Xavier

[Doris Burkes Thong]

IMO, as far as quality of opponent I think Xavier was MU's best win of the year. Plus, they beat them on a neutral court by 10 points. I thought all along people weren't giving that win over Xavier enough credit leading up to Selection Sunday.

Watching Xavier right now against Pitt and "X" is up 12 and they look pretty impressive. Jordan Crawford is really playing well. Kid is making some spectacular plays.

[4everwarriors]

Sure, but why did Crawford leave IU when Crean arrived. Didn't he want to play for the coach who made DWade all that he is today?

[ChicosBailBonds]

Sure, but why did Crawford leave IU when Crean arrived. Didn't he want to play for the coach who made DWade all that he is today?

Do you want the back story?  It's pretty simple....starting with the fact they were going on probation and they had zero chance at a post season.  Again, pretty simple.

[4everwarriors]

Go figure, I must be an idiot, everything is so simple. Who killed Nicole Simpson?

[ChicosBailBonds]

Go figure, I must be an idiot, everything is so simple. Who killed Nicole Simpson?

It's not hard.

Jordan, you can stay here and the club will be on probation a minimum of one, maybe two years and who knows what else (who will leave, who will come here, etc) or you can sit out a year and play at perennial NCAA team Xavier.   Oh, and the guy that recruited you won't be here any longer, either.  What's your decision?

Sidenote...the only game he didn't score in double figures all year this year was against Marquette.


And my vote is on OJ....also convicted of stealing DIRECTV signals.  Bastard!

[mu_hilltopper]

Xavier is quality. 

2006-got in, lost
2007-Won a game
2008-Elite 8
2009-S16
2010-S16 and counting

Like MU, 5 years of making the tourney, but with FAR better results .. 4 straight of winning at least their first game, an E8 and two S16s (at least).

I was talking to NY Warrior .. I'm thinking we should switch allegiances and become Musketeer fans to avoid MU's March Soul Crushing Defeats. 

X is Jesuit, so it's not a big jump.  Maybe credits transfer?

"Cracked Xidewalks" for the blog ..

[4everwarriors]

Sure, but can it be sustained after Sean Miller's players leave?

[GregClausenForever]

Xavier is quality. 

2006-got in, lost
2007-Won a game
2008-Elite 8
2009-S16
2010-S16 and counting

Like MU, 5 years of making the tourney, but with FAR better results .. 4 straight of winning at least their first game, an E8 and two S16s (at least).

I was talking to NY Warrior .. I'm thinking we should switch allegiances and become Musketeer fans to avoid MU's March Soul Crushing Defeats. 

X is Jesuit, so it's not a big jump.  Maybe credits transfer?

"Cracked Xidewalks" for the blog ..

I was just thinking about this topic while watching the Xavier game today.  I'm jealous that they've actually been the most successful Jesuit program over the last five years. 

Sure, we have more history.  But do we have a higher ceiling of potential at this point?  I'm not so sure.

[NavinRJohnson]

Who killed Nicole Simpson?

Probably not the best way to make your point, as that case could not have been any simpler or more clear cut (no pun intended).

[StillWarriors]

I'm biased b/c my brother went there, but I've been drinking the X Kool-aid on this board for a while.Great program despite losing a few coaches. Great fan support, nice on campus arena and consistent sucess. X and Mi St are the only schools I believe to have made the Sweet 16 the last 3 yrs. Pretty impressive for a small private school. 

[Lennys Tap]

Do you want the back story?  It's pretty simple....starting with the fact they were going on probation and they had zero chance at a post season.  Again, pretty simple.

For whatever reason he decided he didn't want to play for Crean. Sound familiar?

[rocky_warrior]

Again, pretty simple.

Really chicos?  Do you eat Crean of wheat for breakfast too?


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/basketball/ncaa/wires/03/20/2060.ap.bkc.ncaa.tournament.notebook.1264/

He played his freshman year for the Hoosiers under Kelvin Sampson, then interim coach Dan Dakich and was still with the team briefly when replacement Tom Crean arrived. Crawford transferred to Xavier to play for Sean Miller, who left to take the Arizona job, and is now a star for former Xavier assistant Chris Mack.

Bassett was recruited by Mike Davis and played for Sampson before being kicked out of the program by Dakich.

Bassett left for UAB before landing at Ohio. He scored 32 points in the first-round win, but the Bobcats were eliminated by Tennessee on Saturday.

Holloway is the starting point guard for the Musketeers and is averaging 11.7 points and 3.9 assists this season. Ebanks scored 16 points and had 13 rebounds for the Mountaineers in their first-round win and will play Missouri on Sunday.

Another Indiana connection is Saint Mary's Ben Allen, who played at the school from 2005-07. Allen scored six points Saturday in a win over Villanova and the Gaels advanced to the South Regional semifinals.

The Hoosiers have a 16-46 record under Crean, and Crawford said he understands fans' frustration with what happened at Indiana.

"We were so good and then when everybody leaves, people just get so mad that the team's not going to be good no more,'' he said. "We had to get blamed for it.''

But he said the whispers about attitude problems and dissension among the former Hoosiers were overblown, and he's on a mission to change them this March.

"That's the rep we got,'' Crawford said. "Now, we're making a new rep.''

[ChicosBailBonds]

Xavier is quality. 

2006-got in, lost
2007-Won a game
2008-Elite 8
2009-S16
2010-S16 and counting

Like MU, 5 years of making the tourney, but with FAR better results .. 4 straight of winning at least their first game, an E8 and two S16s (at least).

I was talking to NY Warrior .. I'm thinking we should switch allegiances and become Musketeer fans to avoid MU's March Soul Crushing Defeats. 

X is Jesuit, so it's not a big jump.  Maybe credits transfer?

"Cracked Xidewalks" for the blog ..

Look at their seedings

14 seed....got bounced in first round in 2006
9 seed....won one game in 2007
3 seed....won 3 games and went to Elite 8 in 2008
4 seed...won 2 games and went to Sweet 16 in 2009
6 seed....won 2 games and still playing in 2010

Other this year, they're basically following to form of the seeds. 

Good for them, plus they graduate players at 89%....a lot to like about their program.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Really chicos?  Do you eat Crean of wheat for breakfast too?


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/basketball/ncaa/wires/03/20/2060.ap.bkc.ncaa.tournament.notebook.1264/

That's a funny comment Rocky..not a big Cream (Crean) of Wheat person...I like my Buzz cereal instead


..you forgot some of these quotes, also from SI and other publications, from last month and further back about the situation.....can you believe it, they were going to make him, gasp, go to class and study hall.  


Crawford said he knew it was time to leave when he saw one of the last Hoosiers holdovers, Brandon McGee, running stadium steps in the rain, as punishment for being late to study hall."He was two or three minutes late," Crawford said. "It was after the first day of summer classes. No homework. I was thinking, if they're going to do him like that, they're going to do me like that, too."

and on why he left after the Sampson debacle...."I wish all the grown people with the power would realize the situations they leave these young people in," (Sylvia Crawford - Jordan's mother) said. "You trust they're on top of things. You put a lot of trust in the university. It challenges my faith in them. Why is the kid the one punished?"


And that's only part of the story.....the transfer, by the way, happened two weeks PRIOR to IU even appearing before the NCAA and a full 2 months before sanctions were given.


Furthermore...back to the "it's pretty simple" fellas....he applied for immediate playing time waiver from the NCAA due to the mess at IU.   Here's the paragraph of note, "Jordan Crawford is expected to appeal for immediate eligibility at Xavier, citing the unusual circumstances of Indiana's predicament as cause for lenience. He leaves IU in good academic standing but ostensibly chose to depart because the program was so decimated by the events of the past year. Other players recently have been granted waivers of the year-in-residence rule, including Tennessee's Tyler Smith (from Iowa) and Georgetown's Julian Vaughn (from Florida State); those two cases involved medical issues with family members that made moving to schools closer to home important."


Lenny....that's correct, the only difference being that MU wasn't on probation, facing probation, under a hint of probation, had every player kicked off the team sans one, etc.  Otherwise, dead on....definitely an apples to apples situation.    

[rocky_warrior]

Chicos, you of anyone should realize it's not "simple".  The kids were slimed in the media, and luckily most of them landed safely at schools that were willing to let them finish their education, and even get a chance to play again.

Crean is at least half responsible for creating this decimation that you speak of.  From your own quotes, Crean still had valuable players on campus (i.e. Crawford) when he got there, who were still academically eligible, and pushed them out for such travesties as showing up late for study hall on the first day of summer classes. No homework.

For fear of causing thread drift, I leave it that I'm glad to see Crawford doing well at Xavier in spite of what I believe to be unfair media propaganda against him, and some of his former teammates at IU.

[Marquette84]

Chicos, you of anyone should realize it's not "simple".  The kids were slimed in the media, and luckily most of them landed safely at schools that were willing to let them finish their education, and even get a chance to play again.

Crean is at least half responsible for creating this decimation that you speak of.  From your own quotes, Crean still had valuable players on campus (i.e. Crawford) when he got there, who were still academically eligible, and pushed them out for such travesties as showing up late for study hall on the first day of summer classes. No homework.

For fear of causing thread drift, I leave it that I'm glad to see Crawford doing well at Xavier in spite of what I believe to be unfair media propaganda against him, and some of his former teammates at IU.

I'm just curious, Rocky, how you would instill the sense that academics are important?

Say you're the coach and you're trying to establish respect for the importance of academics.  You therefore put a rule in place--you're late for study hall even one minute, and you run.  

Now a kid comes in late on the first day.  Whether he intended to or not, he's testing you.  Seeing if you were really serious about being on time for academics.  Really going to enforce the rule.  Really going to give the punishment you said you were going to give.

Do you make him run?

If you don't, one of the outcomes is you've given every subsequent latecomer the ability to skip the penalties.  One day a kid is three minutes late, then next week another kid is late--his argument is that you let Crawford come late without running.   How do you say its okay for Crawford to be late one day, but not another player the next?  So you give the next player a pass as well.  

Now you establish another rule--the questions in the kids heads are "Are you really going to enforce it?" and "How far can I push this and get away with it?"

Making Crawford run on day one makes it crystal clear for every player on the team that academics are  priority, and you can't cut corners.  If you enforce your rule from day one, you demonstrate to the rest of the team that you're not joking around--that you're absolutely serious about the importance of academics.  And you probably never have to enforce it again.

The bottom line is Crean had a good record on academic peformance at MU, Sampson didn't at IU.  

[ChicosBailBonds]

You're right, Chicos, it is pretty simple. It's Indiana! It's Indiana!

Not when ...it's probation!  It's probation!, and you only have 3 more years to play.  Funny, a lot of kids don't want to sit home and be ineligible for post season play so they move on.

[rocky_warrior]

I'm just curious, Rocky, how you would instill the sense that academics are important?

Right, cuz I heard running stadium steps is a great way to improve grades. 

[ChicosBailBonds]

Bottom line, the kid left because IU was going on probation for unknown number of years, the team was gutted (everyone kicked off) and he didn't want to have to deal with that.

Yes, it's THAT SIMPLE and people making into anything more than that are ignoring the facts, are ignoring his reinstatement request, are ignoring his own words at the time, etc, etc.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

What's the big deal?

The kid didn't really want to play for Crean and/or didn't want to play for a school of probation.

What's the debate?

[ChicosBailBonds]

What's the big deal?

The kid didn't really want to play for Crean and/or didn't want to play for a school of probation.

What's the debate?

There really isn't a debate, just some people wanting to invent facts that don't exist to further perpetuate a hatred toward a former coach.  Facts be damned....same old stuff basically. 

[Niv Berkowitz]

I seriously hope for this site's sake that five years from now every post stops evolving into a "Crean was good" vs. "Crean was horrible" post. It's gotten so tired and pathetic.

[rocky_warrior]

Facts be damned....same old stuff basically. 

Oy, my "debate" is that these kids got a bad rap because of the "facts" that Crean created when he kicked them out.  Most of the players have moved on, and are successful at their new schools, I'm happy to hear that.

Crawford himself said

"We were so good and then when everybody leaves, people just get so mad that the team's not going to be good no more,'' he said. "We had to get blamed for it.''

But he said the whispers about attitude problems and dissension among the former Hoosiers were overblown, and he's on a mission to change them this March.

"That's the rep we got,'' Crawford said. "Now, we're making a new rep.''

All I'm saying is that it doesn't seem that they actually had bad attitudes, chicos seems to want to point to his "facts" (parentheses, because these facts are hearsay) that they did indeed have bad attitudes.

I'll leave it alone though, cuz clearly we still all have our minds made up. 

Again, glad to see Xavier and Crawford doing well.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Oy, my "debate" is that these kids got a bad rap because of the "facts" that Crean created when he kicked them out.  Most of the players have moved on, and are successful at their new schools, I'm happy to hear that.

Crawford himself said
All I'm saying is that it doesn't seem that they actually had bad attitudes, chicos seems to want to point to his "facts" (parentheses, because these facts are hearsay) that they did indeed have bad attitudes.

I'll leave it alone though, cuz clearly we still all have our minds made up. 

Again, glad to see Xavier and Crawford doing well.

To be fair, just because a couple of the kids have success in the tournament this year does not mean they were saints 2 years ago at IU.

I'm not saying they were terrible and deserved to be kicked out, I'm just saying that a lot kids mature as they get older.

With most things, there are 3 truths to this story. "Crean's truth", "Crawford's truth" and the actual truth. We don't really know what happened.