According to Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal's Todd Rosiak, Tom Crean turned down more than $2. 5 million per year from Arkansas. Arkansas has been without a coach since they fired Stan Heath, and their top six choices have all turned them down.
The deal would have made Crean the highest paid coach in college basketball.
That likely means one of two things is true:
- Crean thinks he can get more elsewhere (i.e. Kentucky, MSU)--a gutsy move since he didn't know that Billy Donovan and Rick Barnes would turn down Kentucky until after Crean took a pass on the Arkansas job
- Crean really does believe that the MU job and Milwaukee area are special to he and his family, and he simply isn't interested in leaving.
And the whole issue may be moot if reports that Texas A&M's Billy Gillespie will take the UK job turn out to be true.
At least until Andy Katz reports that Tom Crean is a leading candidate for that job.
Meanwhile, the hardest working recruiter in the Big East was checking out Jamil Wilson of Racine Horlick on Thursday, travelling to see future warrior Damian Saunders on Friday, and then out to Las Vegas to watch an AAU tournament.
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If nothing else, Crean's endless flirtations with other programs offers Marquette fans the opportunity to see what people (other than media types who fawn over him for returning their calls) think of him across the country.
The evidence is pretty clear that he's thought of as a guy who rode Dwyane Wade to the Final Four. Considering Marquette's minimal success since, it's hard to argue.
WSSP Radio just reported that Gillespie took the Kentucky job. Looks like the dominoes stop here.
One reason Crean may have turned down that amount of money to coach Arkansas is because their athletic program is an absolute mess. Their football program has been gutted by transfers and coaches leaving and is run by a meglomaniac. Their basketball program fired a coach that got them to the NCAAs with players with multiple academic issues and drug suspensions. I find it humorous that the coach landed on his feet and that Arkansas will likely end up with a coach with even a lighter resume
maybe now the manic panic hysteria will subside, and the world will believe that A. Big East is clearly a great place to coach, B. Marquette is a program on the rise, C. Maybe Coach really, reallt does like it in Milwaukee, likes the people he works for, likes the people he works with, and rewards the loyalty and commitment shown to him with the same.
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