by Kent Sterling
Hanner Perea made a mistake this morning, and how Tom Crean responds will be scrutinized.
On today’s Breakfast with Kent, I extolled the virtues of Indiana University Basketball coach Tom Crean, including the fact that players don’t get in trouble. Strike that from the list of Indiana Basketball’s attributes.
According to a report on Fox 59, developing big man Hanner Perea was arrested at 4:45 this morning in Bloomington for driving a vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 0.15.
Timing is everything in life, and Perea’s timing could not have been worse. Indiana has lost five of seven, and are now in danger of falling into last place in the Big Ten one year after winning the conference outright for the first time since 1993.
Talk radio yesterday was filled with judgment of Crean’s program, losers of a very important game against Penn State at Assembly Hall – a game the Hoosiers led by 11 points with less than three minutes remaining.
Click here to follow Kent on Twitter
To think that a kid would be dumb enough to get behind the wheel of a car while hammered defies belief. To think that he would have enough energy after a loss that corrupted the Hoosiers hopes for a berth in the NCAA Tournament to be drunk at quarter to five in the AM is madness. To think he was the only player out way too late acting like an idiot on a Thursday night is ludicrous.
Those who already doubt Crean’s leadership of the program will use this incident as further validation of their position, but the truth is that 19 year-olds tend to be dumbasses who make the mistakes that in the best of circumstances serve as lessons to lead them to a more productive life.
Excusing Perea is not my purpose, and Crean certainly has some culpability is this incident. How he chooses to handle this will help define his tenure at Indiana. He can choose to see this as a teaching moment, and suspend Perea, or bring the hammer down to teach everyone else about consequences for this type of dangerous stupidity.
Kicking Perea off the team is the safe play that might serve as a severe disincentive for others who might consider putting lives at risk by driving drunk, but it would inexorably alter the path of a kid who has been caught a single time doing something moronic.
The last thing Crean should do is consider the emotions of fans whom he is never going to be able to please anyway.
Unfortunately, there will be an easy to make assumption that the entire team has its head up its ass and doesn’t give a damn enough about the success or failure of the team to stay sober less that 48 hours from a game against the rival Purdue Boilermakers.
If Perea was out getting bombed, other Hoosiers were likely out, and what the hell commitment does that show?
Click here to learn about the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry
Back in the day, players were out often – in season – and had no problem sweating out last night’s beer. That was in the Knight era. I was there, and it was commonplace. That doesn’t in any way confer a pass on Perea, but for those who loathe Crean because he’s not Bob Knight, players drinking during the season has gone on forever.
If I were Crean, I would cut Perea loose, but I’m not Crean, and I don’t know what he knows. In Crean’s shoes, I would require dedication from players – a commitment to excellence. Being drunk at 4:45a after an important loss would betray a lack of such a commitment. That would be enough for me to demand a kid’s jersey. They might be kids prone to stupidity, but if my $3.16 million per year is dependent upon their determination to do what is necessary to succeed (and it is, especially today), I’m moving swiftly and surely to lance a boil that exhibits this wanton disregard for his team.
The proof of a punishment well wielded will be seen in the behavior of players from this point forward. If an incident like Perea’s doesn’t happen again, good punishment. If there is another OWI, the responsibility will belong as much to Crean as the idiot who made the decision to put lives at risk by operating a 3,000 pound projectile while addled.
Wow. You would boot a college kid for a mistake? I think a teaching moment is in order here, considering this is the first issue in the Crean era with players.
Yes, I would boot Perea for two reasons: First, he made an incredibly stupid and selfish decision by careening around Bloomington while hammered. It’s only through luck no one was killed because he drove. Second, by being drunk and out on a Friday morning just after a huge loss and prior to a game that is a necessary win to start the road toward saving a nearly lost season, Perea showed where his priorities are.
Where is it written that a single mistake can’t come with a forceful consequence? If I was the Monroe County judge, I would make sure the kid did at least a month in the pokey. Part of being a basketball player at Indiana is accepting the responsibility of being a role model. Abandoning that duty requires a consequence that communicates to the student body that that level of stupidity is not tolerated.
I watched breakfast with Kent a couple of seconds ago already knowing of Hanners screw up. I was laughing with you Kent, not at you (seems we all have some bad timing). I don’t have any details but the only way I would throw his ass off the team for good would be if he has had this same kind of head up his butt attitude around the team and practices. As you said, very bad timing and when it rains it pours.
Kent, Knight would have NEVER let his team be so unprepared as to get booed from the Assembly Hall floor, NEVER. Knight had a way to take all the pressure and put it on himself while making heroes out of players who had struggled. Not every player wants to spend 24/7 in Cook Hall shooting jump shots and what’s the point if Crean can’t develop an offense anyways.
You might be right, although there were games where Knight’s teams underperformed and looked inept. Sure, there were stretches of great basketball that occasionally lasted years, but there were times when Indiana under Knight was hard to watch. I don’t recall blowing an 11-point lead in the final 2:09 without missing a bunch of free throws, but Knight’s era as coach wasn’t unending magic.
The argument can be made that Crean has put the pressure on himself. No one is yelling about Yogi not hitting shots against Penn State or any of the three players who turned the ball over on inbounds plays in the last two minutes.
Time to get over Knight and any comparisons to him.
I don’t think there is any reason to strike the period of 1971-2000 from the memory banks of Indiana fans. Knight didn’t violate the honor code of The Citidel and leave via the walk of shame.
What I mean, everyone needs to stop living in the glory years and expecting this coach and every coach after to be Bob Knight. This isn’t the 70s and 80s of college basketball. Some fans were fed up with Knight towards the end, and until (if) Indiana wins another championship, then these comparisons will always be there.
They were correctly sick of Knight’s act. He had stopped recruiting with any energy at all, and his ideas about training were archaic. The hires following Knight were asinine. Davis was handed the job as a capitulation to the players who were upset by Knight’s firing, and Sampson was a terrible solution to the problems caused by the mistake made when Davis was tabbed. The stigma of being hired by an idiot like Greenspan continues to haunt Crean. Current AD Fred Glass tries to take ownership for Crean to mitigate that ignominy, but there is still a level of mistrust.
Another source of mistrust are the renegotiations that Crean has received – the first prior to coaching a single game.
A few facts left out of your original post Kent:
Hanner Perea was the main motivation for Crean to enter into that sordid deal where he hired the no-experience son of an AAU coach to work for the Indiana basketball program. That would be the AAU coach who had supplied airline tickets and electronic devices for Perea, and steered him Indiana’s direction. Hardly seems worth all the shenanigans today.
One more hammer blow to the crumbling facade known as “Losing The Right Way,” which has been such a comfort to a certain type of sanctimonious Hoosier fan over the years since 1987.
Youch! The truth hurts like a dagger!
Despite it making me a hypocrite because I would bludgeon Calipari for doing the same thing, I don’t believe the dots connecting Perea to Adams, and Adams to IU equal corruption. Crean didn’t need Mark Adams’ intercession to get the recruits who have come from the Indiana Elite program. You can rip my ass for that, and I can’t blame you.