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Indiana Hoosiers fires Tom Crean

By Chris Barnewall

Mar 4, 2017; Columbus, OH, USA; Indiana Hoosiers head coach Tom Crean during the second half against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Value City Arena. Indiana won 96-92. Mandatory Credit: Joe Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 4, 2017; Columbus, OH, USA; Indiana Hoosiers head coach Tom Crean during the second half against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Value City Arena. Indiana won 96-92. Mandatory Credit: Joe Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports /
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The University of Indiana has finally fired Tom Crean. This felt inevitable.

Indiana announced today that they have fired Tom Crean. This will end a nine year tenure with the university that has been full of ups, downs, and a whole lot of criticisms. For years now fans have been calling for the end of Crean and despite success his seat has continued to get hot. This year, Indiana finished with an 18-16 record and a first round exit in the NIT.

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Crean’s time at Indiana has been a lot of ups and downs. After a slow start where he failed to reach 13 wins in three years, he ripped off two straight sweet sixteen appearances. However, he missed the tournament the next season before going back there two years in a row. Last season, he reached the sweet sixteen again before this year’s disappointment. He will finish his time at Indiana with a 166-135 record, but only going 71-91 in Big 10 play.

This really felt inevitable. No matter what Crean did he was never able to please the Indiana fans or the program itself for that matter. He’s gone farther in the tournament than Bob Knight did in the mid-late 90’s, and outside of one NCAA Finals appearance Crean frequently took his teams further than Mike Davis did.

Crean wasn’t as bad a coach as many fans presented him to be but their opinions on him were set and they weren’t going to change. This was always going to happen it was just a matter of when and why. The when is now and the why is one disappointing season following two good ones.

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Hopefully Crean will find a new job somewhere that appreciates success and doesn’t overreact to minor dips. However, this is Indiana and their expectations are absurdly high. If they believe they should be competing for Final Four appearances then more power to them. Unfortunately, they’re going to end up disappointed.