Crean sees progress in player’s arrest

BLOOMINGTON, IN — Following forward Eli Holman’s brief arrest by Indiana University campus police on Thursday, new Hoosiers head coach Tom Crean said the basketball program is making strides in the right direction.

“We’ve already had our first arrest,” Crean beamed to reporters. “How’s that for progress? It’s time for Indiana to move back into the big time, and the incident Thursday was a good start in that direction.”

A cloud has hovered over the Indiana program since the middle of last season, when allegations of NCAA rules violations by former coach Kelvin Sampson surfaced. Sampson came to Indiana from Oklahoma with suspicions of recruiting violations involving phone calls to recruits, then committed the same violations while at Indiana – leading to his February resignation.

Crean was hired to clean up the program and lead it back to national championship contention. He cited Thursday’s incident as a step back towards the big time.

“Sampson was chump change. Phone calls? This is what passes for trouble nowadays?” a scornful Crean scoffed. “We’re going straight to the big leagues, man.”

While the coach is disappointed that Holman was released without being taken to jail, Crean said the incident was “an excellent beginning. Next time there’s a police incident, we’ll be sure somebody goes to jail. But I’m new here and the players and I are just getting used to each other, so we’re really still in a feeling-out process with the local cops as well.”

Crean was known for running a clean program during his tenure at Marquette University, but he says that was due more to circumstance than diligence on his part.

“It’s hard to get into a lot of trouble in Wisconsin, you know?” Crean explained. “Plus, when Al Roker goes on the Today Show and says you’re the coldest place in the country, it’s hard to get those good criminal types to come out. The fact of the matter is that the best hooligans generally go for the big name schools. That’s a large part of why I made the move here to Indiana.”

And even though he has admittedly not fully settled in, Crean says he’s certain that Indiana is the perfect place for him. “I feel really good about the opportunity here at Indiana. We’re already down to three scholarship players, so we’ll be able to rebuild even faster than I expected.

“Let me tell you, we’re about to go big-time. We’ll not only run roughshod over the NCAA’s rules, we’re going to become regular features on the police blotter. Next year, we’ll get arrested so often, you’ll think we were running an NFL franchise.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!