Chicago look around

[brewcity77]

My only quibble with this piece is this: Why is Indiana automatically more likely to produce Final Four teams than Marquette?

I think a few people ran a bit wild with this comment, which wasn't exactly what McGrath said. What he said was "Crean wanted another bite of the Final Four apple he'd had with Wade in 2003, and he was more likely to get it in Bloomington."

Looking at the current college basketball landscape, I'd say that is an accurate statement. That Crean was more likely to get to another Final Four in Bloomington. That does not mean that Crean will get to a Final Four before Buzz does.

Consider the recruiting of both schools. Crean left us with some bankrupt classes (as a recruiter he was very hit-or-miss) I feel largely because he wasn't an expansive recruiter. Our foundation players under Crean -- guys like R-Jax, Wade, Diener, Novak, Matthews, Jerel, and DJ -- were all relatively local, Midwest guys. It was the rare exception (Hayward) that were highly-touted recruits from far beyond our borders.

That really hasn't changed for him at IU. Crean has recruited a bit outside Indiana's borders, guys like Watford and Oladipo, but for the most part, he's trying to recruit guys like Zeller and Hulls that are local. Look at his 2011 and 2012 classes: 5/7 are from Indiana, and one of the other two is from down the road in Louisville. Crean is a local recruiter, he doesn't do the nationwide thing very well. So for him, he was better off going somewhere with a fertile local bed of talent.

Buzz, on the other hand, recruits everywhere. We've landed key recruits from California, Texas, Georgia, the East Coast, Canada, and locally from Chicago to Madison. This has given us a deeper team than we ever had with Crean, because Buzz is better at broad-base recruiting.

But none of that says that IU is a better bet to get to a Final Four sooner than Marquette, only that Crean was more likely to get to another Final Four sooner at IU than Crean was at Marquette. While IU is turning it around in a hurry (at least the needle is pointing up this year) I still think most people would look at us as more likely to get there in the next two years. But beyond that...well, Crean is certainly starting to gain some ground.