IU...Trying to Pull Defeat frm Jaws of Victory....I
- Thread starter BoilerGal74
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The Two Tone Clappin' Machine has a knack for snatching a huge defeat from the jaws of a sure victory. Dang....I feel dirty for rooting for Iowa.
Jok breaks Don Nelson's school record for made FT's in a game.....22-23. Impressive charity stripe work.
And the joke is on all those IU fans who declared Clappin' Tommy the new Knight nine years ago. You know, the same one's who believe that Crean is going to get fired for this year....the same one's who are still waiting for the Tooth Fairy to leave a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon for every tooth they've lost.
Talked to my friend in the IU Athletic Office today and he reassured me there is no way Crean is going anywhere unless it's Crean's decision. Said Glass is fully behind Crean as IU's coach.
Not to be a wise guy, but Indiana is still probably at least a couple wins short of even making the NIT.
I do have to agree with Dakitch on one thing: you can blame Crean all you want, but sooner or later the players have to deliver as a team. Indiana seems to degenerate into streetball at the most inopportune times.
Crean coached teams tend to get worse and dumber as the season progresses. Wonder what would happen if Crean were smart enough to swallow that huge ego and sit on the sidelines and let the players play
Keep hoping for another player to bulldoze clappy when he's halfway on the court.
I heard Crean didn't deliver a post game presser. That's disappointing, they have been entertaining as of late.
I don't watch enough IU basketball to say if the team gets dumber, but they have fizzled out in February in two of the last four seasons.
Crean might be part of the problem, but I think it's unfair to put it all on him. He didn't turn the ball over four or five times in overtime. Crean didn't foul three players out last night. At some point, the players have to be accountable.
Game on the line and Blackmon is looking up in the crowd when coaches are talking to team. Not a good visual for a supposed team leader. Looking for NBA scouts?
How would the Hoosier faithful feel if Crean left for a school like LSU, Boston College, or Missouri because he called it a "better opportunity"? Would they be happy he's gone, or insulted that he left on his own instead of waiting to be fired?
The answer of course is BOTH! They'd be overjoyed he is gone (who wouldn't be?!?) AND they'd bash the hell out of him for the insult (however true/false). In fact, they will bash him for decades to come no matter where he ends up.
He's coming back to IU next year, so they'll have to bash him for pretending to be a Hoosier basketball coach. Put the blame where it belongs folks....the late Myles Brand fired the legend on trumped up charges.
Myles Brand did what he had to do. Stop victimizing a guy who stood up to the bully when no one else would and for the record, the BOT fired Knight sending the message that they were in control of IU.
Not that my opinion matters Twin, and, though I generally enjoy your posts and am glad you adopted PU as a team to follow (not the least of which was because of your late beloved wife), your love of Bobby Knight is not reciprocated nor appreciated at all by us Purdue alums/lifelong fans. While he was a fantastic X's and O's coach who did many good things for the game and for his students (they graduated and largely stayed out of trouble), his failings were enormous and there are few AD's in this country who would not have ousted Bobby based on his long history of deplorable behavior. Am I more biased against Knight than the average BB fan? As a PU alum it is probably impossible for me not to be, but that does not mean he is not respectfully despised (oxymoron I know, but it is how I feel about him) by most college BB fans. As you know, there is little commiseration here about Knight being fired.
No Heller, he didn't do what "he had to do". Brand, being a total control freak, knew that the team Bob had assembled with Jeffries and the others would certainly be a force, with a very good chance that Bob/IU would hang another banner. Brand was not going to let that happen because he'd never be able to get Knight out of his hair should that or a long run in the tourney happen. There were far more egregious things Knight could have been dismissed for than grabbing a kid's arm and correcting the way he addressed an adult.
Brand was far from a victim.....pompous @$$, narcissist, total control freak maybe....but never a victim.
I'll not sully this board any more within this post.
My wife felt the same as you....and for the longest time, I detested Gene Keady but have come to respect what he did here.
But did you detest Gene for the same reasons PU fans (and many other fans nationwide) disliked Knight? My guess is you despised Gene's wins over Knight (the reverse is mutual) and his sideline demeanor, comb over, big haired tanned wife, etc.... Basically you disliked Gene because he was your rival's coach, and perhaps because of his famous scowlMy wife felt the same as you....and for the longest time, I detested Gene Keady but have come to respect what he did here.
. People disliked Knight because he won so much, no doubt, but there was MUCH more to it than his W/L record. Knight was the least gracious least personable coach I have ever known. Add to that his over the top antics and poor treatment of others and you get perhaps one of the most hated coaches around (excluding those who committed or turned a blind eye to heinous illegal behavior).
My daughter who was working at the NCAA when Brand was there would totally disagree with everything you wrote. He had no reason to know or remember her name, but he did. For the record if you tell your boss, or if you are a boss, and someone tells you or you tell your boss, to pound sand on an important meeting about his conduct what would you do. Finally there is a reason Knight met Brand privately at Brands home in the last days of his life. He didn't have animosity to Brand, not sure why his fans can't see the obvious. It was si ply time to put a stop to someone who thought he could act any way he wanted and answered to no one.
Speaking of this, who would've ever guessed there would be more choking going on at IU now than when Bobby was there?
I know a lot of IU fans ... and I don't recall a single one of them ever declaring Crean was "the new Knight" when he took the job. I get that you hate Crean and IU fans, but it feels like you're making this up.
+1
Never heard a single IU fan say that. My IU friends were just hoping he would pull them out of the sh*t hole that they had found themselves in after Sampson. I would say he very successfully did that. What happens to him now I have no idea nor do I really care.
IU fans were all declaring this right about the time he Creaned somebody and snagged Eric Gordon. While the rest of the world was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Wait a second, I recall Peegsters lionizing Crean for his coaching strategy and recruiting. They quoted some statistic about his teams' high percentage of scoring after a timeout as proof of his insight and wonderful coaching. Now the same folks tell us that he is incompetent. I also remember the "...he developed D Wade..." comments. Let's not have revision of history here.
However, I think that roundfootball is in error. Wasn't it Sampson that snagged Gordon? And did that not cause the issues with Weber when he was at U of I?
However, I think that roundfootball is in error. Wasn't it Sampson that snagged Gordon? And did that not cause the issues with Weber when he was at U of I?
Does you saying "my friend" = "your opinion"?
If so, your/"your friend's" opinion is most certainly, absolutely, completely wrong.
I tried giving you the word that the UM/IU game sealed the deal.
He gone, gone, gone. And it doesn't matter that Glass likes Crean on a personal level.
That would be fine, because frequently that's the way these things play out. Any real college bball fan would know, absent rivalry hyperbole, that Crean calling Mizzou, BC, or an SEC school a "better opportunity" would be face saving silliness. It is the result that most dedicated IUBB fans are most concerned with. Besides, if CTC moved on to a different school immediately, his subsequent salary would be deducted from his buyout number.
Sure, some of the ahem..."less mentally competent" posters on Peegs free board lionized Crean, although even the delusional Crean fans liked his recruiting better than his coaching strategy. Hell, his recruiting has been reasonably good; the achievements with those recruits has not been good enough.
Crean deservedly gets the heat for ultimately NOT getting the IU job done; I suppose it's fair that the program he ran gets credit for players he developed (Wade, Oladipo, etc) along the way.
Like many, Crean is neither as bad as his worst critics think, nor as good as his biggest fans would have him be.
And yes, Samscum was the one who brought Eric Gordon to IU and spawned the Brucie nastiness. When Groce's Illini squad beat then #1 IU in Champaign, Crean went to the Illini locker room to congratulate the winners. Him and Groce have been really good with each other since then. Figures; birds of a feather and all
Arc,
yes and yes.......also, there was the Frazier "chest bump" incident with Gordon when Indiana played at Illinois that year.....I seem to recall a whole bunch of drama from both sides on all of that.....and I would suspect, there are some (on both sides) who can't let it go to this day.
2008: Crean is an exciting coach with a modern, player friendly offense who found a diamond in the rough recruit, Dwayne Wade, and shaped him into an NBA all time great. He coached Marquette to a Final Four and made the tournament 5 out of 7 years. Just imagine what he will do at Indiana! It's Indiana!
2017: Crean can't coach his way out of a paper bag and is a marginal recruiter. He lucked into Dwayne Wade at Marquette. Any of his success at Indiana is due to a handful of really good players who went to IU in spite of him and developed themselves.
2017: Crean can't coach his way out of a paper bag and is a marginal recruiter. He lucked into Dwayne Wade at Marquette. Any of his success at Indiana is due to a handful of really good players who went to IU in spite of him and developed themselves.
^^Major vein of truth in this^^
Human nature, I guess. Fans project for the best case scenario, and then get po'ed when things don't turn out as planned!
I even remember (lackof)courtsense telling us that Crean was a great coach. He seems to have fallen off that bandwagon quite a while ago.
No my friend doesn't equal my opinion...but I do believe Crean will be back at IU. Were he going to be fired, Glass would have done it by now, put one of the assistants in charge, and began the search. And Crean isn't going to give up that huge IU salary to go to a lesser program.
One of us will be right, and I trust someone closer to the situation than you.
Eric Gordon played for Samscum. He declared for the NBA before Queen was hired.
But IU fans were all giddy about how Queen was going to return them to "NCAA dominance where they belong".
Keebler elf can go back to his tree in Bloomington and cry. Get ready to take his unearned 4M or whatever it is and go back to coach HS in Michigan. Bring on Billy D. I don't care who the alumni blow their money on. The TRAIN and most of the Big Ten will take them down whomever it is running their sideline.
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