While I am not usually as negative as other IU alumni on this website, I must say my gripes about IU generally are directed toward the athletic office.  Their usual mismanagement of Human Resources related issues must be some ploy to make sure their name gets on Sports Center in the hope that it will lead to a surge of new applications to the school because the first rule of marketing is, “any publicity is good publicity” after all. 

The bumbling momos somehow got this one right.  Personally, I recall Thermocaster and I discussing Crean as a suitable candidate the last time IU was looking for a coach.  Imagine my surprise when he blew up my cellie informing me that Kelvin Sampson had been named IU’s head man.  At the time I was driving a U-haul full of antiques somewhere near Crawfordsville.  That news almost sent me and UDOJ, careening into one of the many cow pastures of Montgomery County.

So how does IU get the right man two short years later, under significantly worse circumstances?  Remember IU might have the the NCAA’s equivalent of Thor’s hammer coming down on them in the not too distant future.  Well dear readers, my only assumption is that they have awarded Crean “Tom Hanks” money for his coaching services.  While I am a fantastic journalist, I have not been able to unearth the exact amount of scrilla that it took to get Crean out of Brew town, USA.

But there must be more right?  Who in their fool mind would take over a former juggernaut that has become quite pedestrian in recent years?  Sure, IU went to the tournament the past two years but the program’s credibility has taken hit after hit in that same time frame.  There were the original phone call allegations, the mysterious player suspensions, the Sampson lies, the Sampson step down, the melt down the stretch and finally the removal of two IU players the same day reports surfaced that Crean was the new coach.

Sprinkle in a touch of a wild fan-base who still believes that it is the 1980’s, add in some antiquated facilities and what do you have in Bloomington?  You have a recipe for disaster folks.  Luckily, it looks like IU finally got it right.

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In other news, it appears that the Notre Dame faithful have no sense of humor.  While I guess the best April fool’s joke is one that could be true, NDNation.com wrtiers said that IU contacted Notre Dame coach Mike Brey’s agent to gauge his interest in the open position.  It doesn’t seem unlikely that this would happen.  Brey does seem to lead Notre Dame to the tournament almost annually, he coaches in Indiana and has had success recruiting in the Midwest.  Above all, his son plays football at The University at Buffalo, so he would have been a decent choice.  The Chicago Tribune article listed above seems to be news only for the “old media” to take shots at the “interweb media.”  This is all too common.  

 

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Finally, Indiana University wasn’t the only school making a change yesterday.  Oklahoma State relieved their  coach, Sean Sutton of his coaching duties as well.  This was somewhat shocking because, well the only things I know about Stillwater are the following:

1.  Eskimo Joe’s- “Stillwater’s Jumpin’ Little Juke Joint” famous for their cheese fries and shirts worn around the world is located there.

2.  Boone Pickens, OSU’s sports crazed alumnus/donor has a ton of pull

3.  The Sutton’s coach basketball there

Ok, so I lied.  I know four things.  Mike Gundy is the football coach at OSU.  He’s a man, he’s 40.

Anyway, I am fairly certain that Gundy didn’t have anything to do with this.  I am confident Eskimo Joe’s, while popular does not have that kind of influence.  So it boils down to Pickens and his hand picked athletic department rode Sutton out on a rail-car to Tulsa.  That seems possible right?  Is there any other reason to get rid of a coach so quickly?  Sutton still had three years left on his deal after all.  Now that the usually sweaty Sutton is gone, so is a quarter of my Stillwater knowledge base.