We’ve also, thanks to our friends at Yardbarker, added a widget below which allows you to track scores as well as a link below to the March Madness On Demand Player. So sit back, minimize that spreadsheet you’ve been working on all day and let the games begin.

Click here to launch March Madness On Demand Player

The question came from Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz, who asked the final question in Tom Crean’s postgame presser. Kravitz asked Crean to address the need for some big guys in the program and received this lengthy response:

“I think we have a lot of needs, Bob. And I think we’ve gotta develop the bigs that we have. We’ve got a very tough situation right now in the sense, if people have followed our program at all, which I know that you have, we had to get a team on the floor before we could build a program. That was last year. Then we were able to recruit guys that we wanted to, that we had a chance to develop relationships with. We’re very bottom heavy and we have to have a balancing act right now between what do we need to do in the short term versus how are we not going to have to start over again when these guys get older.”

“In the purest sense of your question, there’s no doubt we’re trying to address that in a big way. They’ve all gotta get stronger, bigger, better, more athletic that we have in the program. We’ve gotta continue to address that. But I look at our team and we also need somebody that’s better at getting in the lane. We need somebody that can get in the lane and create havoc, that can get into that paint and make decisions to get the ball to shooters. Our team will look different when you add the spacing element into it that Matt Roth and Maurice Creek bring. Obviously Maurice was our best guy at being able to absolutely get in the lane and make a play and make a good decision with it, but we’re not anywhere close to being done recruiting. And that’ll pick up again tomorrow in a big way. We’re going to address it. We have been and at the same time I have to sit here and look ahead into the future and figure out okay, how are we going to have to not do this again. That’s what’s hard because there’s a lot of good young players that we’re recruiting that we want and we’ve gotta make sure that we get those and we’ve gotta make sure we have the ability to sign them when they’re ready to come.”

A quick glance at the scholarship numbers page shows that the 2013 graduating class is likely the one being referenced as “bottom heavy,” with six grants being allocated to that group. (And technically, it’s now seven if Matt Roth is included.)

The concern, which Crean directly addressed, is having scholarships available to sign the plethora of players targeted in the 2011 and 2012 classes. The Hoosiers have offered scholarships to several players in both classes, including (but certainly not limited to), Cody Zeller, Marquis Teague, Jeremiah Davis, Marshall Plumlee, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, Hanner Perea, Peter Jurkin, Ron Patterson, Jeremy Hollowell, Yogi Ferrell, A.J. Hammons and Kenny Kaminski.

What’s not clear, however, is how exactly this balancing act will play out. For now, it’s best to leave this as it currently stands, but it’s certainly a storyline we’ll follow closely as we move toward the conclusion of the spring semester and of course, recruiting this summer.

The following is a statement from Roshown McLeod following his dismissal from the Assistant Coach position at Indiana University.

“I greatly appreciate the opportunity afforded me by Indiana University. It gave me the chance to work with some amazing student athletes over the last two seasons. I wish the best for IU as they move forward.”

There will be no further comment from Roshown McLeod on this subject.

If you were looking for a juicy, tell-all story about the dismissal, well, you’re not going to get it, kids.

KHOU-TV has the scoop:

HOUSTON—Sources tell 11 News that former Indiana University Athletic Director Rick Greenspan has been selected as the new AD at Rice University.

Greenspan will replace Chris Del Conte, who left last fall for the same post at TCU.

Greenspan was at Indiana for four years, during which time he was credited with getting $55 million worth of upgrades on university facilities.

The report goes on to mention that an announcement at Rice could come as early as Friday.

The second-year coach was also asked about the dismissal of assistant coach Roshown McLeod, who has yet to speak publicly but plans to do so in the coming days via a press release.

Specifically, the question posed to Crean by Dustin Dopirak of The Herald-Times was this, “You said on your radio show the other night it was abundantly clear to you that you had to make the move you did in letting Roshown go. What did he do or not do to make that abundantly clear?”

And here was the response:

“It’s where it’s at. I really don’t want to go a lot further than that. I understand the positions that you guys are in with asking that question and wanting to know more. I understand that. But everything from me right now is to make sure that we are totally focused on what we’re trying to do here. That doesn’t mean that I’m not already in the process of thinking of what I’m going to do the next time. It would be foolish for me to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to put all that off and not think about it until the end of the year.’ Of course I think about it. My job, day in and day out is to make this program better than it was the day before in every aspect and to get everybody pulling in the same direction all the time. It’s a lot easier said than done, but that’s what the challenge is every day and that’s how you want to try to have it.”

A follow up question asked if there were any specific things he was looking for in a candidate for the position and the words direction, trust and loyalty all came up.

“I have a pretty good idea of what I want to get accomplished with that job,” he said. “I’m not looking to find a person and then build the role around them. I want to find a person that fits exactly what we need. I have a pretty good view of what that is, but I’m still trying to really definitely figure that out. That I have not put a lot of time into yet. I’m probably pretty clear but not totally clear on what I want from that position. There will be some basic tenets of it that are really, really important. You guys can probably figure that out just as easy as I could say it when it comes to going in the same direction, trust, loyalty and all of those kinds of things are extremely important.”

Crean also said that he does not have a timetable to fill the position, but that he doesn’t see it “being a long time.”

Maurice Creek and Matt Roth also met with reporters and you can listen to their comments over at The Hoosier Scoop.

Jones finished the regular season with averages of 14.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg and 3.3 apg.

Watford posted 12.1 ppg, 6.0 rpg and hit nearly 80 percent of his free throw attempts.

A couple of other notable award recipients:

+ Ohio State’s Evan Turner was named Player of the Year by both the media and coaches.

+ Purdue’s Matt Painter was the choice as Coach of the Year by his peers, while Ohio State’s Thad Matta got the nod from the media. No offense to Matta, but I’m not sure how anyone could not vote for Painter.

+ Illinois guard D.J. Richardson was Freshman of the Year on the coaches balloting, while Northwestern guard Drew Crawford took the honor from the media.

You can access the complete All-Big Ten teams here.

DeAntae Prince of The Indiana Daily Student reports that McLeod will not speak on his dismissal, but instead will issue a blanket statement in the coming days to all media. 

—

UPDATE: 10:57 a.m. by Zach Osterman

Tom Crean fielded questions this morning on the Big Ten coaches’ teleconference regarding the departure of Roshown McLeod, including the timing of the move. His response:

“There’s probably never a good time. You can’t focus on timing. You’ve gotta focus on what the right decision is. That’s the decision that I made.”

“It’s about putting the program forward and putting the program first. We’re going to do the things that we need to do.”

—

This release just popped into my inbox from J.D. Campbell, Indiana assistant athletic director for media relations:

Indiana University men’s basketball coach Tom Crean informed assistant coach Roshown McLeod on Sunday that his contract would not be renewed for next year and he will no longer be with the team effective immediately.

“There is never a good time for something like this, but it is a decision that had to be made moving forward,” said Crean.

I can’t say I’m surprised by this news, considering McLeod was absent from Saturday’s win over Northwestern. McLeod’s recruiting prowess never really paid big dividends in Bloomington, which is most likely the reason he won’t be returning. The search for his replacement begins … now.

There it is. Or at least, there it’s linked. IU takes on Northwestern in the 7-10 match-up 25 minutes after the first game Thursday, which starts at 2:30 p.m. So I’m guessing about five o’clock — just in time for the end of work Thursday. Three-day weekend?

We’ll surely have more on this coming soon, but I wanted to go ahead and toss this up here. Hope you had a good weekend.