Definition of a Hoosier?

This is a must read. I love it.

Follow this "I will fight you" link from the good fellas at The Hoosier Scoop and then follow their link to the article.

IU Recruit Videos - Elston & Roth

'09 IU Recruit Derek Elston Game Highlights (keep in mind that he is a Sophomore in these highlights): '08 IU Recruit Matt Roth Game Highlights (as a Junior):

Jailbreak!

The Hoosier Scoop is reporting that IU has granted Tom Crean 10 days on the road to recruit. Originally, Sampson was limited to 10 days on the road to recruit through July 31st of this year as part of IU's self-imposed sanctions. Those 10 days were used up by Sampson and Dakich, which left Crean a prisoner of Bloomington when he took the job. But now, apparently, IU has decided to grant Crean 10 days on the road. Let's hope he makes the most of it.

This seems a little strange and a little risky to me. With the NCAA hearing coming up in a couple of months, I'm not sure this is the smartest move. The main thing IU had going for them is they self-reported the violations, fired the coaches involved, and imposed pretty harsh sanctions that even carried forward to the new coaches that took those positions.

Another interesting thing is that Crean doesn't really know how many scholarships he has left to offer. IU is already down to 12 scholarships for '08-'09 because of their self-imposed sanctions. However, there is fear that their APR scores could be too low and they could lose 1 or 2 more scholarships. The APR is a really messed up system and IU has already petitioned that the cause for IU's men's basketball low scores has been due to instability in the athletic department with multiple coaching and A.D. changes. I think IU is hopeful that they will not lose additional scholarships due to APR scores, but it is a possibility.

Then, you also have the situation with all of the current players and reports that a majority of the team needs to finish very strong on their final exams to remain eligible for 1st semester next year.

Most things I have been reading indicate that Bassett will be allowed back on the team if he can make grades this semester. However, both Hutchens and the guys from The Hoosier Scoop have said that they don't think Ellis will be back. They don't give a reason why, but it sure seems like they know something that they just aren't able to print for whatever reason. I did also see a report that Ellis was back in Florida working out. Unless that was a quick weekend trip, it sure would make it hard to go to class if you are in Florida.

Anyway, currently on paper, IU has 4 scholarships open for '08-'09. However, that is still counting Taber as a walk-on. Taber was actually granted a scholarship last year, but scholarships are offered to walk-ons on a year-to-year basis. Not that I wouldn't mind having the extra scholarship open, but the right thing to do is to offer Taber a scholarship again this year. He earned it with his performance last year and the guy has a good chance of being a starter next year. So, if you give a scholarship to Taber, you are down to 3.

Then, if you go on the limited information and go with Bassett being back, but Ellis gone, you are down to 2. However, if Ellis leaves and he does not make grades for the second semester, then that is another big hit on IU's APR score and they could really be in jeopardy of losing more scholarships.

So, my best guess is that Crean and staff are still trying to recruit for 2 scholarships and hoping for the best with academics. In fact, in an interview, Crean said that is what he has to do and if IU oversigns due to losing more scholarships, then that is something he would have to deal with at that point. Man, I sure hope it doesn't come to that, that would be ugly and more negative press. But I agree that Crean needs to operate this way and try to fill 2 more spots -- definitely need a big man and could also use a point.

And if that's not enough uncertainty, you still don't know about some of the other current players. It sounds like most of the team is in trouble academically this semester. Holman went home a few weeks ago to consider his future, but we haven't heard much since. He is back in Bloomington working out with the team, but the San Fransisco Chronicle reported this week that he was still undecided. I guess if any current players transfer, it would open up a scholarship. However, once again, if they transfer after not making grades this semester, IU may end up losing that scholarship anyway due to the APR scores.

What a mess. Let's hope Crean can make the most of these 10 days, let's hope the NCAA does not view this in a negative light, let's hope the NCAA does not add on any penalties, let's hope the players make their grades, and let's hope the APR scores do not cost us any additional scholarships.

That's a lot of hoping, but that's the situation we are in now.

Go Hoosiers!

Help IU Hoops Fight Cancer

Cancer sucks.

Let me repeat that. Cancer sucks.

Cancer sucks very much bad.

There's really no other way to put it. Please help the IU Hoops blog fight this crappy disease.

As many of you already know, Theresa's Dad Jerry has been diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. And since undergoing chemo treatments, he has also had several mini-strokes. It's already been quite the roller coaster ride and I expect there will be more ups and downs to come.

I'm not going to get all sappy on you, but I will say that Jerry is a great guy. I'll repeat that as well. Jerry is a GREAT guy.

To help fight the good fight, Theresa and I will be heading to Kokomo to participate in the Relay for Life on June 20th & 21st.

If you are interested in helping, please click here to go to Theresa and Jeff's Relay for Life Page. Once on our Relay for Life page, you can quickly and easlily make a donation online by clicking "Donate".

My goal is to raise 1 million dollars. I figure with 10-20 loyal IU Hoops blog readers, that's only $50-100K each.

Participation is completely mandatory. Your IU Hoops blog privileges will be revoked otherwise.

Wait, wait, that came out wrong. I meant to say that participation is obviously voluntary.

But hopefully, you will give this some consideration or maybe it will prompt you to take action for some other cause that is near and dear to your heart -- whatever that may be -- perhaps it is causing bodily harm to a Purdue fan, or blowing the whistle on some Kentucky recruiting violations, or anything else that would make the world a better place.

And finally, thoughts and prayers are always welcome.

I appreciate you taking the time to go off-topic and read this post. Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Go Hoosiers and screw cancer!!!!!

Fast & Furious

We figured it wouldn't be a quiet off-season and Tom Crean has not disappointed. Just in the past couple of weeks, IU has received commitments from 5 new players and hired 2 new assistant coaches.

The 5 players include a freshman commit for '08, a Juco commit for '08, a verbal commit for '09, and 2 walk-ons. I'll talk a little bit about each of these guys individually, but first some general comments. Later in the post, I will also comment on what I know about all of the current players. Until we get to that, here is a preview: I know nothing.

I think this has been some great work by Crean to get these 3 commitments this past week. I feel like there is a solid foundation that is being built with what appears to be high-character and hard-working guys that will likely stay around for 4 years. That said, we are talking about 3-star type players. These are not guys that are going to come in and dominate and win conference titles as freshmen and sophomores. However, they are the type of guys that are going to work hard and could develop into really good players as juniors and seniors. So, if Crean can continue to build this foundation and then land a big-time recruit or two in the next few years, we could be in great shape.

So, let's take a look at these guys.

Nick Williams
The biggest news was today's news that Nick Williams (pictured above) committed to be a Hoosier next year. Williams is a 6-4 guard from Alabama. At 215 pounds, he is a strong player that should be ready for Big Ten action as a freshman. Of course, if Bassett and Ellis are not reinstated, he will play whether he's ready or not. But he definitely looks strong. He's described as a high quality, high character kid and his high school team was nationally ranked all 4 years. In addition, his team won the state title when he was a junior and he was the 6A state player of the year as a senior. Also described to have a very strong work ethic. I like that he looks mean and tough.

As for his game, it sounds like he played more inside as a freshman and sophomore, so he is still developing a polished outside game. Obviously, you need to have solid skills on the perimeter if you want to play guard in big-time college ball, but I do like guards that can go down low and mix it up.

Williams was a Marquette target and ultimately decided he still wanted to play for Tom Crean. He is the rivals #145 player in the class and the #34 shooting guard. However, ESPN has him as the #40 player overall and #9 shooting guard. That just shows you that beyond the Top 10 or 20, nobody really knows what they are talking about when they attempt to rank recruits.

Devan Dumes
Dumes is a 6-2, 185-lb combo guard that will be a Juco transfer from Vincennes. He went to Decatur Central in high school and was named to 1st-team all-state as a senior with the likes of Mike Conley Jr, Greg Oden, and Eric Gordon. Dumes went to Eastern Michigan as a freshman and then decided to go to Vincennes. At Eastern Michigan, he averaged 8.1 points and 1.6 assists as a freshman. At Vincennes, he averaged 16.9 points, 4 assists, 3.6 rebounds, 84% from the line, 41% from the field, 39.9% from the arc, and set a school record with 109 made 3-pointers. That's a lot of 3-pointers to launch and make while holding steady at a 40% clip.

There might be some concern with going the Juco route, but I like Crean's approach and it sounds like he is pretty careful with both the type of kid and the type of program he will recruit from. In this case, I like that this is an Indiana kid and an Indiana program. Often, one of the concerns with a junior college player is their dedication to the classroom. However, Dumes made the Dean's List while at Eastern Michigan. I think it was mainly a case where he wasn't happy at Eastern Michigan, but at the time, he probably didn't have a lot of choices to go to any bigger programs.

This one is a tough call as to whether he will be able to help the Hoosiers. If Bassett is not allowed back on the team, I think he will have to see playing time. However, keep in mind that Jamarcus Ellis was Juco Player of the Year and both Lance Stemler and Mike White were higher rated Juco players than Dumes. But again, I'm not too confident in these ranking services, especially for Juco players.

It does sound like Dumes is willing to play defense and anybody who can hit 3s with regularity and shoot 84% from the line should be able to help the team in some way.

Bobby Capobianco
A verbal commitment for the 2009 class. I tend not to spend a lot of time on commitments that are further out than the upcoming season. For example, at one time, IU's class for next year included Eshaunte Jones, Bud Mackey, Devin Ebanks, and Terrell Holloway.

Anyway, Capobianco seems pretty solid with his verbal. Another Marquette target that was ecstatic with the news of Crean going to IU. As an Ohio player, Bobby C's only hesitation about Marquette was the distance from his home. So when Crean came calling as IU's head man, this was a slam dunk.

Capobianco is 6-8 and 220 pounds. He is projected to play the 4-spot. IU's other verbal commit for '09, Tipton's Derek Elston is also 6-8 but Elston is expected to play the 3-spot.

I'm reading good things about Capobianco and many think that his ranking will be on the rise after this year's AAU ball.

Daniel Moore
5-10 guard out of Carmel turned down a scholarship at Boston U to walk-on at IU. As a senior, he averaged 13.5 points, 7.6 assists, and 3.4 rebounds per game and was named 1st team senior all-state.

I generally don't get too excited about walk-ons, but I think this is a definite positive for IU. At the very least, this is a kid who will come to practice everyday and work his butt off and make his teammates better. I would say the most we could hope for is an Errik Suhr type of player that could offer some spot contributions.

Kory Barnett
Another walk-on that I haven't heard much about. I think I saw that he is 6-5 and that he is a hustler that doesn't score much, but does the little things. I wouldn't expect him to see much of the floor in 4 years, but who knows.

All in all, each of these guys has been described as hard-working and high-character. The same can be said for the recruits already in place (Pritchard, Roth, and Elston). I think this is a very important step in rebuilding the program. This program desperately needs some stability and these guys we are talking about today might be able to offer that.

A couple notes on the assistant coaches. Buckley seemed to be a no-brainer in that he was an existing Crean assistant and his past experience at Ball State. The one that has made some IU fans squirm is Bennie Seltzer. Seltzer played for and coached under Kelvin Sampson. It should be noted that Seltzer was not named in any way to the phone call issues at Oklahoma, but the idea that he worked under Sampson has still made some IU fans a little queasy.

As for the current players, there just has not been much news on that front.

Some of the rumors around Bassett and Ellis seem to be dependent on their grades for the spring semester. After a solid fall semester, it sounds like the spring semester currently looks horrible for the team as a whole. The rumor is that Crean is waiting to see if these guys make grades before he considers reinstating them. I guess that makes some sense -- why reinstate a guy who is then going to be immediately suspended for the fall semester and first 10 or so games of the year.

The other rumors around this situation tend to put Bassett in a much more positive light than Ellis. There aren't really reasons given, but some people are guessing that Bassett will be back and Ellis won't. Who knows.

I'm really curious about Eli Holman. There were plenty of news reports that he was going home for a weekend a few weeks ago to consider his future, but then we never heard anything. We do know that he is back in Bloomington and in school, but there has not been any word on whether he is definitely staying or not.

Another interesting note on Holman is that Peegs has him listed as a freshman for the '08 season. I don't believe he was red-shirted this past year, but I do think he would be granted a medical redshirt. However, my understanding is that a medical redshirt is not even considered until the player's other 3 years of eligibility are used up. Anyway, if you do consider Holman a freshman for the upcoming class, then it is starting to round into a nice class with Roth, Williams, Pritchard, and Holman. It would be nice to add a true point guard and a true post player, but the fact is that there just aren't any of quality left for the '08 class.

Brandon McGee has said that he will be back next year. I think McGee has some talent and I hope that Crean can get it out of him. In his limited time last year, McGee appeared to be lazy and complacent, so it will be interesting to see if Crean can get him to play at a higher level.

Crawford says he's back. If Bassett and Ellis aren't allowed back, then it could be Crawford that leads this team. A little scary, but Jordan could turn out to be a great player. I just think he's on a faster track than you would like. He played more than expected as a freshman due to Ratliff's problems and Bassett's 3-game suspension. Now as a sophomore, he will likely see 32+ minutes per game. You just hope that he continues to improve and all this playing time leads to a great player in his upper-classmen years.

DeAndre Thomas -- virtually no news on Big Dre.

Taber will be back and could very well be a starter on next year's team.

I don't believe there has been any word yet on Crean's 3rd assistant, but I believe he was hoping to name somebody this week.

I know Cook wants to hear more about potential recruits, but I find tracking the recruits to be exhausting and often disappointing. Also, it's late and I'm tired.

However, not to leave Ryun empty-handed, he also wanted a prediction on the number of wins for next year. Obviously, the Bassett and Ellis situation will play a large role in that. But as it stands, those guys are not on the team, so I will make my prediction assuming that those guys are off the team and I will go with 15 wins next year. I think they will have some guys that are willing to work hard and I think Crean will work hard and that alone will get them wins against lesser opponents. However, they just won't have any big guys with any skills and won't have a whole lot of talent on the team as a whole. I'm looking at the next two years as rebuilding and looking to years 3 and 4 and beyond to really have this team back on track. I like everything that Crean is doing so far and have high hopes that he will restore the glory to old IU.

Go Hoosiers!

IU's Tom Crean

Well, now that is has been a few hours.....I love this hire!!!

Please add a comment with your thoughts....I want to get the pulse of our little IU community on this hire.

With the current circumstances at IU, there were certain things that were required for this hire -- no baggage, represent the university in a positive fashion, do things the right way, and can coach and recruit. Tom Crean definitely fits the bill.

These were some of the reasons I outlined for having Tony Bennett at the top of my list. I had Crean down in Tier 2, but I think that was mainly because we weren't hearing anything about him being a serious candidate. I had been hearing here in Milwaukee that Crean was not interested in IU two years ago. So I think I was just kind of writing him off this go around.

Ever since Sampson was let go, Bennett was the sexy pick. But now that Crean has been named, you could argue he has all the positives that Bennett has plus he has 7 more years of head coaching experience and has been to a Final Four. In addition, I think Hoosier fans will enjoy the style of play, especially if he can bring in the right players. I really think his teams are fun to watch.

Crean will be great as a PR guy for IU. He is well spoken, he's great with the media, and he's very involved in the community. He was a guest speaker at my company about 5 years ago and I was very impressed. It was easy to see why he is considered to be a great motivator. And it was very clear that he is a smart guy.

Another great thing is that I get the feeling that he is up for the challenge and is in it for the long haul. He was at Marquette for 9 years and has had many opportunities to leave (quite possibly including the IU job 2 years ago). And by many opportunities, I do mean many. Every year since they went to the Final Four, Marquette fans at work are sweating this time of year with a fear that Crean will be leaving. The interesting thing is that they weren't as worried this year because there had been so many rumors in the past years that didn't pan out. Then, all of the sudden, BAM -- they get an email from good ole Jeff Dart saying WE GOT YOUR COACH. I think I will bring donuts into the office tomorrow for the occasion. Look who the assclowns are now.

Where was I? Oh, I know, I was talking about why this is a great hire and why I think Crean is up for the challenge and is in it for the long haul. It is believed that Crean was indirectly contacted 2 years ago to gauge interest in the IU job. Here in Milwaukee, there are differing stories as to what happened 2 years ago. One story on local sports radio was that there was some mutual interest 2 years ago, but they couldn't settle on the details -- either money or control/influence in the athletic department....who knows for sure. Anyway, just 2 years later, the landscape is certainly different and maybe IU was willing to offer enough to lure Crean away.
Regardless, with the fact that Crean has had plenty of previous opportunities, you have to think that he really gave this opportunity a great deal of thought. With coaches, they want to have a realistic chance to win a national title and I think Crean sees IU as a place where he would have a much better chance to do that. I hope that's what he is thinking and I hope he's right.

So, I don't think he's too worried about possible NCAA sanctions or possibly not having a single starter returning. I think he has a longer-term view and knows that a couple good recruiting classes can quickly turn into something special.

Here in Milwaukee, people are devastated. After being great in the 70s under McGuire, Marquette was down and out until Crean arrived. Four years later, they were in the Final Four and people love him.

I really think if he can do what he has done at Marquette, he could do great things at IU. Keep in mind the following things about Marquette:

* Jesuit school

* Used to be in Conference USA

* Now in the Big East, but people don't even think about them because they are the westernmost school in the Big East. Do you really think of the state of Wisconsin when you are talking Big East basketball. Generally, players in the East think about playing in the Big East, but not at a school in Wisconsin.

* Generally, players in the Midwest think about playing in the Big Ten. So, again, Marquette is kind of odd man out. These are broad generalizations, but it does make recruiting more difficult.

* Marquette is in the city. It's not much of a campus. And parts of it border some pretty rough areas of Milwaukee.

Overall, I think it can be tough to land recruits at Marquette when you are going up against other big schools, but he has done a pretty damn good job. Crean is also credited with much of recruiting that eventually led to Michigan State's national title in 2000.

I do hear some criticism of Crean's record in the Big Dance outside of the Final Four run. I never really understand this line of thinking -- let's just pretend like that year doesn't exist. Anyway, it is true that he hasn't had much postseason success outside of that year. However, I still think they had a pretty nice team this year and ended up losing in overtime to Standford in this year's second round. That was a tough loss.

And the fact remains that he did take Marquette to the Final Four. And Chris already made the point that Crean and his staff were the ones that landed Dwayne Wade, so I really don't understand Brad's line of thinking on that one. In fact, I rarely understands Brad's line of thinking. He posted another comment anonymously, but he's not hard to spot. Unfortunately, his ignorance of being a Bears fan carries over into his IU world. Hey Brad, take a lesson from Tom. And Brad, I hope you like the new picture....you have any problem with cutting down nets?

Taking a look at a couple online polls:

Hoosier Scoop -- 545 out of 585 voters give the Crean hire a thumbs up

Inside the Hall -- 475 out of 515 voters like the hire

By the way, I believe ESPNews will be covering tomorrow's (Wednesday's) 11am ET press conference. I've got my Tivo set.

I think I will stop here. We already have several great comments, so be sure to read through those.

Of course, there is still plenty more to come:

* Status of Bassett and Ellis

* Status and thoughts of other current players

* Status of Ebanks (probably still gone) and Holloway (like the chances)

* Status of Gordon (expected to announce going to NBA on Monday)

* Status of Dakich -- get rid of him. This needs to be 100% Crean's show.

* Crean's assistants (he has one key assistant that is a great recruiter that better come with him)
* NCAA hearing and ruling

I feel great. The next couple of years will probably be rough, but I like the long-term outlook for the program.

Go Hoosiers!