You know he's smart, personable, highly energetic, has good intentions and the experience of coaching under a HOF coach.
How he could be such a crap coach under those circumstances is one of the great mysteries of the Western World.
Tom Crean and Georgia
- Thread starter edub72
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You know he's smart, personable, highly energetic, has good intentions and the experience of coaching under a HOF coach.
How he could be such a crap coach under those circumstances is one of the great mysteries of the Western World.
The highest levels of any proficiency are filled with those who have inherent talent. Everyone works hard, everyone studies. At the highest level what separates them are innate and inherent abilities. He has none. His ceiling is low, mid major level at best.
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Hearing his team had 26 turnovers against a vastly inferior team reminds me of any first game of the season he coached at IU.
I don't understand how a coach could ever accept 20+ turnovers on a regular basis. What was he doing in film studies and practices when this was going on?
It is going to take time to get over 9 years of watching players turn the ball over like 3rd graders and never getting players into a proper defensive stance. Troy Williams was probably never told to get off his heals and stop standing upright until he reached the developmental league.
I don't understand how a coach could ever accept 20+ turnovers on a regular basis. What was he doing in film studies and practices when this was going on?
It is going to take time to get over 9 years of watching players turn the ball over like 3rd graders and never getting players into a proper defensive stance. Troy Williams was probably never told to get off his heals and stop standing upright until he reached the developmental league.
Some coaching philosophies believe you make up for those TO's by having a higher FG percentage and by attacking always, increasing FT attempts and fouls drawn. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
They're dumb .. if they looked at all the successful teams they would realize that ball control wins basketball games.
For some reason Crean thinks that highest FG percentage wins.
- He trades TO's for more open shots and quicker pace.
- He crashes the offensive boards increasing FG percentage and Off Eff but allows other teams to run out on him for easy buckets. Trading defense for offense.
- He also had his team shoot transition threes from the top of the circle, which is an easy shot to get. Only when it misses it tends to go the other way quickly. Again trading defense for offense. Many defensive minded coaches only allow transition 3's below the FT line, sideline 3's only.
- On defense he had players leak, trading defensive boards for transition baskets. Again increasing his off eff and FG% and trading defense for offense.
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You owe an explanation for the post and link to a White Nationalist site. Own it VPM or you'll be dogged every time you post on any of these boards.
VanPastorMan
Hall of Famer
You quoted FAIR to defend your immigration beliefs. You may say you aren't a racist, but that's the kind of thing a racist does. If someone quoted the Little Red Book to defend their economic beliefs, you'd call them a communist, right? Then don't be surprised that so many people are calling you a racist.
VanPastorMan
Hall of Famer
So what exactly is wrong with FAIR? You are talking about the fairness and accuracy in reporting correct? You are not saying that what I linked to is false are you? Are you saying that FAIR is part of the Klan? I had not heard that about the site. Wasn't my link about illegals voting in Indiana? Was the story correct or not?
WTF does this shit have to do with Tom Cream and effing Georgia? JFC take the personal attacks to the other effing forum, morans.
LOL. You quoted the Federation for American Immigration Reform, you dolt. A certified hate group by the SPLC.
I don't know what's worse. The idea that you knew what you were doing, or that you didn't.
Circlejerk could you take this shit to the water cooler where it belongs? Some of us avoid that place like the plague for a reason.
What’s wrong with you? You’re trolling some random dude on a basketball forum about a comment they made on another forum. Show some tact. Ban him if it was that bad.
My therapist said it was good for me to vent about Crean. So please don’t screw this board up and my opportunity to vent.
Need to get this thread back on track . . . unlike Crean and Georgia's plane that did not make it to the game at Temple because the plane went off track and was stuck in the mud. Trying again tomorrow. lol
I have committed a mortal sin if I have interrupted someone's therapist-directed attacks on the Orange Menace. My sincere apologies.
Ban me from the free board please. Lmfao, you pay for this shit.
That blue badge is just for show. I am the lowest of all moderators. I delete pictures of naked women on the OTF. That's it. Such a hard job.
But seriously, you should pony up for a few months and try the premium forum out. It really is worth the money.
Crean is a classic narcissist. When you look at everything he does through that lens he's easy to figure out.
Walk through Cook hall. Notice who has the biggest displays and largest presence??
Re watch his victory lap vs Illinois. Who is that about? The players?
Watch the team promo videos from his time. They were all tagged with a Tom Crean signature.
Even recently, read this innocent and nice tweet that he sent out to the Georgia Twitter account and see if you can spot the narcissism.
Thank you to everyone that came to the STEG tonight for our opener. It means a lot to all of us at
@UGABasketball
and personally, I’ve looked forward to seeing the passion and energy you can and will bring. It was an honor to stand on YOUR sideline as YOUR coach.
Lol even when he's trying to be inclusive it's always about Tom.
This, I don't want to read about racism and sh*t when we are trying to discuss basketball. This ish makes the thread unreadable.
If only the pilot had gone faster...!
One of the refreshing things I heard earlier this year was Archie discussing how getting back on defense is a priority. He addressed having two players laying on the ground or standing on the baseline as the ball is being pushed up the court.
I hated under Crean how our back court was often empty while everyone crashed the board. Teams took advantage of that every single game. A big annoyance was also how our guards made drives where they had to dive to get the shot off. How many times did we see JBJ, Yogi, Rojo, Troy, et. al. on the ground while the other team was on a fast break the other way?
If you have to end up on the ground to make a shot attempt on a drive, you probably needed to pass to the corner or drop the ball off to someone that wasn't being guarded. You could also jump out of bounds and pass the ball.
Crean allowed things a high school coach would bench a player for doing.
This crap does not belong here. Take your hissy fit elsewhere.
It appears his ceiling is multiple major conference champion and Final 4, based on his actual previous results. His problem was not his ceiling--it was his floor. When things didn't break his way for one reason or another, it was bad. Like "going from ranked #3 to missing the tournament and losing in the first round of the NIT in a game you played on the road because you didn't want to face the home fans after missing the tournament" bad...
It's not magic. It's not that he's missing some thing other coaches are born with. His priorities were violently skewed toward offense, both in coaching and recruiting. He usually didn't teach or recruit defense, and didn't hire anyone to do it for him. The only good defensive teams in his tenure had kids that came in wanting to defend, and understanding that part of the game without having to be coached up. Mainly, it was Zeller, Oladipo, and Sheehey.
People complain about the turnovers all the time...but the turnovers weren't the real problem. The offense was generally good notwithstanding the higher turnovers, because the shots it generated went in more often. But the offense did have a wider range of variability than the average college basketball offense. That's why his ceiling was final four and not national champion. The team was bound, over the course of 6 games in 3 weeks, to throw up a clunker on offense. And with no defense to fall back on, his teams are certain to lose at some point, as the continue to face increasingly stiff competition.
If you can't win a national championship, you won't get to keep coaching at IU. Maybe you can, if you make the tournament every year. Maybe. Crean didn't do that either. Our standards are higher than he could deliver. It's possible, with an adjustment in his priorities, that his ceiling could go up, but I doubt it will happen. He had 4 years after the Syracuse loss to figure it out, and nothing changed.
Georgia might be good for him. They won't demand a tournament appearance every year, and Atlanta produces some talent. That's probably his last job. He'll make the tournament 60% of the time, produce a bunch of highlights and blow-out wins over weak schools, and win a few games now and then. If he can't make it work there, he'll pull an Al McGuire and go into broadcasting.
In terms of coaching careers, this is pretty damn good. Most high school coaches would trade their soul for it. But it's not Elite, of course, which is what coaching at IU requires.
The turnovers made the lack of defensive focus even more damaging. I kept a tally of how many Troy Williams first possession turnovers he made in a row. It was 4 in one stretch. Those turnovers led to a quick scores. Sometimes it was a transition 3. We were often down one or more scores before we took our first shot. It was predictable. If it wasn't Troy, it was another player before he had a chance to touch the ball.
Archie give me relief because he sees what is obvious to all of us that have seen championship caliber basketball. He will address turnovers, poor defense, and poor shot selection. His remedy won't be to do more of it.
One of my clients has several Georgia alumni and one person that has an IU Master's degree from 2002. They were all excited to have Crean this summer. They won't notice the basketball season has started for another 6 weeks. By then, they will have a good record over bad teams and be planning to be in the NCAA tournament. Reality will catch up to them as the high turnover and bad defensive teams get rolled in conference play.
Anecdotes don't really tell us much. IU certainly did turn the ball over on a higher percentage of their possessions than some other schools. But the big issue, that was consistent across Creans' years was that lack of defense.
Last year, Archie brought our turnover percentage down about 3.1%. This is a jump from about 321st in D1 to 162nd (from bad to average). But our record was basically the same. Our defensive rating improved some, but not that much--from 104th to 65th (from slightly above average nationally to ok). That's not much of a correlation. I think it's more likely that there is an interceding cause of both things improving: Archie Miller's coaching focus.
To be sure, less turnovers is better than more turnovers. And it's harder to play defense after a live-ball turnover than a made basket. But the difference in turnovers (one extra turnover per 33 possessions, is equivalent to two or three points per game, offset by whatever extra scoring the higher eFG% produces. The proof is in the long term stats though. Indiana was a top-40 offense in 5 of his last 6 seasons. Crean's offense worked. His defense, on the other hand, was only top-40 twice in his last 6 years.
"Reality" is a funny thing. Crean's "high turnover and bad defensive teams" got rolled all the way to multiple conference championships in the Big Ten. Hyperbole aside, it would be great if we could all just accept what Crean was (a good coach with a fatal flaw), what he wasn't (an elite coach capable of winning a national championship), and move on to finding out if Archie is better or not. I'm optimistic that he is. Our first true test is tonight. Should be fun.
Good point, but I think that his biggest problem, imo, is that his narcissism relates to a feeling of insecurity over never having played the game, even at the HS level. To me, he always is trying to convince everyone that he knows more about basketball than anyone else....that's why he's so into the lingo and also why he sounds pretty good as a commentator.
There are other narcissists (eg. Bob Knight) who are also damn good coaches because they have so much confidence in their abilities. I don't think Crean does, but that he tries to convince everyone else he knows what he's doing. I kinda feel bad for the guy, until I think about the $ he walked off with after getting canned.
At least that's what my shrink says.
Great post.....I never would have thought IU had a top 40 D twice in his last 6 years.
Charlie Daniels is playing his song; "The Devil went down to Georgia." I'm so glad he's gone. I do agree that he gave it his best. His style of turnover hoops never was well suited for the IU crowd. Not enough fundamentals.
Good luck to Crean and Georgia. I'm a Hoosier and I'm fired up about tonight's game.
Go Hoosiers!
Good luck to Crean and Georgia. I'm a Hoosier and I'm fired up about tonight's game.
Go Hoosiers!
Crean is not a good coach. He is an average coach. He has many flaws besides his lack of defensive priority and valuing quantity of possessions over the quality of possessions. His game management and maniacal need to play his entire roster in the first 10 minutes reminded me of coaching grade school booster league teams. The difference was we had to play all the kids, he didn't. His teams peaked in the early part of the season. More coaching didn't result in better performance.
I would have to look at individual games, but I recall a general improvement in most games on turnovers with a few spikes from our inadequate guard play. We equaled Crean's last year record despite less talent, poor free throw shooting, poor outside shooting and no length in the middle. Defense and turnovers were really the only things we did better.
Defense will continue improving as will turnovers under Archie. I predict Georgia will not improve in these areas over the next few years unless they were at the bottom last year.
Crean's conference titles didn't get us past the Sweet 16. One of those teams had 2 lottery picks. Imagine what a good coach would have done with that team.
have you ever seen crean shoot a ball? he looks like he never shot a ball in his life. hysterical
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