Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

Indiana is giving up an NIT home game because it’s scared – no, terrified – of ESPN’s cameras showing empty seats and its microphones picking up apathy or even anger. Indiana is scared of going on national television and being humiliated.

You know it. I know it. And now the world knows it.

Which has me asking a question:

If the IU fan base is this done with coach Tom Crean’s basketball program, so done that the school is willingly sacrificing revenue by sending its bad road team onto the road, how can Tom Crean continue to stay?

Why would he want to?

Why would Indiana let him?

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Listen, this isn’t what I wrote last week when I suggested the proper course of action for Crean and IU was one more year to get this thing right. But guess what happened since then? Indiana admitted defeat by declining a home game on national television.

This changes everything. Changes my opinion. Changes the debate about Crean’s future from hypothesis (Should IU and Crean part ways?) to fact (yes).

And this isn’t me telling Indiana to fire Crean. It’s not me telling Crean to parachute away to Missouri or LSU or North Carolina State or Illinois or any big-time program that might be pursuing him at the moment.

It’s me asking:

Why do either of you – Indiana or Tom Crean – want this relationship to continue?

Understand something here. Transparency, not writing talent, is my currency. Others can form better sentences, which is fine, but nobody’s going to be as honest with readers – as painfully, at times embarrassingly honest – as I am with you. If you want to read a columnist who makes up his mind and never reconsiders it even when new information arises, read someone else.

Or read this:

I like Tom Crean, and I mean a lot. I like his wife, Joani. I like his son, Riley. Make it a point to say hello every time I see him. Want that kid to be happy, knowing how hard it must be in the internet age to be the son of a basketball coach in a basketball town when the basketball team is failing to reach the NCAA tournament. Riley is a senior at Bloomington North, a pitcher who has committed to IU and whose Twitter profile says three words: IU baseball ‘21. Crean's a loving, loving father. In his household, for this decision, he knows he isn't the only factor.

Hoosiers to start NIT at Georgia Tech

More transparency: IU athletic director Fred Glass doesn't agree with me. You need to read his words, starting here, and decide for yourself: For starters, the decision not to host an NIT first-rounder wasn’t made Sunday night, he says. It was made two weeks ago, and it was made by the administration and coaching staff, when the NIT contacted all potential schools in the field to gauge their interest in hosting.

“It would be inaccurate to say this is a new reflection of where the program is at,” Glass was telling me Monday. “In my view it wasn’t driven by keeping away the boo birds or anything like that. It was driven by spring break and the fact that the student body won’t be here and the rest of Bloomington will be a ghost town, too.”

Good points, though the balcony sections of Assembly Hall, which are for students, have been empty since early February. This anger of IU fans, it's real and it's been building for months.

Would an empty Assembly Hall even matter? Sure it would. Fans give silent instruction by skipping games, and they tweet explicit instructions telling IU exactly what it can do with its basketball coach.

Up to a point, that matters. This is a public school funded by public dollars, but more than that, this is one of the most enduring traditions in sports. IU basketball? Regardless of how hard the job is – and it’s hard, don’t kid yourself; brilliant Bob Knight and at times cheatin’ Kelvin Sampson just made it look easy – the IU basketball brand is colossal. And it’s colossal because of its connection with the people of this state.

So their anger matters. Their anger isn't everything, but it is a factor. It has to be a factor. And now, given what Indiana itself has admitted – we’re afraid to trot this team onto the court at Assembly Hall – the Indiana fan base has just become the loudest voice in the room.

Yes, I know, it’s spring break at Indiana. The students are gone, but not really. Not all of them. IU has an undergraduate enrollment of nearly 40,000, and according to its records, 57 percent of them (roughly 23,000) live in the state. So if they wanted to come to the game, they could.

IU has just told the world: They don’t want to come to the game.

IU also has told the world: In a state of 6.5 million, so many of whom were raised on IU basketball, we don’t think anyone else would come to the game, either. So we’d rather fly to Georgia Tech and play there.

Indiana’s record in Assembly Hall: 14-4.

Indiana’s record away from Assembly Hall: 4-11.

Indiana would just about rather lose than play this game at home.

Doyel: Indiana is all over this bracket — well, except for one spot

There are 16 first-round games in the NIT. The better seed gets the chance to host the game. Of those 16 teams, 11 of them are on spring break.

Indiana is the only one that asked to go on the road.

Glass has an answer for that, too. Listen to him. Decide for yourself:

“Everyone else on spring break is hosting games,” he was saying, “but they didn't have a 7,800-person student section. The student section is more dramatically important to our home-game experience, and it’s more notable by its absence. Literally we have the largest student section in college basketball, bar none.

“We’re going to get criticized no matter what. If we made the other choice, I can see some people say, ‘You idiot, you’re setting up Tom and the team to fail because Bloomington is a ghost town.’ I do think the men’s basketball student section is particularly important to the experience at IU and how the experience at IU is perceived. I won’t back away from that.”

All well and good. But student tickets could be sold to the general public or simply given away. The doors could be open to the 6.5 million Indiana residents for free. Those were options, but not realistic ones because the fans just aren’t there. This is basketball royalty, Kansas or Duke or UNC or Kentucky, and it just gave away a home game because it doesn't have enough fans.

Seems plain as day as to me: The IU school and IU coach have just admitted to the world that their partnership isn’t working.

When do they admit it to themselves?

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atfacebook.com/gregg.doyel.