Who is Jim Crews? That’s a question many people around campus are asking after the school announced that Rick Majerus was taking a medical leave for the 2012-2013 season.
Crews, an assistant coach hired by Majerus last year, has 24 years of Division I head coaching experience due to previous head coaching jobs at Evansville and Army. He also played on the last team to go undefeated in D-I basketball, the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.
After his playing career was over, he remained at Indiana as an assistant coach under Bob Knight. His last head coaching stent ended in 2009 at the United States Military Acadamy.
Crews is ready to be the interim head coach for this season’s team and is focused on the team element of this season.
“It’s really about the team; it’s about the kids. That is what college basketball should be about and that’s what we want people to focus on this season,” Interim Head Coach Jim Crews said.
Crews played under Bob Knight from 1972-1976 and then became an assistant coach under Knight from 1977-1985.
“It was a great experience, I went there a long time ago, that was before ‘Bob Knight’ was Bob Knight,” Crews said. “He was a great teacher, a really loving guy, and has been a life-long friend of mine, and I really treasure that and treasure the friendships that I made at Indiana.”
After the 1985 season, Crews would go on to coach the University of Evansville Purple Aces for 17 seasons. At Evansville, Crews made 4 NCAA tournament appearances and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament during the 1988-1989 season. Crews collected a 294-209 record while at Evansville. Crews departed from Evansville after the 2001-2002 season. However, he quickly became the Head Coach at the U.S. Military Academy.
Crews was the head coach of the Army Golden Knights from 2002-2009. Crews struggled at Army only collecting 59-140 overall record before be terminated.
Crews joined the Billiken basketball staff in 2011, after former assistant coaches Porter Moser and Alex Jensen left their positions to begin head coaching positions at Loyola Chicago and the NBA D-League Canton Charge, respectively.
Crews said that the team was “very emotional” when they found out that Coach Majerus was not going to return for this season.
“I did not know not know what we were going to do; I knew Coach (Majerus) wasn’t going to coach, there really not a blueprint for how to deal with this situation,” Crews said.
Crews said that it was “disjointed” telling the team the news about Coach Majerus’ leave of absence because six members of the team were in St. Louis, but six other members of the team were not in town because they had a two week break before school started. However, they were able to tell the team before the news became public.
“It has been a difficult time, but I think the leadership throughout the team has been very, very good and these guys have really invested in each other and Coach Majerus has always told them, at least 100 times last year that, ‘It’s your team’,” Crews said.
Dwayne Evans and Cody Ellis admitted that is they were stunned by the news of Coach Majerus’ leave of absence. However, they were excited with the prospect of Crews becoming the head coach for this season.
“It was good to know, Coach Crews knows his stuff.” Ellis said, “We had some team meeting and talked about sticking together and remembering that this is still our team.”
Evans said that the news about Coach Majerus made the team “refocus” on this upcoming season.
“We knew that coach [Majerus] was an instrumental part of our program, but I know that Coach Crews will do a great job this season,” Evans said.
Coach Crews is not going to change much from Majerus’ offense or defense, but said he is adding new “wrinkles” to the offense, but that it is not out of the norm for the team.
“It’s going to be the same offense, but you will have different counters to it, different options, and can change personnel to it,” Crews said.
Crews will be placed in a difficult position, with many high pre-season expectations placed on the team. However, Dr. Richard Chaifetz, the man for whom Chaifetz Arena is named, believes that Crews will be able to handle the situation.
“Jim is capable of handling this team. He has coached with Rick and has a very positive attitude,” Chaifetz said.
Crews will be taking Rick Majerus’ team, a team with high expectation placed on it for this season. His experiences at Indiana, Evansville, and Army have prepared for this moment, but he kept emphasizing that it is about the team this year.
“We have a whole locker room full of good teammates. That’s what makes it a very special and unique situation,” Crews said.
