Marquette's Crean to be introduced as coach at Indiana

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University will hire Marquette's Tom Crean as its basketball coach and is expected to introduce him at a news conference today.

University trustee Philip Eskew confirmed the hiring. Eskew said Crean had signed a letter-of-intent with the university and was meeting with his team Tuesday night.

Team spokesman J.D. Campbell said a news conference had yet to be scheduled.

The hiring comes near the end of a tumultuous six-week period in which former Hoosiers coach Kelvin Sampson resigned amid an NCAA scandal, interim coach Dan Dakich replaced him and then lost four of seven games.

Dakich also suspended guard Jamarcus Ellis for disciplinary reasons for the Hoosiers' game at Penn State, and announced Tuesday that Ellis and guard Armon Bassett had been kicked off the team for missing two scheduled events.

Crean, who led Marquette to the Final Four in 2003, will responsible for rebuilding not only Indiana's reputation as a national power, but also its sullied image as a squeaky clean program.

Crean went 190-96 in nine seasons at Marquette. He leaves for a job that came open after Sampson's latest alleged missteps with the NCAA.

Sampson left in February amid a phone-call scandal that brought five allegations of major infractions from the NCAA. Dakich's promotion to interim coach fueled threats of a player boycott and the Hoosiers (25-8) never recovered. They lost four of their final seven games, including a last-second defeat against Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals and an 86-72 loss to Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Since firing Bob Knight in September 2000, a move that sharply divided Indiana fans, the Hoosiers have failed to find a suitable successor. Mike Davis, who replaced Knight, never won enough to satisfy Indiana's rabid fans, and it took Sampson, Davis' successor, less than two years to stain the university's once-impeccable reputation for playing by the rules.

Sutton resigns at OSU

STILLWATER, Okla. — Only two years into his tenure, Sean Sutton resigned under pressure Tuesday as Oklahoma State's basketball coach following a 17-16 season.

Athletic director Mike Holder met with Sutton on Monday, two weeks after the Cowboys finished their season. Holder said Sutton knew the expectations for a program that reached the Final Four twice with Sutton on his father's staff.

"I think Sean was probably a victim of those expectations," Holder said. "He was put in a tough situation. It's hard enough to follow a legend. But when that legend is your father, that's probably tough to the third power. Perhaps in a different set of circumstances, he would have enjoyed more success.

"Life is not fair. Athletics is not fair," he said. "At the end of the day, I feel like it's the right decision."

Holder said he and Sutton agreed on Sutton's decision to resign. Sutton did not attend a news conference at the university Tuesday.

Sutton was two years into a five-year contract worth $750,000 a year that he had agreed to when he was still an assistant on his father's staff. It called for him to be the head coach-designate, meaning he would take over when his father left.

The Cowboys, who started 1-6 in Big 12 play, regrouped to win five straight games, including an upset of then-No. 4 Kansas, which has made the Final Four. But Oklahoma State lost its final two regular-season games to finish 7-9 in league play.

Oklahoma State lost 69-53 at Southern Illinois in the first round of the NIT.

Sutton was 39-29 in his two seasons, but his relationship with the program dates much further. After transferring from Kentucky, he was a guard on his father's Oklahoma State teams for two years before serving as an assistant for 13 years, including Final Four appearances in 1995 and 2004.

— The Associated Press