COLUMBIA, MO. • The full force of Georgia’s latest basketball hire wasn’t fully felt until Feb. 11, nearly a year after Tom Crean became the latest coach in the Southeastern Conference with a Final Four in his credentials.
At Indiana, Crean’s regime lost traction by his ninth season, and after a year in coaching purgatory at ESPN, he resurfaced at Georgia last spring, a splashy hire for a school that usually come March shifts its focus to spring football. In the course of an underwhelming debut season, Crean made his mark three weeks ago, when the Bulldogs landed five-star Atlanta recruit Anthony Edwards, the highest-ranked prospect to ever commit to UGA.