Indiana makes smart choice with energetic Crean

Tom Crean led Marquette to the NCAA tournament five times in nine seasons. AJ Mast/Icon SMI

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You want Tom Crean summed up in a single word? Here it is: passion.

You can see it in the way he stalks the sidelines like an expectant father in a hospital waiting room. You can see it in the way he barks out orders in practice, how he talks to the press and his dogged pursuit on the recruiting trail. Crean is a stats geek who instructs his staff to chart every category you can think of, and a few you never even knew existed. The smaller the detail, the greater the importance in his eyes.

Crean spouts cliches, oozes corn and believes every word of it. His energy borders on manic, which is why it is tough to play and work for him. But his effort and intensity is always there.

This is why Crean is a suitable fit at Indiana, where he was introduced Wednesday as the man who will succeed Kelvin Sampson as head coach. Indiana will tout Crean's midwestern credentials and his background in the Big Ten as an assistant under Tom Izzo and Jud Heathcote at Michigan State. But that passion, that energy, that manic drive to see the game played the way it should be played will be the thing that ultimately endears him to the Hoosiers faithful. As long as he gets to a few Final Fours, that is.

A few years ago, Crean was kind enough to invite me to attend the Marquette postseason banquet. The school had stopped holding such banquets before he was hired, and he put a lot of thought and effort into reviving it as a way to give his seniors a proper sendoff. Crean was nervous as a cat that night. He didn't eat a bite of his dinner. When a prepared video started rolling without sound, I thought he was going to pass out. He wanted everything to turn out perfectly. After dinner, he showed me a three-ring binder containing tabulations for all the categories his assistants had charted throughout the season -- charges taken, box outs, "Marquette" assists (smart passes regardless of whether they led to a basket), deflections and all sorts of effort stats. "That's a little much, isn't it?" I quipped.

"Makes all the difference between winning and losing," he replied.

Two summers ago, I sat in the bleachers at the Nike All-America Camp in Indianapolis, watching a workout featuring some college players who were working as counselors that week. A couple of dozen coaches were watching, mostly observing casually and shooting the breeze with each other. Crean, on the other hand, was locked into the action and taking notes. When I asked him why, he said because his team would have to play against some of those guys, and he wanted to be as prepared as possible.

When Marquette was invited to join the Big East, Crean spent the entire spring and summer pouring through game tapes of every team in the conference and breaking down the tendencies of each player. Crean brings that thoroughness to every aspect of the job. He's the kind of guy who will fire off a handwritten thank you note, then send you another one to thank you for replying to his thank you note.

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