Michigan State Basketball: 3 candidates who could replace Dwayne Stephens

1. Tom Crean

The most obvious choice to replace Dwayne Stephens would have to be Tom Crean who has ties to Michigan State and a solid friendship with Tom Izzo as well.

Crean, 56, was just fired from Georgia after a rough stint with the Bulldogs where he went 47-75 over four years and just 6-26 in his final season in Athens. He had just one winning season with Georgia and never made the NCAA Tournament nor finished higher than 10th in the SEC.

Before Georgia, he was the head coach at Indiana from 2008-2017 and had a rough start, trying to rebuild the program for three years, and then he finished with four 20-plus-win seasons in the final six before parting ways after an 18-16 season in 2016-17. He started 28-66 at Indiana in his first three years and then finished 138-69 over the final six.

Prior to Indiana, he went 190-96 at Marquette and made a Final Four in 2003.

Crean has a resume that has plenty of success on it despite the forgettable tenure in Georgia and his ties to Michigan State date all the way back to 1989 when he was a grad assistant. He was an assistant under Izzo from 1995-99 before he became a big name on the coaching market and was hired by Marquette before going to Indiana and Georgia.

Crean and Izzo are close so this would make sense and the former is a really solid recruiter who could help get the Spartans back to their Final Four ways.

Don’t be scared by a “retread” because he hasn’t been an assistant since 1999 and he has had plenty of experience and success since.