Tom Crean
Tom Crean
Thomas Creanis an American college basketball coach. He is currently the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team. Prior to that he served as head coach at Marquette University, where the program averaged 20 wins a year and made six postseason appearances, including the 2003 NCAA Final Four...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth25 March 1966
adage beat great team trying
When you've got a team like that that's just trying to get to New York, it's a great league. The old adage that we beat up our own, that's what everyone has to take into account.
game great group guys second sold team wins
What I told my team after the game was first thing, that I've been a part of some great wins and some great teams. (But) I've never been around a group of guys that sold out for each other like they did in the second half.
building close experience hard help learn mental players teams
Our players are building mental toughness. It's really hard with a young team. It's very hard to close teams out in a close game. The more that you get experience at it and the more you learn from the experience is when you don't do it is where it can really help you.
credit game goes good grabbing great holding keeping open plan played steve
They had a good game plan of grabbing and holding and keeping Steve from getting open looks. The credit goes to them. They played a great game.
far hit second shot today took weeks win
As far as the end of the game, we got every look that we wanted. Two weeks ago (Novak) hit a shot with a second to go to win the game. Today he took a shot from a different place, and it just didn't go down.
against behind college efficient final minute offense points second
They're unbelievably battle-tested. You're not only going to have to play to the final minute against Notre Dame, you're going to have to play to the final second. Notre Dame's got the second most efficient offense in college basketball, right behind Duke, averaging 119 points on every 100 possessions.
honest learned team
I thought our team learned something over the (Rutgers loss). They have learned to be honest when they don't play up to their standards.
attacked energy fierce played second
I think the way he attacked and the way he went to the rim, especially in the second half, he played with just a fierce energy which was really good.
five guards last six year
Last year after Travis went down, we didn't have any options. You never want to be in that position, especially as we go into the Big East. In this league, you've got to have five or six guards that can play. We're not there yet, but we're getting closer.
feels gave great head jack jackie jim leader led natural responsibility saw supported value
Jack and Jackie gave Jim a great value base. He saw how Jack did it and how Jackie supported it. Jim is such a natural leader and a natural competitor. He feels a responsibility to lead people. That's what led him to be a head coach.
confident difference five guards guys hard joe worked
Joe has worked so hard on his shooting, as has Dan, and we feel like it's going in when they get the ball. We are very confident with those guys on the floor. It makes a lot of difference for us to be able to play five guards and not have any drop-off when you go to the bench.
both ends impacts
He's getting better all the time. He impacts at both ends of the floor.
crowd fans home huge seen
Our fans have been fantastic. Our home crowd is huge to us and we haven't seen it in a while.
absolute defense defensive intensity last lost minutes played playing second solid week
Playing 40 minutes of defense was the absolute key. We thought last week that we played about 20 minutes of solid defense, and we lost our defensive intensity in the second half.