Tom Crean is joining ESPN as a college basketball studio analyst, the network's director of communications confirmed Friday morning. Front Office Sports' Michael McCarthy first reported the move by the former Indiana and Georgia men's basketball coach.
Dec. 7 will be Crean’s first day on the job. He worked at ESPN from 2017-18, in between leading the Hoosiers and the Bulldogs.
“The game has changed completely,” Crean told Front Office Sports. “There’s a 1,000-foot level of what people want you to think this is all about. But here’s the 10,000-30,000-foot level of what it really is. I don’t think I will have any fear of talking like that. There’s so many things changing around the game with how you recruit. And I had to live it.”
Crean coached at Indiana from 2008-17, amassing a 166-135 overall record with the Hoosiers. He won two regular season titles and led Indiana to four NCAA Tournament appearances, including two-straight Sweet 16 appearances from 2011-13.
Indiana made it back to the Sweet Sixteen in 2016, but finished the 2016-17 regular season and Big Ten Tournament with an 18-15 record. Indiana got bounced in the first round of the NIT, and Crean was fired after the season.
“If you have energy and you have excitement for it, there’s nothing wrong with doing that,” Crean said of working in television. “I think people want to feel good about what they’re watching. They want to have a reason to go back to that game. Or tune in the next time.”
After his first stint at ESPN, Crean was hired in 2018 at Georgia. In four seasons with the Bulldogs, he tallied a 47-75 record with a 15-57 mark in conference play. Georgia had a winning season just once under Crean, finishing below .500 in both his first and final seasons.
Crean posted a 6-26 record in 2021-22 and won just a single SEC game, culminating in his firing after the season.
“I would like to sincerely thank coach Crean and his family for their commitment to Georgia Basketball,” Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said in a statement after parting ways with Crean. “Tom Crean demonstrated unquestionable effort and enthusiasm in what he has attempted to accomplish at Georgia. That said, our expectation is to compete for postseason success in all 21 sports. We believe a leadership change in men’s basketball is needed to achieve our goals.”
Last May, Crean’s name was linked to the head coaching vacancy at Evansville. The Aces elected instead to go with David Ragland, a native of Evansville, Indiana, and a former assistant at Butler.
Crean got his coaching career started in 1987 as an assistant at Alma. He was hired as a graduate assistant at Michigan State in 1989 and from 1990-99 was an assistant at Western Kentucky, Pittsburgh and Michigan State.
In 1999, he was named the head coach at Marquette, where he remained for nine years. He guided the Golden Eagles to five NCAA Tournament appearances and made some sort of postseason tournament in each of the last seven years of his tenure.