INDIANAPOLIS – I talked to Tom Crean on Wednesday afternoon. He said he had “heard nothing” from Indiana athletic director Fred Glass about his future at the school, but he talked matter-of-factly about next season. He certainly did not sound like a man who thought he could be fired less than 24 hours later.

I talked to a source with firsthand knowledge of Crean’s situation at Indiana last week, not long after Crean representatives met with IU administrators to discuss his standing at the school. The takeaway from that meeting: “Tom’s fine at Indiana,” the source said.

The strong sense was that if Crean wanted to stay as coach of the Hoosiers, he could. His contract, which had three years remaining, would not be extended. The atmosphere could be difficult, bordering on toxic – it already was bad enough that Indiana declined a home game in the NIT, opting to play (and lose) at Georgia Tech on Tuesday instead.

But still, there was virtually no inkling that he might be fired.

And then the NCAA tournament tipped off at 12:15 p.m. ET Thursday. And at 12:16, the email dropped from Indiana: Crean was out.

How’s that for timing? Like you’re going to sneak a firing of the basketball coach at Indiana past everyone?

View photos Tom Crean was fired after nine seasons as Indiana’s head coach. (AP) More

That seems to fit Indiana’s handling of the entire Crean situation this year. I suspect Glass simply hoped he would go away.

When he didn’t become a front-burner candidate for the Missouri job, and wasn’t going to be a candidate at North Carolina State, and so on and so forth, this started to look like Richard Gere in “An Officer and a Gentlemen,” tearfully saying, “I got nowhere else to go.”

Then Indiana suddenly gave him someplace to go. Namely, anywhere but Assembly Hall. It’s a heck of a trapdoor move.

This will be a happy development for a lot of Indiana fans, a sizable percentage of whom made up their mind years ago that Crean was never going to be good enough. He inherited a cesspool, cleaned it up and returned Indiana to competitiveness and rules compliance, but he didn’t return Indiana to the Final Four in nine seasons.

The missed opportunity that was a deal breaker with a significant portion of the fan base was the 2012-13 season. The Hoosiers won the Big Ten championship – their first outright conference title in 21 years – but failed to make a commensurate postseason push. Given a No. 1 NCAA tournament seed, Indiana flopped in the Sweet 16 against Syracuse, appearing befuddled by the Orange’s 2-3 zone.

That was a killer missed opportunity. And when it was followed by two members of that team (Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller) being taken in the first four picks in the NBA draft, it sealed the sour taste for IU fans.

A Final Four berth there would have given Crean enough cachet to withstand what came after: a 17-15 season, then a 20-14 year in which Indiana squeaked into the NCAA tourney as a No. 10 seed, then an array of off-court problems.

The fan base declared open season. It was 2015 when someone set up the website calculating Tom Crean’s buyout and with a countdown clock until his contract expired.

Still, Crean circled the wagons in 2015-16 and remarkably won another outright Big Ten title. Given a No. 5 seed, the Hoosiers took down Kentucky to reach the NCAA tourney Sweet 16 before losing to North Carolina.

That still wasn’t enough for some fans. But in general it dramatically lessened the heat on the coach.

View photos Tom Crean had three seasons remaining on his contract. (Getty) More

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