My Two Cents: Tom Crean Isn't Wrong With 'Play in NIT' Stance, But For Indiana and Others, It Made Sense

Former Indiana coach turned ESPN analyst Tom Crean thought it was wrong of the Hoosiers and a half-dozen other high-profile programs to turn down bids to the NIT Tournament. I would normally agree with him, but it's a different time in college basketball with the transfer portal already open. So let's move on.

Tom Brew | Mar 19, 2024

My Two Cents: Tom Crean Isn't Wrong With 'Play in NIT' Stance, But For Indiana and Others, It Made Sense /

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Indiana Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — I've told y'all before that Mike Woodson and I go way back. And one of my favorite memories was of Woodson and Indiana winning the NIT Tournament in New York in 1979.

It was a great experience, my first trip to the big city, and some great basketball, with the Hoosiers beating Purdue for the crown.

The NIT was still the second fiddle tournament back then, but if you were good — but not quite good enough — to make the much-smaller 40-team NCAA field, it was a great alternative. That was a nice run for the Hoosiers, and it set the stage for 1980, with several starters returning and Isiah Thomas arriving as a freshman. They were preseason No. 1 a few months later.

Back then, the college basketball calendar wasn't nearly as crowded as it is now. After the season ended, it was vacation time.

It's a different world now. Now the regular season ends on a Sunday and the transfer portal opens on Monday. There is no rest for the weary. Or the wary.

For schools that need to fill a lot of holes — and Indiana is one of those, but they are certainly not alone — the most important work that needed to be done on Monday was aggressively attacking the portal.

It was not about preparing for an NIT game in a tournament that's lost a ton of luster over 40-plus years. The finals aren't even played in New York anymore. Sure, we think Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis is cute and all, but playing the NIT final four there instead of Madison Square Garden just isn't the same.

Indiana chose not to play, with Woodson saying he wanted to focus on recruiting. He wasn't alone. St. John's, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh, Memphis and Oklahoma, all teams with 20-plus wins, said no to invitations as well.

Former Indiana coach Tom Crean, who was working in the ESPN studios over the weekend, ripped all those schools for choosing not to play. He doesn't accept recruiting as an excuse, not with the large coaching staffs schools have now. They could have divvied up the work.

And Crean did not mince words.

“There’s no question about it. I would want to coach, I would want to develop my team,” Crean said. “You’ve got bigger (coaching) staffs than you’ve ever had. There’s plenty of time for the portal. There’s plenty of time to talk to recruits. There’s plenty of time to negotiate NIL deals.

"There’s not plenty of time to play. There’s not plenty of time to get your players on the floor and give them a chance to get better. There’s not plenty of time for guys to continue to play that may never get to play again and that to me is absolutely ridiculous. It’s each coach’s choice, I get it, but if you take away a chance to play the games, to put your team on the floor, that's just wrong. Give your players and coaches a chance to keep coaching and playing and don’t shortchange them.”

Tom Crean (@TomCrean) just went in on teams electing not to play in the NIT. And he’s spot on. pic.twitter.com/FOk1cUJ81i
— Dave Connelly (@DaveConnellySG) March 18, 2024

Normally, I would tend to agree with Crean, who's one of my favorites too. When you're a college kid, you only get a chance to play in so many games. College careers fly by, even though it doesn't seem that way with these bonus COVID years.

The NCAA's decision to open the portal so early is out of necessity, of course. When seasons end, the announcements begin immediately. Several hundred players are in the portal already, and many already made verbal commitments on the first day.

So it's just not about the coaches. It's the players who want to act quickly, too.

Indiana fans are angry with Woodson these days, and they blame him for not playing.

But think of this. What if Indiana would have played at home Tuesday night against, say, North Texas. Can you name one player on their team? If you're a season-ticket holder who lives in Fort Wayne or Richmond or Jeffersonville, are you taking off work early to drive up to watch that game?

I'd guess not.

It's also spring break, so there aren't any students on campus. Indiana easily could have played a game with many 5,000 people in the stands. That's a bad look.

The Hoosiers would have played that game without Trey Galloway (knee) and Anthony Leal (ankle). It's also very possible that C.J. Gunn, Kaleb Banks and Payton Sparks — who all entered the transfer portal on Tuesday — might have skipped the game too. If you're quitting, you're quitting, right?

So this isn't all just about Woodson. The whiners are also the ones who wish someone else was their coach. The criers love Rick Pitino, but his St. John's team was one of the opt-outs. They love Chris Beard and wish he was Indiana's coach, but he chose to not play with his Ole Miss team either.

They both used the same excuse that Woodson did.

“After thorough consideration of all that goes into postseason participation, we believe at this time it is best for our team and basketball program to prepare for next season,” Pitino said.

OK, Rick. Same to you, Chris.

The NIT will go on without them, with 16 first-round games on Tuesday and Wednesday, all over the ESPN family of networks. (The link to the full schedule is below.) Big Ten teams Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio State are all playing, and good for them. It means something for all of them to keep playing.

Fran McCaffery gets a little more time with his son, Patrick. Minnesota has had a great bounce-back season in Ben Johnson's third year, and they'd like to keep winning. Jake Diebler took over mid-season at Ohio State and turned the program around immediately. He was rewarded with new contract to take over the program, so they definitely want to play as many games as they can.

Indiana can go without, and that's OK. And it's just not to dig on Crean, not at all. He hasn't been out of the game very long at all, but he still never had to deal with morning-after portal calls.

So onward we go to next season. It's going to be an interesting seven months before the next game.

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