Tom Crean goes from depths of December to outright Big Ten title
One month into a season that was likely to determine his future as Indiana coach, Tom Crean appeared to be in jeopardy of losing his job
He suffered bad losses in Maui to a Wake Forest team currently second-to-last in the ACC and a UNLV team that went on to fire its head coach. Then a starter's mom spouted off on social media that it was time to get her son "the F--- OUT OF IU!!" Then Duke shredded the Hoosiers' woeful defense in a 20-point ACC-Big Ten Challenge blowout.
As the bad losses piled up and the volume of calls for Crean's firing increased, merely making the NCAA tournament seemed to be a daunting goal for Indiana. Hardly anyone would have believed back then that the Hoosiers had any hope of ascending from the depths of Maui and Durham all the way to the top of the Big Ten.
Indiana accomplished the improbable Tuesday night when it clinched an outright conference title with a 81-78 victory at Iowa. Yogi Ferrell scored 20 points to help the Hoosiers build a 2.5-game advantage over second-place Michigan State, Maryland and Wisconsin with only a home game against the Terps still left to play.
Crean's second Big Ten title in four years should go a long way toward helping him win back the Indiana fans who wanted him gone. The Hoosiers had won the Big Ten only one time in the previous 20 seasons before Crean's first league title. No other coach has two outright Big Ten titles in the eight years since Crean was hired.
How did Crean take a team that allowed Duke to score at will in early December and transform it into a team capable of claiming the Big Ten crown? It starts with a renewed emphasis on defense.
One unlikely key was a season-ending injury to second leading scorer James Blackmon, which gave Crean the push he needed to go with a more defense-oriented lineup. Indiana had enough capable scorers not to miss Blackmon all that much and the Hoosiers were more solid defensively giving increased playing time to Robert Johnson and O.G. Anunoby.
The rapid development of Anunoby and the improvement of Thomas Bryant at defending ball screens have also been important. Nobody will mistake Indiana for a defensive juggernaut, but they've improved enough that an inability to string together stops is no longer undoing all the accomplishments of their top 10 offense.
In addition to its defensive improvement, Indiana also has benefited from Yogi Ferrell becoming the Big Ten player of the year candidate the Hoosiers hoped he could be. The senior point guard is averaging 17 points and 5.5 assists and shooting a higher percentage both from the field and behind the arc than he ever has in college.
It would be remiss not to point out that good fortune also greased the wheels of the Hoosiers' pursuit of the Big Ten title.
They benefited from a confidence-boosting soft early league schedule. They benefited from late collapses by Maryland and Iowa. They benefited from the ill-timed knee injury to Denzel Valentine that removed Michigan State from conference title contention.
That good luck should not detract from Indiana's accomplishment though. The Hoosiers deserve credit for improving enough to take advantage.
When Indiana last won the Big Ten outright behind Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo in 2013, Crean frittered away some of the good will from that season by failing to get the Hoosiers beyond the Sweet 16. They could not solve Syracuse's 2-3 zone and fell to a lesser-talented team, a huge disappointment for an Indiana team that spent much of the season ranked No. 1 in the country.
Expectations aren't quite so lofty for this Indiana team, but a strong March would certainly help Crean's case.
He has gotten many of his detractors to pipe down for now. A couple NCAA tournament wins might help Crean make believers out of the rest.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
