Good catch. I thought we were a 3 that year. Nonetheless, stellar coaching job leading a team with DWade to a first round loss against Tulsa.
Do you feel Crean was a better coach than Buzz? Seems you haven't weighed in on the topic, so lets get your rankings!
At Indiana, Bobby Knight had stellar coaching jobs in losing first-round NCAA tournament games to double-digit seeds Pepperdine, Boston College, Richmond and Cleveland State. I'm guessing you think he was a pretty good coach.
Hell, Shaka went 9 years without winning a single NCAA tournament game, including a loss to a 14-seeded Abilene Christian team that a Texas squad with 4 NBA players should have beaten by 20+. And I know you think Shaka is a great coach despite that stellar coaching job.
So the argument that Crean was bad because he lost to a 12-seed to end Wade's first college season (and then went to the Final Four one year later) is an interesting one.
Both Williams and Crean contributed a lot to Marquette basketball. Crean left Williams much more talent than most first-year coaches receive to work with: Matthews, James, McNeil, Hayward, Acker, Cubillan, Fulce, Burke.
Williams had two full years at Marquette - one as Crean's assistant, one as the head coach of a talented team - to recruit good players for his own second season. And he did a good job, landing Butler, DJO, Buycks and Maymon.
I'm not sure what the problem is with that Crean-to-Williams handoff.
Also ... this:
The more important question is:
Who effing cares?