On the heels of our scathing review of the quality of the Indiana program this morning, breaking news this evening out of Bloomington – Indiana has reached an agreement with Marquette’s Tom Crean to become the next head coach of the Hoosiers. (Link goes to Yahoo! Sports, if only because tWWL pulled the same “Well, we actually had it first, but we embargoed it – promise!” crap as always.)

Instant analysis – this is a tremendous hire by Indiana. Crean has earned (and we choose our word carefully there) a rock solid reputation in his nine years in Milwaukee. Reinvigorating a long-dormant basketball school and fan base? Check. Recruiting above his weight class? Check. Nine winning records in nine seasons and a Final Four appearance? Check and check. Survived (and thrived) with a move to a much tougher conference? Check. Perhaps most important of all – a squeaky clean record? Major, major, absolutely necessary check.

Crean brings this reputation to a hurting Bloomington, and the announcement today helps clean up the mess left by both Sampson and his fill-in Dakich. IU now stands a chance of retaining their recruits, and avoiding basketball purgatory for the next two years.

As for Marquette – gentlemen, welcome to the cellar of the Big East. We have a tough time believing that MU will find a coach as good as Crean within their budget – but we suppose they struck gold with a young assistant before, and we have to imagine that will happen again.

Each day for the rest of this week, we’ll be previewing one of this year’s Final Four participants, little gunners that they are. Ooops, we’re about to drop something. What? Knowledge. (That’s deep, but true.) But since we’re babbling idiots, we found another blogger who knows a lot more about the team than us. Today – The North Carolina Tar Heels, with the help of Brian from Tar Heel Fan.

You know, they’ve been overrated all season. They got bonked by a terrible Maryland team at home, and depantsed by a deeply flawed Duke team. And who cares that they blew out their first four opponents in the tournament? Two of those teams were barely mediocre, and every squirrel finds a nut. Maybe Pitino was drunk Saturday night. We’ll never know.

Ah, dammit, who are we kidding? We’ve said it before, so we might as well say it again (and again through clenched teeth) – Carolina has put on an absolute show during the first two weeks of the tournament, and comes in playing better basketball than any other amateur team in the land.

But that doesn’t mean much once the ball is tipped, and frankly we’re gonna feel weird saying anything else positive about our sworn enemy. So for a better bead on what to look for from the Tar Heels this weekend, we asked Tar Heel Fan for some expert biased opinion. His responses to our questions come after the jump.

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Carousel – a term tossed around to describe movement in the coaching labor market, but why? Upon further review, it’s oddly accurate – constantly in motion until some pimpled, power hungry AD teenager throws off the gears, needlessly detailed, exciting to kids and their parents while alternatively boring and creepy to everyone else. Properly cited, we’ll pick up the nomme d’art and talk about the school’s who lack the courtesy to save their coaching news for next week when we have nothing else to write about.

After bolting Iowa for the calmer … plateaus? … of New Mexico, Steve Alford was rewarded Monday with a three-year extension with the Lobos, putting him under contract through 2016. All of this for one season of work that got the Lobos to 24-9 and a first round loss in the NIT. When notified of the extension, Charlie Weis nodded his head with approval. Combined with Herb Sendek’s desert revival at Arizona State after leaving the boobirds in Raleigh, one has to think there is something to the whole “life is easier in the Southwest” theory, even amongst the coaching ranks. Outlook: Sunny, even with those killer cacti.

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Motor City Dust Bowl Basketball!

THE GAME EVERYONE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Tulsa is Champion! Something!
Tulsa 73, Bradley 68

Conference USA fans, we owe you a distinct apology. We’ve bashed your conference from the moment we started writing for this here blog. But now, it appears that was all in haste, for CUSA’s own Tulsa Golden Hurricane (do not confuse with Broken Arrow Golden Shower) has clinched a championship by beating the Bradley Braves last night!

[receives a note from off stage left - pauses, and clears throat]

Excuse us – we heard “One Shining Moment” and thought there people were playing in a tournament that actually mattered. Instead, Tulsa continues to play in the College Basketball Invitational, a tournament known only to us, its owners, the fans of the home team, and creepy message board trollers in Rolla, Missouri. And further, their win clinches nothing, since CBI uses a three-game series to crown its champion. Sorry for the confusion. CUSA, go back in a corner and think about what you’ve done – trying to fool us like that. Makes us want to call in that golden shower for you.

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