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Indiana Hoosiers: Revisiting The ‘Wat Shot’

By Jacob Rude

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The Foundation

“Tom Crean knew it was bad at Indiana, but he didn’t realize how bad it was.” – Ken Bikoff

“Statistically speaking, it was the worst basketball Indiana University had ever played. It was like the team was being forced to atone for its sins through self-flagellation.” – ChronicHoosier

To put it simply, Indiana University was no longer elite and finding a coach willing to try put it all back together was going to be no easy task.

The Hoosiers were linked to many names in their search. Steve Alford, an IU alumni and head coach at New Mexico, was a fan favorite. However, having just begun coaching the Lobos, getting Alford out of his contract would be very tricky and proved to be a task Indiana was not up to.

Indiana instead turned it’s attention to Tony Bennett out of Washington State. Reportedly just a day after being eliminated from the Sweet 16, Bennett was offered the head coaching position. However, he would turn down the offer and remove his name from the coaching search, putting IU back to square one.

“Everybody felt, at Indiana, as long as he was able to get the ship righted in terms of bringing in the right personnel with the right attitude that he could be successful.”

Athletic Director Rick Greenspan’s next candidate came up only after Bennett turned the job down, turning toward Marquette and head coach Tom Crean. The two sides talked for the next two days, eventually hammering out an agreement by Wednesday, April 8, 2008.

“I was certainly relieved the flames had been extinguished & was cautiously optimistic about the path forward,” said popular Indiana Hoosier Twitter personality Chronic Hoosier on the hiring of Crean.

Crean presented himself as many things that Sampson wasn’t, which was a good sign for Indiana’s future.

“When they brought [Crean] in, it was a guy certainly who was different than Davis or Kelvin,” Bikoff said. “It was basically the exact opposite. He was a guy who graduated his players, who had some success when Dwyane Wade was at Marquette, and had won at a place like Marquette that was in a tough conference and was competing and battling and winning.

“Everybody felt, at Indiana, as long as he was able to get the ship righted in terms of bringing in the right personnel with the right attitude that he could be successful.”

Crean’s first task was assembling a roster, a difficult challenge. Crean’s two holdovers from the previous year, Brett Finkelmeier and Kyle Taber, combined to score 30 points in 22 games in 2007-08.

“Tom Crean’s first year, he basically needed warm bodies,” Bikoff said. “You’re rebuilding a roster from scratch in April, and that’s not easy to do. The bottom line is, that first year, expectations were rock bottom.”

Put frankly, the Hoosiers were bad. Really bad.

The Hoosiers traveled to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational and were walloped by Notre Dame by 38 points. They barely escaped with a win over Chaminade in the final game. They blew a 21-point lead against Lipscomb at home prior to the start of the Big Ten season. They matched the worst losing streak in Indiana history with 11 straight losses.

“There was no guarantee this Indiana program was going to come back,” Bikoff said. “Everyone just assumed coming in it’d get back to where it was. There’s no guarantee that was going to happen. Just because it says Indiana across your chest doesn’t mean you’re automatically get back to where you can go to Final Fours and Sweet 16s.”

However, Crean instilled principles in his team from the get-go that Sampson neglected. His teams battled for wins and fought despite their shortcomings. There were key pieces for the future that were brought in during that first year, namely Verdell Jones and Tom Pritchard.

For his on-court struggles, Crean was really knocking it out of the park in the recruiting trail. A month after taking the job, Crean landed Maurice Creek, a player he had recruited while at Marquette. Later that month, he landed a hometown point guard in Jordan Hulls. He picked up a versatile forward from Alabama in early September named Christian Watford.

Not surprisingly, those players stepped in and played big minutes for Crean. All three averaged at least 25 minutes a game their freshman years. Unfortunately for Crean, the season was again filled with more moral victories than tangible ones.

Against the #4 ranked Kentucky Wildcats, the Hoosiers battled through the first half and into the second thanks to 31 points from Creek, but were victim to an 18-0 run in the second half that decided the game. Later that season, in a game against Purdue, ranked #8 at the time, the Hoosiers again put up a worthy fight, this time taking a lead with just under six minutes to go in the contest. However, a subsequent 9-0 run from the Boilermakers sunk the Hoosiers once again.

In his second year, Crean managed a 10-21 record, an improvement from the 6-25 record he sported the year prior. Still, despite the struggles off the court, the Hoosiers brought in more talent on the recruit trail, nabbing commitments from a pair of athletic guards in Will Sheehey and Victor Oladipo.

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The speed bumps were still to come. After a 6-0 start to the 2010-11 season, the Hoosiers would go on to win just 6 of the final 26 games of the year. Much like the season before, the Hoosiers failed to close games.

They again gave Kentucky a scare, holding a one-point lead with 10 minutes to go. The Wildcats would finish the game on a 25-5 run to win in a blowout. Crean’s charges held a half-time lead over #18 Wisconsin, only to see it all slip away late in the second half en route to another frustrating loss.

When Illinois came in on January 27, the Hoosiers had lost 19 straight games against ranked teams. They were 1-6 in the Big Ten conference and had a .500 record. They were down both Jones and Creek, who were out with injuries.

In spite of all that, they held a 46-42 lead with 5:04 left, only to watch Illinois answer with a 7-0 run to take a 49-46 lead. This time, however, the Hoosiers didn’t collapse. With under a minute to go, Pritchard tipped in miss to give the Hoosiers a 50-49 lead, one they would not relinquish.

The win marked a monumental one for the Hoosiers. After so many close calls, they finally had pulled out an upset, and Crean was as grateful as ever.

“After wins, [Crean] would go shake hands with the students,” Bikoff said. “After that Illinois game…instead of going to the locker room, he went straight up the stairs [to the lobby]. That was the time he decided he was going to thank the fans and go out in the lobby.

“You could see the joy and how far the program had come and how happy he was to have taken them there. That was one of those moments where he could see the hard work starting to pay off and he wanted to thank the fans for the help they had in building that.”

Indiana hosted #18-ranked Minnesota in it’s next home game, leading by as many as 16 points in the second half before hanging on for a three-point victory, their second straight win over a ranked opponent at home.

The Hoosiers would go on to lose their final nine games of the season, showing the work that still needed to be done. But the foundation was built. The Hoosiers were improving. Tom Crean had them going in the right direction.They were just one piece away.

Next: The Return

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