Tom Crean had a nine-year run as the Indiana men's basketball head coach. The athletic director Fred Glass said to USA Today: "after deliberative thought and evaluation, including multiple meetings with Tom about the future, I have decided to make a change in the leadership of our men’s basketball program." Tom's exit will end the longest run by a Basketball Coach at the school since Bob Knight was fired in 2000. This was after Bob Knight compounding allegations by multiple students of misconduct. Tom Crean's run ended after the worst three-year stretch in the school's history, only winning 28 games.
School's recent meltdown
The Indiana basketball program finished last in the conference twice in the terrible three-year stretch. Fans of the school have grown visibly frustrated in recent years. The team has been playing sloppy basketball with high turnovers, horrendous defense, and no real leadership. Before this stretch, Tom Crean brought the team back from mediocrity after sanctions from the old coach Kelvin Sampson. Crean has two regular-season Big Ten Titles under his belt at the school. Also, Indiana has qualified for four NCAA tournaments in the last six years. When they made the tourney, they made it to the sweet 16 three times.
Fans have had enough
Inconsistencies are what finally took Tom Crean down.
Indiana just couldn't win consistently against teams in the Big Ten. They have bad records against most of the schools. Against their in-state rivals Purdue, Tom holds a 5-10 record. Northwestern has also had success against Indiana with a 7-9 record. The worst of it all is against Wisconsin and Michigan. Tom Crean only has five total wins against these teams and has never won in Madison, Wisconsin.
The only two teams he had success against are Penn State and Rutgers. The last straw for the school was that the attendance at home games was dwindling. The students were not showing up to games anymore. More importantly, the donors started to leave their courtside seats empty. Fans, during the last home game against Northwestern, openly booed him.
