By MICHAEL MAROT, AP Sports Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP)—Tom Crean is getting ready for a restart at Indiana.
After a bumpy first month as the Hoosiers coach, Crean spent Thursday riding
around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval with three-time winner Johnny
Rutherford, hoping the changes at Indiana will go as smoothly and quickly as the
laps.
Crean acknowledged the program’s image had been damaged by recent
allegations of recruiting violations, academic troubles and player dismissals
before looking ahead.
“It’s important to move on,” he said. “That’s what we try to do as
coaches, get through these situations with the hearing, the APR (academic
progress report) and those kinds of things.”
With so many lingering reminders, switching gears won’t be easy for the
Hoosiers.
On a day rain washed out Crean’s chance to be the honorary starter for Indy
500 practice, the Hoosiers were expected to file their official response to the
NCAA’s accusations. School officials did not plan to make the report immediately
available to the public, and Crean provided no details about what was in the
report. He said he had not been consulted.
Next month the school has a hearing in front of the infractions committee in
Seattle. Former coach Kelvin Sampson, who accepted a $750,000 buyout in February
after the NCAA accused him of five major rules infractions, and Crean are both
expected to attend, although Crean is uncertain whether he will be asked to
testify.
“I don’t know yet what they’ll have me do, but I knew from the beginning
that I would be at the hearing,” he said. “Whatever they ask me to do, I’ll
do. But I think there’s been enough damage to Indiana and it’s time to move
forward.”
Not so fast.
In July or August, the NCAA is expected to rule on Indiana’s case and could
hand down sanctions that go beyond the recruiting restrictions and loss of a
scholarship imposed by school officials.
Crean will start next fall with only three returning scholarship players
after kicking three players off the team last week. He said he can’t wait to
begin workouts that will be more than just 3-on-3 drills.
But the oddest twist in this saga occurred last week, when freshman forward
Eli Holman told Crean he planned to transfer and became so agitated in the
coaches’ office that campus police were called.
Holman announced Wednesday he would attend Detroit Mercy, where he will be
reunited with Ray McCallum, a former assistant at Indiana under Sampson.
Crean now believes the whole thing was planned.
“I have never had anything like that happen before, and it was
disappointing on a lot of fronts,” Crean said. “I would say what caused it was
him not getting an answer he would have liked. As I see now, it was all part of
an orchestration. I respect Eli, and I hope he does well. But it’s all starting
to play out.”
The toughest part for Crean may be improving the team’s APR score.
Indiana avoided being penalized Tuesday when it turned in a score of 899,
well below the NCAA’s mandated cut line of 925, because it made “significant”
improvement from the previous year. With so many players leaving the program
from last season, it’s unlikely Indiana will make the 925 mark next year.
But Crean praised the school’s academic counselors and Dan Dakich, who
replaced Sampson as interim coach, for stressing classwork over the final two
months of the school year.
“Dan Dakich did an excellent job trying to hold the reins down,” Crean
said. “He did a great job of trying to hold the fort down. There were just too
many deaf ears at that point.”
Apparently, academics also were a factor in Crean’s decision not to
reinstate starting guards Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis, who were kicked off
the team by Dakich just hours before Crean was hired April 1.
“Some of it was pretty clear at that point, with the academics, but the
decisions were made at different points in the week with the exception of the
Holman situation,” Crean said. “Hopefully they will all get their education,
get their degrees, get to play basketball somewhere and become productive
members of society.”
But the toughest task comes now as Crean attempts to rebuild the program.
He expects to see former Indian coach Bob Knight at a charity event Friday,
is working on a plan to help improve the team’s academic performance and will be
busy recruiting more players to Bloomington.
And he hopes to put some of the lessons he learned in the garage area, while
visiting Penske Racing and Panther Racing, to use at Indiana, too.
“What separates drivers is that they’ve got to have focus and execute under
pressure,” Crean said. “The more you’re around different sports, the more you
realize it’s not that different. The thing that separates the great ones are the
same things—discipline and focus.”
Two qualities Crean believes will turn around the Hoosiers program.
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Indiana Hoosiers' new basketball coach is getting ready for a restart at Indiana.
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