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Should IU find itself in a position to look for a new coach...

Bloom.

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Aug 28, 2001
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When IU hired Sampson, I said to hire Crean, Gregg Marshall or Sean Miller. I forget who my 'third' was, but my guess it wasn't a great choice since I can't remember him. Miller and Marshall were dismissed due to a lack of experience. I said when they hired Crean (not that I was against Crean) to hire Gregg Marshall or Brad Stevens, and people crowed about their lack of experience. Brad Brownell was my third in that list.

You 'swing for the fence', 'IU is a blue blood', 'we can get the money' people can no longer be trusted.

Gregg Marshall, Ben Jacobson, Archie Miller and Bryce Drew would be my top choices among current D1 head coaches. (Sean Miller, Tony Bennett, etc, aren't coming. I don't like the Scott Drew idea either. Too many issues at Baylor as a whole.) To me these are excellent coaches who can come in and hit the ground running. (I've never seen a Jacobsen practice, but a guy I coach with has.)

Brad Stevens isn't coming. Billy Donovan isn't coming. There is no reason for Donovan to leave OKC for IU. He's making $6M per year and doesn't have to recruit, and as long as Sam Presti keeps fleecing other owners in trades, he isn't signing with the Lakers anytime soon, giving up 35% of the cap and an extra year.


Some of you can say what you want about Crean (and that I would've chosen Crean in lieu of Sampson), but he walked into this program when it was a complete an utter mess and did things the right way. I've been more outspoken than anyone here in terms of some of the mess he recruited in the classes of 2012 and 2013, over signing and soft non-conference scheduling, but he has carried the ball a long way.

He might not have gotten Eric Gordon to jump from Illinois, but he wouldn't have had the mess of kids that Sampson recruited either. Who's to know what he could've done with a recruiting base of landing both Tyler and Cody Zeller. Maybe he snags Mason Plumlee too.

There are a lot of things I'd like to see better at IU under Crean, but he's done a great job at restoring the integrity of the program.


BTW since it has come up in another venue: My guess is Rabjohns, Peegs and Snow have never been to an IWU game, let alone seen Tonagel run a practice. They wouldn't know his coaching style talked to him about anything other than recruiting or know anything about him as a coach short of sitting next to him while on the recruiting trail.

Hiring Tonagel would be a gamble, but as it relates to the recruiting base, that should primarily be the state of Indiana, he'd walk in with instant credibility with a much larger set of chips to play. He already attracts D1 caliber players to IWU, and these are players with D1 offers who proactively choose IWU, not to mention transfers.
 
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