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Indiana basketball has been in a strange place in the college basketball world for a long long long time....they have been in basketball purgatory scandals, sanctions, blowout losses to teams that shouldn't even dream of winning a game against the great Hoosiers, early tournament losses mixed with seasons over before the tournament even begins. Following the debacle that Kelvin Sampson was as both a coach and con-artist the Indiana basketball program looked as sad and the future as bleak as anyone could have imagined such an illustrious and storied program could be.
In my lifetime it somewhat reminded me of what the Kentucky program looked like after Tubby Smith left and prior to John Calipari arrived. Chaos mixed with extreme disappointment would be great words to describe what fans felt.The high standards and expectations that go with such big-time and storied programs were failing to be maintained and fans could only look on in disbelief. When Tom Creen was hired at Indiana some questioned the hire, some took a wait and see approach and some spoke up and said this is a great man for this great job and he's going to bring honesty and integrity back to the program at a time that it was needed more then ever.
Creen has done a remarkable job both recruiting and coaching. The Indiana basketball program is back to where it should be in the college basketball world, somewhere near the top. While I don't particularly like the Hoosiers, I do respect their illustrious history, it's good for college basketball when Indiana is good. It just doesn't feel right when teams like Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina etc are finding themselves out the the NCAA tourney. Indiana fans should be proud of what the Hoosiers have accomplished this season, they won the regular season league title for the first time in over 20 years. Think about that for a second. 20 YEARS since the powerful Indiana Hoosiers basketball program won the Big Ten title. That's a long time. Too long for a program with as much rich history as they have.
The thing is, I've heard much more talk about this pre-school pissing contest then I have about the actual game. That's sad. It's sad for Indiana university, Indiana basketball, sad for Coach Tom Creen himself but most of all it's sad for these players. These kids took a chance on Indiana, took a chance on coach Creen himself and have played their asses off to earn themselves a #1 seed in the NCAA tourney and now the supposed "Leader" of young men lets his emotions get the better of him at a time when he should have SO SO SO MANY other much more important things on his mind. Do we reallllllly know the whole story about what his comments towards assistant coach Meyer were about? No. Does it really matter though? No. We expect him to hold his players accountable for their actions on and off the court. We applaud when coaches discipline players who get into a fight. It doesn't matter if the other person said something first or not, they are expected to be the bigger man, expected to think about their teammates, their brothers in that situation.....we'll I say let's expect the same from Coach Creen. He's taken the spotlight off a fantastic game, played by two teams with national title hopes and put the focus on his little outburst.
ESPN.com article link
Indiana basketball has been in a strange place in the college basketball world for a long long long time....they have been in basketball purgatory scandals, sanctions, blowout losses to teams that shouldn't even dream of winning a game against the great Hoosiers, early tournament losses mixed with seasons over before the tournament even begins. Following the debacle that Kelvin Sampson was as both a coach and con-artist the Indiana basketball program looked as sad and the future as bleak as anyone could have imagined such an illustrious and storied program could be.
In my lifetime it somewhat reminded me of what the Kentucky program looked like after Tubby Smith left and prior to John Calipari arrived. Chaos mixed with extreme disappointment would be great words to describe what fans felt.The high standards and expectations that go with such big-time and storied programs were failing to be maintained and fans could only look on in disbelief. When Tom Creen was hired at Indiana some questioned the hire, some took a wait and see approach and some spoke up and said this is a great man for this great job and he's going to bring honesty and integrity back to the program at a time that it was needed more then ever.
Creen has done a remarkable job both recruiting and coaching. The Indiana basketball program is back to where it should be in the college basketball world, somewhere near the top. While I don't particularly like the Hoosiers, I do respect their illustrious history, it's good for college basketball when Indiana is good. It just doesn't feel right when teams like Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina etc are finding themselves out the the NCAA tourney. Indiana fans should be proud of what the Hoosiers have accomplished this season, they won the regular season league title for the first time in over 20 years. Think about that for a second. 20 YEARS since the powerful Indiana Hoosiers basketball program won the Big Ten title. That's a long time. Too long for a program with as much rich history as they have.
The thing is, I've heard much more talk about this pre-school pissing contest then I have about the actual game. That's sad. It's sad for Indiana university, Indiana basketball, sad for Coach Tom Creen himself but most of all it's sad for these players. These kids took a chance on Indiana, took a chance on coach Creen himself and have played their asses off to earn themselves a #1 seed in the NCAA tourney and now the supposed "Leader" of young men lets his emotions get the better of him at a time when he should have SO SO SO MANY other much more important things on his mind. Do we reallllllly know the whole story about what his comments towards assistant coach Meyer were about? No. Does it really matter though? No. We expect him to hold his players accountable for their actions on and off the court. We applaud when coaches discipline players who get into a fight. It doesn't matter if the other person said something first or not, they are expected to be the bigger man, expected to think about their teammates, their brothers in that situation.....we'll I say let's expect the same from Coach Creen. He's taken the spotlight off a fantastic game, played by two teams with national title hopes and put the focus on his little outburst.
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