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Tom Crean! Welcome, coach Crean.

This was a good hire for IU. Not a rabbit-out-of-the-hat great hire from nowhere, but I think it's better than the expected Scott Skiles/Tony Bennett hire. Why better? Crean is experienced, but still pretty young at 42, a proven recruiter that draws from a good midwest talent base, and has been a solid citizen in the basketball community. He recruits, he gets that talent to play at a high level, and he wins. He's been to a Final Four, which not a lot of coaches on the short list could say. I don't know what more IU fans could ask for, especially given the latest troubles with Dakich, Bassett, & Ellis. I don't know what was going on there, why was Dakich was still holding meetings and doling out punishments? And what the heck are Bassett & Ellis expecting if they think the next coach is going to overlook this sort of stuff?

But back to Crean's positives: he's got a bit of a temper (which I actually like in a coach, while certainly RMK was over-the-top, a little bit of temper lets you know the coach actually cares about the game), and his teams play a more entertaining tempo than many of the Big Ten teams right now. I'm pretty happy with this. I think next season's going to be pretty rough (Iowa's season this year seems like a best-case scenario at the moment), but I'm looking forward to the future, provided the NCAA doesn't kill IU with sanctions, and I don't think they will.

In my bracket, I was doing pretty well, having picked Davidson, West Virginia, and Western Kentucky for the Sweet 16, but I fell off a little from there. I'm betting on Kansas over UCLA, but right now, I'm thinking UCLA over UNC seems more likely. Whatever, it's the best time of the year!