If there's been one word to describe Indiana's situation the past, oh, three months -- and yes, I'm resisting a Len Elmore joke -- it's "mess." In every sense of that word, IU has been there: a coach busted and then fired for cheating, an interim coach that couldn't inspire (or frankly, coach defense), an early, listless tournament exit, and the onionsy dismissal of the team's best two returning players by a known lame duck. It's been a terrible mess.

The Hoosiers needed a new coach, and needed him quickly. When it became clear that any discussion of top-tier program builders (Rick Pitino, Bruce Pearl, John Calipari) and young lifers (Tony Bennett) was going to be limited to April Fool's jokes, the Hoosiers acted quickly and decisively. They got Tom Crean.

Crean might not make Hoosiers feel funny in places they don't talk about at parties like Pitino and Pearl and Bennett, but the hire is a perfect fit in a variety of ways. Before landing at Marquette, Crean was long Tom Izzo's recruiting maven at Michigan State, and he knows the Big Ten -- knows its media, its fans, and the midwestern sway those large schools have over their wide swaths of the plain states. At Marquette, he's long recruited Indiana and Chicago well; he won't need to work to establish talent connections the way Bennett might have. And by recruiting well in those areas, instead of looking east like Pitino surely would have, Crean accomplishes two things at once: he both bolsters his team and drains rivals like Illinois of vital geographic recruiting advantages. Win-win.

At 42, Crean is also a relatively young guy. That's something IU fans demand -- they want another Bob Knight to spring forth from youth and obscurity, and 42 years old is pretty young in coaching circles. Crean's no Bennett boy-wonder, and he's also no Mike Montgomery. He sits right in the middle of the curve: proven but not too old, exciting but not too young.

This is also a good fit for Crean. Instead of playing in the stacked Big East -- arguably the best conference in basketball -- Crean gets to transition to the Big Ten, where a few gangly white guys, some defense, and a decent scheme makes you the next Wisconsin. Crean probably could have coached at Marquette for a couple more years before fans became impatient with "solid," but at IU, Crean will enjoy amnesty, or a honeymoon, or however you want to put it, from a fan base that has had its expectations considerably lowered lately. That will come in handy, since Crean's record in the NCAA Tournament is a mere 5-5 -- and 1-4 without some guy named Dwyane Wade. Whoever that is. (Crean has also been in the NIT three times. Shh. Don't say "NIT" too loudly. You wouldn't like IU fans in the NIT.)

Fortunately for Crean, the IU athletics department is close to finishing brand new practice facilities, the type of place coaches can sell to recruits not sold on the whole "tradition" nonsense. And yes, despite the efforts of Mike Davis and Sampson to sully IU's reputation, the program is still laden with tradition. Those five banners still hang from the wall. It's still a destination -- a place coaches set out for from the moment they begin glad-handing at NABC meetings.

Now Crean has landed there. The next step is to find out if he can coach. If his Marquette returns are any indication, he could be an inscrutably solid, if not dazzling, solution to IU's considerable woes. Indiana got bailed out with this one. Now it's up to Crean to right the ship.