement on offense,” he said. “They were conveying team ball, we weren’t.”

The Hoosiers crushed Iowa 103-89 earlier this week.

“Our starting five played outstanding the other day in that game,” he said. “It’s just the (imperfection) of young people. We went with the guys who gave us the opportunity to win.”

The Hoosiers left Ann Arbor with a 17-6 record but a disappointing 5-6 Big Ten mark. It does appear Indiana has an excellent shot at qualifying for the NCAA tournament.

But, Crean points out, it’s February and a very critical time for his team or any Big Ten squad.

“At this time of year, you don’t massage your way through games,” he said. “You just go, go, go.”

Still, Crean has brought the program a long way since accepting the job on April 2, 2008. He has a 235-167 all-time mark as a head coach, thanks mostly to nine solid seasons at Marquette and five wins over nationally ranked opponents in the last calendar year.

He left Michigan Wednesday with a 45-72 mark as Indiana coach but the team has made huge strides since the 6-25 mark in his first season with the Hoosiers. They were 10-21 and 12-20 the next two seasons.

This season, Crean was named the midseason recipient of the Jim Phelan Award, which is the National Coach of the Year by CollegeInsider.com and was named SI.com’s Midseason coach of the year. His team is 29-25 since the beginning of last season and took 22 games to win 17 this winter after winning 216 combined in his first two seasons at IU.

The reasons for IU’s stunning improvement this season under Crean have been obvious. The team has improved its scoring average 19.5 points since averaging 60.1 points in Crean’s first season and are now at 79.5.

The squad has improved its field goal percentage defense to 42.4 percent compared to 48 percent four years ago. The squad is hitting 43.8 percent of its 3-pointers compared to 33.5 percent the first season.

The fans are responding also. IU averaged 14,331 attendance for the 2008-09. The projection for this season is more than 17,000 per game for the rest of the season.

---