Tom Crean took some time out of his frantic schedule to meet with reporters this afternoon. We'll have full stories in Thursday's paper (re: sanctions, AD search, recruiting and this year's team), but here are some things that didn't make it to print:
Roth out with shoulder injury Senior Kyle Taber isn't the only one missing workouts this week. Freshman guard Matt Roth recently injured his shoulder and will miss about a week of practice, Crean said.
Bite your tongue! You could tell Crean really wanted to talk about Christian Watford on Wednesday, but due to NCAA rules Crean was forced to keep quiet.
"I wish I could comment on recruiting," Crean lamented. "We're going to continue to move forward as well, we're going to continue to recruit aggressively and recruit to do everything we can to make IU basketball all that it can be."
Crean later added that he isn't done recruiting for the class of 2009.
Build a system or build a team? I asked Crean if he was trying to teach the Hoosiers his offensive system or if he was adapting his own system to IU's players. Here's what he had to say:
"I think coaches go one of two ways, you can recruit and plug guys into your system and that's the system you're going to run, or you can try and build a system around the talent you have. That's what we're trying to do this year. I don't think there is anyway around that. Now, recruiting forward and moving forward... we tried to focus on some skill, versatility, length...we know what we want [the team] to look like down the road. Right now, did anybody think we'd have this small of a team? No. We've got to get ready to play more of a four-guard line-up."
I bet one of them is Ken Burns Crean mentioned that several companies have contacted IU asking to film and document their upcoming season. Can you say, Hoosier Hard Knocks?
Letter of response to the NCAA Crean talked at length about IU's letter of response to the NCAA's charge of "failure to monitor." He said he thought the letter was outstanding and that the penalties IU has self-assessed are more than fair.
"I'm living proof of what these penalties mean," Crean said. "We're able to get some things moving forward in recruiting, but it is a big deal when you can't be out on the road recruiting. It is a big deal that we don't have nearly as many scholarships as everyone else has. When you look at the amount of phone calls we missed out on..."
"The biggest thing to me is the penalties were handed out, they were very strong, they were intended to be very strong and they held us back. And that's exactly what they were intended to do. They did. I would really hope we've paid our price. I know I've only been here five months, but I was here for that price paying, and that's where we're at."
More to come... Finally, we also had a chance to speak with freshmen Nick Williams and Verdell Jones (kudos to JD Campbell for having two freshmen available to the media). We'll have something from both of them in the next couple of days.
