Indiana students have abandoned ship?

It's been a tough year for Indiana Basketball.

Amidst a less-than-stellar 2007-08 campaign, their coach, Kelvin Sampson was removed from his post as head coach after committing second offenses of NCAA recruiting violations. The team was recognized as a top-25 team to begin the season and was in contention for the Big Ten title, but the NCAA investigation appeared to be too much for the program toward the end of the season, as they lost four of their last five games, including first-round exits in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.

Since Sampson's exit, the Hoosier's brought in one of the most prominent up-and-coming coaches in the country, Tom Crean. Crean was an assistant coach at Michigan State under Tom Izzo before heading to Marquette and leading that program to years of success.

Billed as a successor for Izzo in the future, it surprised many when Crean took the IU job, but it also seemed almost too good to be true. In the aftermath of the Sampson fiasco, nearly the entire starting five graduated, left early or transferred, leaving Crean with a completely clean slate.

Now, Indiana, a traditional NCAA basketball dynasty, is facing problems with ticket sales. Crean told the Indiana Daily Student that student ticket sales are selling at a disappointing rate.

"I don't think they are where they need to be," Crean told the paper. "I don't want that to become a disappointment because we might be disappointed in the short term. But the students who don't get them — or don't choose to buy them — are going to be disappointed in the long term."

The bottom line is that Indiana is and will always be a legendary basketball program. All schools go through rebuilding phases. If those tickets don't sell, they'll be sold to the public and the students will never get them back. Crean's right — they'll soon be disappointed.