I make no secret that I dislike Tom Crean. I think he is a poor representative for IU. I am not an IU hater, and never have been.
petty: I would put the tantrum/confrontation at UM in this category. It was embarrassing at best, and created long term hard feeling at worst. How about running at opponents on the floor, or talking at them during play (mostly during the bad years)?
egotistical: Crean threatening the OSU guard (Aaron Craft) with voting against his all-BIG status if he didn't give Crean sufficient respect.
hypocritical & disingenuous: Got to combine these. Here I put the generally poor treatment of players who signed on to scholarships and then were let go (Creaned). Matt Roth followed this guy from Marquette, and was his first IU recruit, IIRC. Matt wanted one more year at IU, with the good team, since he had suffered through the worst. Crean did not bother calling or talking to him through the summer. After the last scholly got filled, Matt understood he didn't have a place. Not the kind of actions you would expect from someone who professes to have the kids' best interests at heart, and is a Christian leader (?)
cloying: Here is the definition: disgust or sicken (someone) with an excess of sweetness, richness, or sentiment. This is just a personal opinion, but when I listen to him speak, or hear about things he has said, this definition jumps right to mind. Also - mouth kisses to adult kid.
a sad personality: A summery of all of the above. Many of my contacts in Indiana (state of) high school basketball have no use for the man, and make no secret of it either. As long as he is at IU, the school may wonder why they have only lukewarm success recruiting the state.
You will find that there are some posters on Peegs that will tell you these things never happened. That's okay if they want to be in denial. IMHO, all you can do is to point out why you feel a certain way, and feel no obligation to correct fools.
I take nothing away from the success of IU's basketball team this year. Those kids have fought and scratched for every victory. They are skilled and work hard. They have benefitted from an easier schedule in the BIG, but that same easy schedule helped Purdue last year. I think basketball is very much a mental and emotional game, so winning helps make more wins. I look forward to a great game Saturday.
While most of this is just an opinion that you are certainly entitled to, I will point out that Matt Roth did not follow Crean from Marquette. In fact, Roth was a Kelvin Sampson recruit who stuck with his commitment (at least in part because he didn't have a ton of other offers). And while he didn't come back for his red-shirt senior year, the "scholarship" was filled quite a long time before that summer. In fact, IU was oversigned, and stayed that way through the summer sessions, when Ron Patterson wasn't admitted because of summer session grades.
So, while Roth certainly got a bad deal, it's not as bad as you're making it out to be.
