Tom Crean

Thomas Aaron Crean (born March 25, 1966) is a college basketball coach.

Most recently, he was the head coach for the University of Georgia men's basketball team.

Crean was previously the head coach of Indiana University.

The team made a Final Four appearance for the first time since winning the NCAA Championship in 1977.

Crean has referred to the team's run as "one of the greatest four or five days of my life."

Crean received his bachelor's degree in parks-and-recreation studies from Central Michigan in 1989.

Crean is married to Joani Harbaugh, whom he met while an assistant to Ralph Willard at Western Kentucky University (WKU) through a mutual friend, Ron Burns, at a gym where she was working as an aerobics instructor.

Her father, Jack Harbaugh, was the head football coach at WKU at the time Crean was an assistant basketball coach there.

She is also the sister of the first pair of brothers in NFL history to serve as head coaches: Baltimore Ravens head football coach John Harbaugh and Los Angeles Chargers head football coach Jim Harbaugh.

Crean and his wife have three children: Megan, Riley, and Ainsley.

Crean spent two stints at Michigan State, first during the 1989-1990 season as a graduate assistant under then head coach Jud Heathcote at the behest of then assistant coach Tom Izzo, whom Crean had befriended on the summer camp circuit.

From 1990 to 1994 Crean served as the associate head coach under Ralph Willard at Western Kentucky.

When Willard left Western Kentucky to become head coach at Pittsburgh in 1994, Crean was considered to replace him as head coach.

Ultimately Crean followed Willard to Pittsburgh, serving as associate head coach for one year.

In 1995, Crean returned to Michigan State as assistant coach under the leadership of Tom Izzo.

Izzo and Crean became such good friends that Crean lived in Izzo's house and Izzo was an usher in Crean's wedding.

According to Crean at the time, "It was a great opportunity for me to go back home. We've been friends a long time. I don't think I would have left Ralph for anything else."

During this period Crean served at various times as recruiting coordinator and, for the last two seasons, associate head coach.

Prior to that, he served as head coach at Marquette University (1999–2008), where his team reached the 2003 NCAA Final Four.

Crean's basketball philosophy emphasizes fast breaks and transition offense.

His guidance of the Indiana program to success from "unthinkable depths" was regarded as one of the most remarkable rebuilding projects in NCAA basketball history.

In each of Crean's four seasons, Michigan State's win total increased, culminating with a 33-5 season and a 15-1 Big Ten ledger in 1999.

On March 30, 1999, Crean was named head coach at Marquette University.

According to Crean, "Once Marquette became available, that's where my sights were. I had unbelievable respect for the tradition and the name. When I thought of Marquette, I thought of a true basketball school and to me that had a lot to do with it."

Crean immediately made a number of changes at Marquette, creating a new team image by increasing the significance of the team's media day and instituting a "Midnight Madness" event commonly held by schools on the night teams are allowed to begin practice.

Crean's first recruiting class was considered by experts to be among the top twenty in the country, Marquette's first in a long time.

In his nine years with Marquette, Crean's teams earned five NCAA Tournament bids, one more than the previous four Marquette coaches had in the 16 years prior to his arrival.

During his tenure there Crean recruited, developed and coached a number of skilled players that made significant contributions in both the NCAA and NBA, including Dwyane Wade, Dominic James, Steve Novak, Wesley Matthews, and Travis Diener.

Over his final seven seasons at Marquette, Crean compiled an aggregate record of 160-68 (.702).

Michigan State later went on to honor Crean with a 2000 National Championship ring; even though he wasn't on the staff at the time, he'd helped recruit and develop many of the players on the title team.

The 2002-03 season was one of the best in Marquette history.

Later that year, Marquette accepted an offer to leave Conference USA for the Big East Conference after the 2004–2005 season.

Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese cited his friendship with Crean as contributing to the invitation, saying, "That, to me, was one of the great appeals, to get Tommy as well as Marquette into the league."

In 2012, he was named the mid-season Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year, the Sporting News Big Ten Coach of the Year, and the ESPN.com National Coach of the Year.

In 2016, Crean was named by the coaches and media the Big Ten Coach of the Year after coaching Indiana to their second outright Big Ten regular-season championship in four years.

Crean was born and raised in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, where he played basketball for four years.

According to Crean, "I didn't play a lot, although my coach called me his biggest tool, but I knew I wanted to coach."

While a student at Central Michigan University, Crean was an assistant coach at Mount Pleasant High School for five seasons, and at Alma College.

Riley was a right handed pitcher for the Georgia Bulldogs baseball team in 2019.

Crean is a Christian.