Tom Crean reacts to Jurkin, Mosquera-Perea ruling
Indiana coach Tom Crean joined SiriusXM’s “Inside College Basketball” show Tuesday evening and talked to Jeff Goodman and Bruce Pearl about the suspensions of Peter Jurkin and Hanner Mosquera-Perea.
His comments are below.
On the facts of the case, specifically Mark Adams being labeled a booster for donations from 1986-1992: “The facts are pretty self-explanatory when you really read through it and that’s really what it is. Now there’s going to be an appeal process, I don’t know how you couldn’t when you get something like that.”
On the team’s depth, and the ruling’s effects on Jurkin and Mosquera-Perea: “There’s no question that that hurts us. And they are going to play for this team, there’s no question they’re contributors in this program right away. The bigger concern right now is for both Hanner and Peter individually. Because right now, they don’t really know why this is happening. And it’s really hard for us to explain it to them because I don’t really know why this is happening.
“With Hanner and Peter, every request that’s been made of them, every question that’s been thrown their way, every hypothetical that was presented, everything that was given to them — they answered it. I mean, everybody answered it … My concern is for them because as a coach, it’s one thing to to tell them how to attack the zone, how to break the press and how to improve their free-throw shooting. It’s a whole other thing when you don’t have an answer for why they have to sit games out. Really, publicly, that’s about the limit of what I feel comfortable saying.”
On Mark Adams: “He has been … forthright and forthcoming. In all honestly, if he was a booster when we got to Indiana in 2008, I sure wish we would have gotten Emmanuel Negedu — who you (Bruce Pearl) ended up getting. Because we were at a point where we had 28 points coming back in the program and we certainly wouldn’t have minded signing him. But it doesn’t work that way. Obviously his career was cut short with his heart. But it’s tough, it’s a tough pill to swallow. So I don’t have any desire to swallow it and I don’t think anybody really does.”
Filed to: Hanner Mosquera-Perea, Peter Jurkin, Tom Crean