http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/2595372-the-inevitable-end-is-near-for-tom-crean-at-indiana?is_shared=true#The Inevitable End Is Near for Tom CreanDURHAM, N.C. — They slapped the floor.
In the midst of one of the most historically inept defensive performances in the proud history of Indiana basketball, the underachieving Hoosiers thought the answer to their woes was to slap Coach K's floor at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
So, just like everything these Hoosiers do when they don't have the ball this season, they halfheartedly slapped the floor.
Seconds later Duke guard Grayson Allen was throwing in a circus shot off the backboard to end the first half. The game ended with the ball back in Allen's hands, IU guard James Blackmon Jr. swiping at the ball as the buzzer sounded, Allen with a "c'mon bro" grin on his face and the scoreboard reading Duke 94, Indiana 74.
What. A. Joke.
This is what year eight of the Tom Crean experience has turned into. One big joke. Check Twitter during an IU basketball game and you'll find the angry epilogue of the Crean era. ("Crean" was trending, unshockingly, on Wednesday night, and no one was complimenting his snappy wardrobe.)
This is what the end looks like—the Hoosiers imitating what they think defense should look like...one miserable possession after another.
"We need to guard the ball better," Crean said, and that was the gist of his postgame message. Well, that and reminding everyone we were minutes away from Dec. 3.
"It's eight games in, and I think we'll get better," Crean said. "That's the bottom line."
And that's an acceptable answer for most coaches, but Crean is not most coaches. His seat is so hot you can get burned just walking by, and, yes, it is only Dec. 3, but Crean returned a majority of his core from a team last year that also would not guard.
This was the year that was supposed to improve. The Hoosiers, the theory went, lacked an interior presence and rim protector, so Crean signed 6'10" Thomas Bryant, the fifth-best power forward in 247Sports' class of 2015 composite rankings.
Bryant is not the answer.
So Crean has turned gimmicky, switching from man-to-man to zone coverage, and sometimes inside one possession. It's confusing. Not to the opponent, but to his team.
The Hoosiers spent several possessions against the seventh-ranked Blue Devils doing a lot of pointing and scrambling to where they thought they should be.
Duke freshman wing Brandon Ingram, who has had trouble scoring against college defenses and torched IU for a season-high 24 points, said he felt like he was back in high school. Makes sense. Ingram hasn't faced a defense that bad since high school.
When Allen was asked to compare IU's defenses to other defenses Duke had faced this year, this was his answer, verbatim, after a long pause: "Um, you know they're, uh, they're obviously different than a Kentucky defensively, because they're not...they don't have the same size, but um, uh, their guards—Yogi [Ferrell], [Robert] Johnson, um, Blackmon, they're all quick. Um, and they can kind of get to the ball. Um, they don't have, uh, Bryant being their lone true big at the rim to protect, so it's kind of different inside, but their guards do a good job of being quick and getting to the ball."
Allen...was...um...searching. His best effort at not admitting that D was pretty lousy.
Let's just allow the numbers to tell the story, shall we?
Duke scored 1.52 points per possession against Indiana. That's the most efficient the Blue Devils have been in a game in the last 15 years, according to Ken Pomeroy's data. That's also the highest mark the Hoosiers have ever allowed in the Crean era.
Worse than any game in Crean's first year on the job when Kelvin Sampson had put the program on probation and the depleted roster won just one Big Ten game.
That context is important, as is the fact that Crean brought IU back from life support. The Hoosiers have made three of the last four NCAA tournaments, and they were a No. 1 seed in 2013.
Crean is not a terrible coach, and he's actually a damn good program builder. The talent on this roster is actually strong. This team started the season ranked 15th. Troy Williams is probably the most athletic guy in college basketball and a first-round talent. Bryant and Blackmon will likely one day hear their names called in the NBA draft. Ferrell is one of college basketball's most respected point guards.
You can make excuses for why that talent isn't working, but nothing really sticks.
Crean pointed to the experience Duke had in the frontcourt as one reason his team got pushed around—the Devils had more offensive rebounds (19) than IU had defensive rebounds (16). But the Hoosiers have more experience across the board—Crean played four seniors and two juniors Wednesday night. Duke is the country's 296th-most experienced team, according to KenPom.com.
You could use size as an excuse for getting dominated in the paint and on the boards. But the Hoosiers are not the country's only program embracing small ball. Villanova, for example, has a 6'5" wing playing most of his minutes at power forward, and that's the country's best second-best defensive team.
Here's the only explanation that fits: Crean's message has grown stale in Bloomington.
The off-the-court issues and the bitterness toward Crean are bad enough. But the fact that this is the second year with a core that just doesn't seem to comprehend what it takes to stop the other team from scoring comes back to the man in charge.
Yes, it's only Dec. 3.
But all that means is Crean has four months to start his search for the next stop.
Because with each bad loss—this is the third in eight games, with the other two to less talented and less experienced teams—with each defensive lapse, the natives grow restless.
There's not much that can save him now. Not a floor slap. Not a magical zone.
Tom Crean is a lame duck in Bloomington.
