In the words of Ed Begley Jr. in the movie "Pittsburgh": NG. Not Good.
The writing was clearly on the wall several days ago when Cyrus Tate and sophomore-to-be Jarryd Cole were named captains of the Iowa men's basketball team. When a senior-to-be starting guard was passed over for a soph, as Freeman was, he didn't fit into next season's plans.
It's unusual to see a player leave a program for another after three seasons. But this is life in major-college basketball, it seems. Don't get too attached to anyone (remember Tyler Smith?). Programs are disposable. But so are players.
I've got to think this was Todd Lickliter's decision as much or more than it is Freeman's. Lickliter didn't seem too enthralled with the way Freeman played with the ball. It may have been Lickliter's agonized facial expressions or the repeated placing of his head in his hands that were tip-offs.You can't argue that Freeman did a lot of dribbling, maybe more dribbles per possession than any player in the Big Ten. So off he goes.
Three years. Poof. We all move on. We always do.
I really, really think Iowa can handle Indiana in men's basketball next season.
The Hoosiers were already losing their two best players, and two of the Big Ten's best in senior big man D.J. White and freshman guard extraordinaire Eric Gordon.
Friday, new Indiana coach Tom Crean was down to three returning scholarship players and eight in all after the announced departures of four Hoosiers.
Sophomore Armon Bassett and junior Jamarcus Ellis, who had appealed their suspensions by former interim coach Dan Dakich, were dismissed from the program. Junior forward DeAndre Thomas is leaving, and so is freshman Eli Holman.
Indiana was 25-7 this season, but stumbled in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals and in the first-round of the NCAA tourney, making it feel like an unsatisfying season. Kelvin Sampson added to that when he got fired for his bizarre over-use of his cell phone in recruiting, which had the NCAA hot on the program's trail.
Iowa was short-handed last season in Todd Lickliter's first year as coach, thanks to Tyler Smith's transfer to Tennessee and other reasons not of Lickliter's making. But this makes the 2007-08 Hawkeyes look like the 2007-08 Kansas Jayhawks compared to what Crean is inheriting at Indiana for 20008-09.
Sampson, meanwhile, appears set to become an assistant coach for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. These guys always seem to land on their feet, don't they?
Sophomore Armon Bassett and junior Jamarcus Ellis, who had appealed their suspensions by former interim coach Dan Dakich, were dismissed from the program. Junior forward DeAndre Thomas will also not return and neither will freshman Eli Holman, who has elected to transfer after a meeting Thursday that required a call to campus police when Holman became agitated.