ATLANTA -- When it seemed as though it couldn't get any worse for Indiana basketball -- but somehow did -- Tom Crean could almost always count on a phone call from an old friend.

That friend was John Calipari, the same Calipari who now stands between Indiana and the Hoosiers' first Elite Eight appearance in 10 years. Or to put a finer point on it, Calipari stands in the way of IU becoming, well, IU again.

Calipari coaches Kentucky, the No. 1 overall seed and the favorite not only to beat Indiana on Friday evening in the Sweet 16 but to beat anybody and everybody on its way to a national championship. The Wildcats are that scarily talented.

But UK's only regular-season loss came Dec. 10 to Indiana. It was a game the Hoosiers won by a single point, but, Calipari said Thursday, "They beat us worse than that."

So yes, there's the rematch factor. And the revenge factor. And the dear-God-how-many-times-are-they-going-to-show-that-commercial-in-which-Christian-Watford-sinks-the-trey-at-the-buzzer-to-beat-UK factor.

"ESPN does a great job of showing it," Watford said.

But this South Regional semifinal isn't just about IU's Friday night or the rest of its possible tournament future; it's also about its hoops past. It's about those phone calls from Calipari to Crean.

Tom Crean was 6-25 in his first season at Indiana. AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

They weren't mercy calls. That would have been an insult to a new coach whose Indiana program was in a total free fall as recently as three seasons ago -- Crean's first at IU. Even Crean, who is convinced everything can be overcome by sweat equity, had miscalculated the depth of the quicksand in those early seasons in Bloomington.

"So you have a big task like we have at Indiana and then all of a sudden it's a lot bigger than you ever thought it would be and it's a lot more challenging than you could have ever imagined," Crean said.

An IU-worst 6-25 record in his first season (1-17 in Big Ten play). A 10-21 record in 2009. A 12-20 record last season.

"It was kind of hard going from top 10 the year before to a school record for losses the next year," said Kyle Taber, who was IU's team captain in 2008 and now is an assistant coach at Lake Forest (Ill.) College. "Those were kind of the dark days."

Kind of? It was absolutely pitch black. Which is why Calipari would call.

"And I will always appreciate that because it wasn't just, 'Hey, hang in there,'" Crean said. "Anybody can tell you that. It was tangible things: 'Have you thought about this? Are you looking at that?' Things that really make you think."

Crean and Calipari are connected by the University of Pittsburgh. Calipari grew up near that town and was an assistant coach at Pitt. Crean also spent time as an assistant at Pitt, although they never worked on the same staff.

But Calipari respected Crean's work ethic -- a "Basketball Benny" is the way Calipari described him. In other words, a hoops lifer.

When Crean left Marquette for Indiana, Hoosiers basketball looked like a dinner plate dropped from the top of Memorial Union. Everything was in a thousand pieces thanks to the NCAA infractions committed by Kelvin Sampson, the subsequent self-imposed IU penalties and, later, NCAA probation.

"[Y]ou have to have a will that's stronger than everybody around you -- and he does," Calipari said. "To get Indiana back where now you're looking at a top-five program that kids from across the country would watch them play and say, 'I'd like to play for them.' To do that in the time frame is amazing."