Marquette University wishes Tom Crean, his wife Joani and the Crean family the very best as he pursues new professional opportunities. Tom and Joani have been an important part of our Marquette family for the past nine years, devoting countless hours not only to our men's basketball program but to other athletic and community endeavors as well.
Coach Crean has brought pride, honor and a winning mentality to our men's basketball program. It is no surprise that other universities would seek him out.
Coach Crean put Marquette back in the forefront of college basketball by embracing our strong tradition and building a competitive program for today. His tutelage resulted in three recent Marquette graduates earning NBA contracts. In his nine seasons, Marquette has averaged 20 wins a year, won a conference championship and made eight postseason appearances, including the 2003 Final Four and this year's second-round loss to Stanford. Since 2001, Crean has directed the Golden Eagles to 190 victories. He is a two-time recipient of the Ray Meyer Conference USA, NABC District XI and USBWA District V Coach of the Year awards, and in 2003 won the Coach Clair Bee Award as well as being named a finalist for the Naismith National Coach of the Year Award.
The basketball program Tom has built is strong, with talented players and staff and solid university support. We anticipate that a Marquette coaching vacancy will attract many well-qualified candidates. We look forward to continuing Marquette's winning legacy and to competing successfully at the highest national level.
Classy response from the university to some bad news.
ReplyDeleteOnward. Let's get someone who can recruit and coach from the bench.
Sorry to see Coach Crean go. He had us dreaming of brighter and bigger days ahead but this is the way of the coaching world. We'll see him in a few years at the Final Four.
ReplyDeleteIs Kevin O'Neill available to come back? Rumor is he is not getting Arizona and he fits well with what we want and need!
Let's start a movement -- BRING KEVIN BACK!!!!
No let's not. O'Neal would be a TERRIBLE move. Just awful.
ReplyDeleteAgain, why keep going either a) back to the past or b) with someone local or with roots to Milwaukee?
Get the best candidate available and frankly, O'Neal and Majerus shouldn't even be in the top 25 of anyone's choices.
But for those of you that hated Crean and wanted him gone, congrats! You got what you wished for.
I hope they at least make a run at the likes of lowery, bennet, miller, and grant. I'd look at Skiles too; he can coach, fight, and doesn't snitch, but recruiting is the great unknown. I just hope it's someone that is already proven.
ReplyDeleteYeah we did get what we wished for Gene now go cry in your pillow you baby!
ReplyDeleteI am shocked by this one and not shocked by this one. It reminds me of the 1984 Classic Film "Hardbodies" where Scottie, the lead character was charged with taking 3 older guys and teaching them to land "Harbodies", who of course were California's young mid-1980s beach blondes. The secret to Scotty's success was not his natural good looks, and surely not his intellect, but on his advice. Hard Bodies go for the BBD - the Bigger and Better Deal. So the metaphor, Tom Crean is the Hard Body, IU is the Bigger and Better Deal, an allurement of something in life more attractive than the life currently lived. So the extended metaphor goes. Tom Crean is the attractive blonde in a dead-end job selling tanning lotion pool side in a dead-end beach town. IU is the Hollywood Acting contract, the photograph shoot that lands the big modeling contract. IU is Janice Dickinson. IU is Larry Flynt. But this scenario goes badly. For once the initial euphoria of the BBD enticement wears off, the hard body realizes how much she misses that lotion stand and her friends at the beach and the hollywood modeling gig is not all it is cracked out to be. She had to sleep with the photographer to even meet Janice Dickinson and then Janice gives her a brush off and tells her she is too fat. The whole thing was a set-up and she's booted out the door, and she can't return to her old lotion stand for fear of embarrassment. IU isn't the bigger and better deal. It's allure is a brand that the basketball world used to respect, but it went under different ownership, they changed the recipe and now the brand still has a name but the product sucks. IU is Schlitz Beer. Tom Crean, perhaps he remembers that his dad enjoyed a good Schlitz beer. Maybe Tom Crean believes he can resurrect the brand and everyone can revere the return of the 1970s brand Schlitz, pull off metal tab and all. But come on. No DJ White, No Arman Bassett, Eric Gordon fleeing way too early for the NBA, two recruits bailing on their commitment. That is one skunky beer. I realize that I've passed over one metaphor in favor of a more relatable beer metaphor, but as an MU grad, it only makes sense. You leave Jarel McNeal, Wes Matthews, Lazare Hayward, and a run at a much better conference championship and another final four in the rear-view mirror. What is the bigger and better deal? That's one dumb blonde. And hopefully, young Bennett, welcome to the High Life.
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