Tom Crean deserves to remain the basketball coach at Indiana due to his body of work, Indiana AD Fred Glass said in an interview today.

Speaking with Mike Miller of the Bloomington Herald-Times, Glass said Crean's "body of work is pretty darn good and certainly merits his continued leadership of the program."

Glass' comments follow IU's home loss to Iowa Tuesday night and after a Wednesday in which the volume on the speculation about Crean' future was turned way up, including columns and scathing talk radio comments in Indianapolis.

"Tom is definitely not coaching for his job on Saturday," Glass told Miller. "I've always thought that was silly whether it was pro football, where this guy's gotta win this wild card playoff game or that guy's gotta win two games in the conference tournament or something to keep his job.

"I just think that's silly, whether it's the NFL, or college football or college basketball. I believe you've got to look at the body of work. For Tom and his years here, I think the body of work is pretty darn good and certainly merits his continued leadership of the program."

Crean's contract extension runs through 2020.

Miller asked Glass about Crean's buyout, which is listed as $12 million prior to July 1 - but could have small adjustments - and $7.5 million after July 1.

Keeping a college basketball coach through the spring recruiting periods only to fire him after July 1 for financial reasons would be a laughable move in major college basketball. It would have the strong possibility of killing at least one entire recruiting class and putting a coach far behind in another.

"The buyout in some quarters is overblown," Glass told Miller. "I get that it's a big number. What people don't realize is, if that were to occur, it would get paid out over five years. It's not like he gets a $10 million dollar check and walks out the door.

"It gets paid out over time as if it were his regular salary over five years, which mitigates the impact on the department and it has a set-off provision so that if he went to another school or to TV or had some other employment, that gets set off.

"I hesitate to even talk about it because it makes it seem like that's some sort of consideration. It's not. My main point is Tom is the coach here because I think he needs to be the coach here, not because we feel backed into it because of the buyout."

Indiana went 17-15 last season, missed both the NCAA Tournament and the NIT and is 19-11 currently with one regular-season game remaining. The Hoosiers host Michigan State on Saturday.

Crean took over at IU after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco put the program on NCAA probation. He went 6-25, 10-21 and 12-20 his first three years before landing five-star forward Cody Zeller.

In Zeller's two years, IU went 27-9 and 29-7 and reached the Sweet Sixteen both seasons, the first time since 1994 that the Hoosiers have reached consecutive Sweet Sixteens. IU won the 2013 Big Ten championship.

Indiana has 19 regular-season wins over Top-25 opponents since the 2011-12 season, the most of any team in the Big Ten.

"I'm really disappointed in the rough patch just like everybody else in Hoosier Nation, including Tom and the team," Glass told Miller. "I truly am. I go to all the games. I don't like the losses we've had, but just like I wasn't popping champagne corks in January, I'm not ready to slit my wrists now.

"I sense that some people are starting to pull the razor blades out of the medicine cabinet. I encourage them to put them back."