Wells's hit piece on Indiana's Tom Crean misses the mark.

We'll return to the "much tougher Big East" later.  Next, Brad notes, correctly, that Crean has a really long and really lucrative contract, and then produces this howler:

I think that this quote begins to expose the petulant, childish tone (and substance) of this article.  According to an article from the Indianapolis Business Journal last September, IU's athletic department budget is $55 million per year.  In other words, $18 million would amount to about a third of IU's athletic budget.  "But Daaaaaaddyyy...it's only eighteen million dollars!!!"

All that said, the $18 million figure is pulled out of thin air and bears no relation to reality.  Crean's contract is a matter of public record, and the guys at Inside the Hall have been kind enough to host a copy on their site for anyone who might bother to read it.  While IU guarantees Crean a certain level of other income, his base salary is $600,000 per year, not $2.1 million.  Paragraph 6.02 of the Contract provides that if the university decides to terminate Crean without cause, IU owes the lesser of $3 million dollars or the amount of base salary remaining.  Because Crean has about 7 years left on his deal, that would amount to $4.2 million.  That means that the buyout of Crean's contract is $3 million (i.e, "the lesser of...").  That isn't chump change, of course, but it also puts to rest the idea  that IU is holding on to the guy because he is financially handcuffed to the university. 

More from Brad:

So, let's talk about the elephant in the room that many I.U. fans still get red-face mad over: Former-coach Mike Davis. Hoosiers fans get steamed when the subject of Davis comes up because 1) It's obvious now that fans needlessly ran the guy out of town, and 2) He's the best coach Indiana has had since Bob Knight.

Mike Davis was all but lynched out of Bloomington following Indiana's 2005-2006 season, which saw I.U. go 19-12 and lose in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Throughout his tumultuous tenure, which saw I.U. fans bicker among themselves and others as to how 'good' he was, Davis never had fewer than seven wins in Big Ten play. He got I.U. to the NCAA Tournament four times, including one memorable run to the title game in 2002. His 115-79 record was very respectable.

You know, there is one particular word in this vile little passage that makes me want to go back to the top of the post and delete the nice things I said about Brad.  I'm not going to dignify it with a response.  Still, let's get something straight.  Mike Davis didn't lose his job because of anything that happened in 2006.  He lost his job because he failed to capitalize on the trip to the final game four years earlier.  The run to the Final Four was great fun, literally one of the most enjoyable times of my life as a sports fan, and I'll always be grateful to Coach Davis for that, but it's impossible to square that Tournament run with anything Davis did before, or in the decade since.  It was fun, but it was a bit of a fluke.  Also, based on career resume, Kelvin Sampson probably is the best coach IU has had since Knight, not Davis.  

Also, let's consider what Davis inherited from Bob Knight.  Davis's first team included a future lottery pick (Jared Jeffries), another first rounder (Kirk Haston), a McDonald's All-American (Dane Fife),  future NBA player Andre Owens, AJ Moye, Tom Coverdale, and others.  Tom Crean inherited Kyle Taber.  Something tells me that Crean's record might be just a little different if he had walked into that situation instead of the mess that he inherited.  I don't mean to belabor the Davis point.  By Davis's own admission in a radio interview with Dan Dakich last week, he never should have been the coach at IU, so this "best coach ever" stuff is just embarrassing and wouldn't even be endorsed by the recipient of the compliments.  Still, there's this:

Well, IU's overall win totals have increased every year, although IU took a step back in the Big Ten this season.  No one who watched the 2008-09 team or has looked at its numbers could contend that the 2009-10 team wasn't meaningfully better.  And what made the 2010-11 team so frustrating to watch is that they were meaningfully better than last year's team (I'll be examining this in more detail in the coming days and weeks).  But, if good wins don't count if the team also has bad losses, then there's really not much to say, is there?

Yeah, that's great, but everyone knows that the true recruiting progress that Crean has made is in the classes that haven't yet enrolled.  The 2009 class is a solid class, but that class's gaudy ranking was more a function of its size (6 players) than quality.  Also, the best player in that class, Maurice Creek (if Brad knows the names of any IU players he doesn't say so) has played in a grand total of five of 36 Big Ten games in his IU career. 

Sometimes, when everyone thinks you're wrong, it's because you're wrong.  Earlier in the article, Brad was just asking for progress.  Now, he is throwing down arbitrary, bright line goals.  Suppose that IU next season finishes 9-9 in the Big Ten, 18-14 overall, and just misses the Tournament.  Let's also suppose that the current junior recruiting class, which includes five stars Kevin "Yogi" Ferrell and Hanner Perea, as well as some other good recruits, signs as currently conceived.  Indeed, if IU is able to add Lawrence Central's Jeremy Hollowell or Hamilton Southeastern's Gary Harris to the mix, IU might have the #1 recruiting class in the country.  Brad Wells's response to that hypothetical?  "You're fired, loser!"   As I said earlier, the article is nothing if not childish.  There are a thousand variables that will determine how IU might finish next year, but Brad thinks he knows the magic number right now.

I guess the one thing I can agree with is that Crean will be on the hot seat if IU goes 3-15 in the Big Ten next year.  But as I tried to demonstrate with my hypothetical above, there is a lot of real estate between 3-15 in the Big Ten and making the NCAA Tournament. 

(By the way, the number of coaches who have won NCAA championships at multiple schools?  Zero.  That doesn't guarantee that Crean will win one, of course, but no championship coach had won one when hired by the school where he won it).

I've responded to a lot of articles like this, and here's what I don't get.  What do Brad and others think happened to the IU fan base?  Why would IU fans give up on being an elite program?  Why would IU fans be hopelessly in the tank for Tom Crean, a guy who had no ties to IU before he took the job in 2008?  Sadly, Brad has gone down the Boiled Sports road and seems to be implying, particularly with his use of the loaded term "lynched" earlier in the article, that we're all a bunch of delusional racists.  Still, even Bob Knight, a white guy who won three national titles at IU, was under some heat when his last few teams finished in the middle of the Big Ten pack.  Why would IU fans grumble about Knight and stand by Crean?  It's pretty simple.  I've said on many occasions that I think the jury is out on Crean.  I have no idea if he is good enough to return IU to the elite of college basketball, but given the disaster he inherited, it's way, way, way too early to conclude that he isn't good enough. 

I'll let you read the rest of Brad's article for yourselves.  I said earlier in the article that I would return to the "much tougher Big East" comment.  If you haven't clicked over yet, you might be wondering what Brad had to say about Tom Crean's record at Marquette, in the Big East or otherwise.  The answer?  Nothing.  Not a thing.  The word "Marquette" did not appear in Brad's article at all.  From his perspective, Crean may as well be a homeless guy who wandered in off the street in 2008, with no particular track record.  Given how impressed Brad is with the "much tougher Big East" (I actually think the Big Ten was better this year, top to bottom), I'm surprised that he didn't take any note of Crean's prior record.  I have learned from reading other articles that Crean's 2003 Conference USA title and Final Four appearance don't count because he had a great player, Dwyane Wade (that's why I've never given Gene Keady credit for his 1994 Final Four appearance with Glenn Robinson...oh, wait).  Still, if nothing else, Crean seemingly would deserve some credit for his successful transition from Conference USA to the Big East.  Of course, in Crean's day, Conference USA, when it was led by Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, and DePaul, was a different conference than it is today.  But in 2005-06, those four programs joined the Big East, adding themselves to the mix with traditional Big East powers such as Syracuse, UConn, and Pitt.  Crean's program weathered the storm pretty well.  His three year record in the Big East was 31-19, and he made the NCAA Tournament in each of his three Big East seasons.

For those of you who haven't read it, I discussed Crean's progress a few weeks ago.  I'm far from sold on him, of course, and there are things that I have seen that I haven't liked.  I didn't like the way the Hoosiers finished the season, but firing Crean now, or even next year, would be a rash decision, would set IU's program back a few more years, and would not guarantee improvement.  Thankfully, the people who will make this decision are adults who can comprehend the big picture.