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.

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.

After a caller requested an update on Creek during Crean’s Monday evening radio show with Don Fisher, the IU coach provided the following update:

“He’s been doing very well. He had a great first semester, I know that doesn’t have anything to do with his injury, but he’s continued to work very hard academically. He’s ahead of schedule. He’s still definitely a ways away from being on the court and being able to work out on the court in a hard fashion. He put up 205 six times the other day, which is real progress there. I think his body will continue to really grow. He’s on all of our trips. We have him doing different statistics for us during the games just trying to help him really learn the leadership that he’s gotta have to be successful moving forward.”

Creek, who was leading all freshmen nationally in scoring at the time of his injury, averaged 16.4 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.8 apg and 1.4 spg in 12 contests.

Whatever its age and origin, it hit close enough to home after the 78-46 loss to Wisconsin that Crean was willing to give up practice time to get his players into the film room, where they were required to critique their own performances, rather than hearing it from the coaching staff.

“Every once in awhile, you’ve got to give up the floor for the film room, and I thought that was yesterday,” Crean said Saturday afternoon inside the coaches’ locker room at Assembly Hall. “It’s one thing to see it on paper. It’s another thing to see it yourself and have to call it out in front of your teammates.”

So Crean gathered his charges in the the foyer of that same locker room where he met the media, and the Hoosiers graded themselves. Crean said he hopes the sense of accountability brought about by the exercise will continue to foster growing leadership within the program.

“The best thing that happens — this is hard for guys — is that they verbalize it before the coaches do,” Crean said. “But again, it’s all part of the progress that you have to make.”

That progress could be measured as soon as Sunday, when the Hoosiers travel to Iowa City to face a team that, like the Hoosiers, has just three Big Ten wins in 15 tries. But the tables have turned significantly since both teams met, something Crean and his team have not forgotten.

When Iowa made the trip to Bloomington, the Hoosiers were riding a two-game winning streak and finally appeared to be making the tangible progress so many fans had clamored for in Puerto Rico or against Loyola-Maryland. Then they ran into the Hawkeyes, who outhustled and outmuscled them at Assembly Hall, dealing the Hoosiers a 15-point loss. They have not won since.

Crean admitted Saturday that his team overlooked Iowa, (“I think they embraced success a little bit in those games”) one reason why he’s placing an emphasis on his players’ mentality in Iowa City.

“I’ll be very disappointed, OK, for them, for individuals that don’t come out tomorrow understanding that we better have some toughness and fight in this game,” Crean said.

Crean credited his players for their approach to preparation and practice since the Wisconsin game. But he also pointed out that the same could be said about the build-up to Indiana’s first match-up with Iowa, lending further credence to the idea that Indiana might have taken the Hawkeyes for granted in their first meeting.

“I guess we overlooked them,” Christian Watford said. “We didn’t really take that game as serious as we took the other games. We’ve got to go up there and pay them back.”

Getting that payback, according to Crean, will demand improved defense on the pick-and-roll and in pressuring Iowa, as well as better offensive execution. He was also worried about Iowa’s solid frontline, highlighting Aaron Fuller, who Crean said worries him because Fuller has struggled recently.

Indiana right now finds itself in a strange position. It can neither afford to look past any one game, nor lose sight of the overarching goal. Even Crean admitted that he sometimes struggles to remember the “process” ongoing within his program. So when he talks specifically and metaphorically in the same breath, and both the present and future come together, it is done of necessity as much as anything else.

Take, for example, the personal-critique film session, yet another exercise that builds for the now, and for the later.

“The only way you can do it is to keep building those skills of leadership,” Crean said. “When you have to verbalize what you didn’t do, you know what? It’s important, it’s not lying.”

ALTERNATE TITLE: The night Tom Crean’s frustration finally got the best of him.

Tom Crean had enough.

The turnovers. The poor defensive rotations. The other team carving up his squad like a Thanksgiving turkey. His Hoosiers lacking the effort, fire and resolve he demands.

So after a questionable foul call on Bobby Capobianco midway through the second half, Crean launched into a verbal attack on the ref who called said foul. He took a swig of his drink. The profanities continued to fly out of his mouth. He kept going. And going.

Another T.

Eruption:

As Crean walked off the court to exit, he turned back around the free-throw line to bark some more, and assistant coach Tim Buckley had to restrain him. Just off the court and walking through the entranceway, Crean was maniacal, screaming and yanking his head from side to side. He popped into a room to the side of the corridor under the stands and kicked the door. And that same rage was still bouncing around his soul when the camera finally cut.

Who knows. They might have needed a straight jacket to contain him.

And you know what? I loved it. Loved it because sometimes there’s that rage inside you that you can’t contain. Sometimes, when your frustration level is through the roof, when you’re the leader of a team on its way to its ninth straight loss, all it takes is that one little, teeny, tiny, itsby, bitsy thing to set you off.

It wasn’t about that foul call. It was about so much more.

Tom Crean had Hoosier Nation’s anger, frustration and disappointment swell up inside him tonight. We’re a big group. It was just too much to contain.

He needed to do this. Needed to try something else to light a fire under his team’s feet. Needed to use some other motivation or tactic. For that, I applaud him.

But alas, no amount of kicking and screaming was going to bring his squad back from such a huge deficit. Tonight, the Badgers owned Crean and his Hoosiers inside their own house in this midst of a long losing streak, and it was just too much for him to bear.

–

THE GAME IN AND OF ITSELF:

Tom Pritchard might have been as frustrated as Crean tonight, what with his technical in the first half, and his cheap shove on Mike Bruesewitz in the second half. But for the first time since I can remember, IU actually was running a nice little pick-and-roll set with Pritch, and he got some nice, easy looks. The Hoosiers got some efficient, high-percentage buckets tonight. I repeat, the Hoosiers got some efficient, high-percentage buckets tonight. Add in this team’s best strength — their offensive rebounding of which they grabbed 14 tonight — along with some takes to the hole, and they actually won the points in the point battle 30-24.

Add in the ten free throws IU hit, and that gets you to 40 of IU’s 46 points. Which means they only made three jumpers all night — two of which came on their first four points of the game. (Which is pretty insane, if you think about it. Seriously. Think about it.)

But yeah: props to IU for showing something inside tonight.

Everything else? Not so great. Because Wisconsin holds the ball so long on offense and waits to get the best shot, they kill a ton of clock. As such, they allow 57.1 points per game — good for first in the Big Ten and fifth in the nation. So a team like IU that has been scoring in the high 50s the past several game to begin with is going to see a dip in scoring. Hench the 46 points in total.

The Hoosiers just had no answers for Wisconsin’s clockwork offense. They allowed them to shoot 54.7 percent and a scary-good 73.7 percent from 3-point land (8-of-11).

And of course, the same things that I talked about yesterday reared their ugly heads tonight. Turnovers? Eighteen of them, which lead to 21 points for the Badgers. Blocked shots? The Badgers had nine — nine! — of them tonight. Poor shooting? They shot 35.3 percent from the field. IU’s other strength besides getting offensive boards is free-throw rate. They got to the line 20 times to Wisconsin’s 15, but only made 10 of them.

Making things that much tougher to swallow? This 32-point loss was the program’s worst ever at home. Never has a team that’s suited up in the cream and crimson lost so bad inside Assembly Hall.

It’s enough, to well, turn a Midwest Man into the Incredible Hulk, ain’t it?

“He just doesn’t stop running,” Joe Boncore, Abraham’s guardian, told Inside the Hall on Monday night. Abraham, a 6-foot-9 forward from Progressive Christian in Temple Hills, Md., picked up an offer from Indiana last week, personally delivered by Tom Crean.

The Hoosiers joined an impressive list of suitors for the young man, who also has offers from, among others, Georgetown, Tennessee, Texas, UCLA, Connecticut and Kansas State.

Thus far, Boncore said, Abraham has made his greatest impact on the defensive end of the floor using a 7-foot-3 wingspan to block shots and rebound.

“Moses is a big eraser,” Boncore said. “He plays above the rim.”

Abraham, a Nigerian native who was studying to become a priest before he decided to focus on basketball full-time, possesses a high level of athleticism Boncore said Indiana could use on its front line.

But most of the talk surrounding Abraham focuses on his defensive ability, a big reason why Crean’s approach got Abraham’s attention.

“He was talking about Moses on the offensive end too,” Boncore said. “Coach Crean likes the way he always wants the ball.”

Abraham is working on his offensive game with a former trainer of Kevin Durant, also a D.C.-area product. While Boncore said Abraham would never be expected to score quite so prolifically as the former Texas All-American, he said Moses’ potential and work ethic create a high ceiling for the forward to reach.

Playing in Prince Georges County, which Boncore characterizes as one of the toughest prep basketball communities in the country, has also helped season Abraham, even though he’s only been playing there a short time.

“In (Washington) D.C., everybody can jump, everybody’s athletic,” Boncore said. “You can’t just be big, because you’ll get run over.”

Abraham had hoped to make it to the Wisconsin game Thursday, but he now has a game that night. Boncore said Abraham hopes to be able to make it out to Bloomington for the Northwestern game on March 6. A decision might come around that time as well.

“He’s going to make his decision the first week of March,” Boncore said of Abraham. “He’s got good grades and he’s a real great kid.”

Academically, Boncore said, Abraham is technically a junior, but his work in the classroom means the player has the option of leaving for college a year early. Should Abraham’s preferred destination be Bloomington, Boncore was confident Indiana fans would warm to him quickly.

“He doesn’t accept losing, and he doesn’t make excuses,” Boncore said. “He’ll demand that everybody steps up.”