Tom Crean is on Twitter. I know you’ve probably heard this. And his tweets have been pretty good — an interesting and insightful look at his philosophies and some of the happenings of his team. There’s been other updates besides just that kind of stuff, too. For instance, Crean was watching the “Real Housewives of New York” reunion last night on Bravo. Ha.

Anyway, for all the good Crean’s Twitter account has wrought, there are a few things to know here. Like Facebook and other electronic transmission outlets, there are restrictions on what Crean can do on Twitter, and also what you, the fan, can do on it as well. For instance, Crean can’t be @replying back and forth with you all day, per NCAA rules. If he so chooses, he can direct message with you. Let’s go to a blockquote of something I wrote yesterday for ESPN because I’m too lazy to re-write it.

However, direct messaging on Twitter — which can only be viewed by the two people involved in the communicating — is permissible. (Same goes for Facebook. A coach can use the messaging function, which is similar to an e-mail, but he can’t write on Facebook walls.) This falls in accordance with the current electronic transmission guidelines that are already in place.

“We view that option on Twitter the same as we view normal e-mails,” said Cameron Schuh, Associate Director of Public and Media Relations for the NCAA. “It’s just you can’t post those (direct messages) on your main page.”

“We view Twitter as a blog,” Schuh continued. “As long as coaches are on there talking about what they’re doing with their day and how their practice went or things like that … not getting into specific terms, that’s fine. They can’t talk about a person they’re recruiting, or they can’t use it to talk about their whereabouts on a recruiting trip.”

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In the latest issue of ESPN the Mag — on newsstands now! — there’s a small bit on page 71 about five players affected by Kelvin Sampson’s Indiana hiring and subsequent resignation: Devin Ebanks, Terrell Holloway, Scottie Reynolds, Damion James and Tyshawn Taylor.

Today online, a few companion pieces ran along with it. Including two from me. The first is a column about what it meant for me to be a fan during Sampson’s reign of calling, and what Tom Crean has taught me. A sample:

I’d always heard about the Indiana Tradition or doing things the Indiana Way, but I’d usually roll my eyes at such pronouncements, thinking of them as nothing more but tired, clichéd statements from Bob Knight disciples. I’m a bit of a cynical guy.

Times had changed, I thought. It’s OK to bend the rules in recruiting, as long as you win, as long as you don’t get caught. It’s OK you don’t fit the Indiana mold, doing things the right way with dignity and class, as long as you win. It’s OK to bring in players of questionable character, as long as you win.

This is what the Kelvin Sampson era was at Indiana: win at all costs. And I was hooked, cast under his spell, because that’s all I wanted for my team, too. I wanted to win.

Second is four others affected by Sampson, but like the original piece in the actual print version, is behind ESPN’s Insider wall. Boo.

Lastly, Scott Powers wrote a tremendous story about all the guys who left last year, catching us up with their situations. He got a lot of quotes from Brandon McGee. That guy is behind the Insider wall too.

The moral of this post is that ESPN is putting a lot more of their stuff behind Insider’s wall this year. You’ve been warned, sports consumer.

Oh, and if you want another take on the whole Deadspin topic, Midwest Sports Fan has an indepth look at it today.

Yesterday, I wrote a rebuttal to Rick Chandler’s post on Deadspin about how he thinks IU will never be able to recruit again, how Tom Crean wasn’t the answer and a few other things that didn’t sit too favorably with a lot of you. Rick received a lot of hate mail from Indiana fans since he decided to post that, and he explained himself this afternoon. You can read it right here.

Basically, he spent most of the piece gushing about his love for Bob Knight, and how he’s interviewed and talked to Knight and how Knight just loved his questions, and since Indiana Basketball As We Know It went out the door with Knight, we apparently can never be successful again. Oh, and he’s actually been to Bloomington, too. A sample:

On your next point, how Crean has this great freshman class coming in, I’ll give you that. Should have mentioned it. And Indiana will improve next season. But that doesn’t change the main theme; that Indiana basketball as you have known it is gone, probably forever. In terms of wins and losses, we’ve reached the end of an era. Oh, Bloomington will still be a great basketball town, but what I mean by basketball backwater is that the Hoosiers will always take a back seat to Duke and North Carolina and UCLA and even Wake Forest and UConn. Email me the next time Indiana reaches the Elite Eight. I’ll be waiting.

[ ... ]

No, that magical, John Feinsteinian year of 1987 is gone forever, and not Tom Crean nor the return of Steve Alford or Norman Dale himself is bringing it back. Knight lifted the program by the weight of his genius. Yeah, he had blue chippers, but the bulk of his rosters were always populated by JC transfers (Keith Smart, Dean Garrett) and local kids (Bailey, Joe Hillman, Alford) which he took and beat the likes of Syracuse and Shaquille O’Neal’s LSU in the Big Dance. Sure, you’ll continue to pack Assembly Hall, but do you think that success is coming back?

[ ... ]

So if I’m wrong about Crean and Indiana, I’ll be the first to say so, and the Hoosier Reds will be on me. But be aware that you’re in my wheelhouse on this one. I’ve been watching the situation for more than 20 years. And I’ve been taking notes.

Well, there you have it. We’ll never be successful again because Bob Knight isn’t around. Though, make sure to keep Mr. Chandler’s email address handy in case we miracuously make the Elite Eight ever again. He is, after all, taking notes on all this.

Let me tell you about my morning. I got up late. I put on clothes I wore out to a bar Friday night. I took a cab to work. I wrote some blogs posts for the day job. Typical Monday.

And then, sometime in the late morning, I was on Ballhype, and saw this post on Josh Q. Public. And I laughed. Let’s just say that Josh — IF THAT’S EVEN HIS REAL NAME — might be wise to know at least a little something — this is all I ask, just a little something — about the situation he’s writing about before he goes and posts it on a popular, Digg-esque, sports blog site by himself and has other people “hype it” for him, and before he e-mails it to Deadspin. (We’ll get there later.)

First:

Since Knight’s firing, Kelvin Sampson led the Hoosiers to a 21-11 record overall and a 34th appearance in the NCAA tournament only to be forced to resign due his role in the controversial recruitment of star player Eric Gordon.

Ah yes, this is why Sampson resigned, remember guys? Eric Gordon’s decision to come to Indiana. Nothing to do with that phone call stuff. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Second:

How does this happen? How does one of the most esteemed basketball programs in the nation fall so far?

Dude, it happened because due to the Kelvin Sampson fallout, only 30 total points scored — 30! — returned from last season. That was 1.2 percent of IU’s total scoring output from last season. Some dudes left, others went pro, others got kicked off.

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