Tom Crean met with the media early this afternoon and you can read a large portion of the transcript right here. Here are a couple of the more interesting responses he gave, including a very long and detailed answer about recruiting becoming younger. (Note: the question on recruiting getting younger is not on the link to the transcript provided by IU media relations.)

On the academic performance during the spring semester:

“We’ve had a very good semester. In reference to them, it appears Nick has accomplished what he needed to accomplish and it appears that Malik didn’t. Which really is not surprising either way. Both are eligible, that’s not the question, but in the form of looking for that 2.6. But we’ve had some guys really do an excellent job. We’ve had some guys continue to build on what they did and some guys really pick themselves up academically. All the grades aren’t in yet completely, but they’re close. I’d say were eighty to ninety percent of the way in right now. And that’s good feeling, a really good feeling.”

On recruiting junior college players:

“I don’t look at them in a negative light at all. This is one of the great things about being at Indiana. It’s one thing to recruit a player off a team. It’s another thing to recruit a player from a program and there are so many great programs in the state of Indiana. And you appreciate them more when you are in them because you are around them on a consistent basis. But it’s the same thing with junior college programs, the one-hit wonders, the players that just got in there. It has to be a special case, they have to match a lot of those criteria I mentioned earlier. But it is a lot easier and a lot better feeling to be recruiting excellent programs and there are some excellent programs at the junior college level without a doubt. We would never shut the door on that, or on an international player, we wouldn’t shut it on a transfer and we obviously wouldn’t shut it on a high school player. Do we evaluate and scout it and scour as much as possible and talk about it and dialogue about it? Probably not. But when we do, and there are people that we are tracking now, we are going to go full-fledged after.”

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