The former Indiana coach was asked about the program’s current situation during an appearance on Query and Company.
Tom Crean’s name is an especially familiar one in the state of Indiana.
He spent nine years as the head coach of Indiana men’s basketball and is the longest-tenured coach the program has had since Bob Knight. In that time he rebuilt the program and led the Hoosiers to two outright regular season Big Ten championships and went on multiple trips to the Sweet Sixteen.
Crean is now most commonly spotted in his new role as a broadcaster, working games on ESPN and for Peacock.
In this capacity he joined Jake Query of Query and Company, his show on 93.5 / 107 The Fan, on Thursday to discuss a variety of topics. During this appearance, he was asked for this thoughts on the current status of the program.
“It’s hard,” Crean said. “I mean, there’s no doubt, I didn’t see the game the other night against Michigan State because I was working. The job is, you’ve gotta wear a lot of hats in that job. You just have to, and it’s always harder for me if I haven’t seen anybody practice. Cause I really hate the judgement if I haven’t seen a practice, I’ve never seen Mike’s teams practice, so I don’t have that assessment. I care about people back there that I worked with like Jordan Hulls, Calbert Cheaney, Tim Garl, Dr. Rink, you know people like that.”
“When I watch them play from the analyst view, their guard play is so, so inconsistent. And you’ve got a lot of guys that have some talent but it’s just been hard to get that group to mesh together. And there’s times, the passing can be up for grabs, which leads to poor shooting. The decision making can be up for grabs, which leads to turnovers and forced shots.”
“No matter where you coach you want an identity and you want that identity, it’s like kind of the question you asked about the teams that can adjust to certain things, that identity’s gotta be able to travel with you. It’s gotta be able to be at home, it’s gotta be able to come back down eight with under four minutes to go, down six two minutes to go, it’s gotta be able to do that.”
Crean was then told that Crean’s name has come up in hindsight from fans wondering if they had it better than they thought at the time when he was coaching and was asked if he feels vindicated.
“I still feel bad,” Crean said. “I feel bad that it ended when it did.”
Later, Crean was asked if other coaches still feel as though Indiana is a top job in the sport. He responded that he doesn’t talk about it to enough coaches to know, but said it’d be hard-pressed for someone to think it isn’t.
“Come on, man,” Crean said. “It’s Indiana.”
“But you tell me a place to coach… when that place is jumping and that place is packed and those fans are lined up and those students are lined up and they wanna come in there you tell me a tougher place for an opponent to go and a better place for a coach to coach and I’ll fly there tomorrow, cause I have not seen it.”
Crean was asked about other topics and gave further answers on his time at Indiana and his thoughts on the program today. Listen to Crean’s full appearance on Query And Company.