If you were to give Tom Crean a nickname, it might be "Caffeine."
To watch the first-year Georgia basketball coach pace the sideline is to come to view the Energizer Bunny as a sloth.
In fact, on Monday morning, when a verbal commitment from No. 2 recruit (according to 247Sports.com) and Atlanta native Anthony Edwards gave Bulldogs hoops its best recruiting news since Dominique Wilkins joined the program prior to the 1979-80 season, one of the five-star guard's reasons for picking Georgia was as follows: "On my visit we watched film together, and (Crean) talks with so much energy."
But this past Saturday evening Crean talked with too much frustration. After watching his Bulldogs bullied by Ole Miss during a 80-64 home loss that included the return of 90 UGA basketball lettermen, Caffeine Crean sounded as if he'd had three too many double espressos, causing his lips to move twice as fast as his brain.
Though he sort of took the blame for the loss, the coach's excuse for the Dawgs' eighth straight Southeastern Conference defeat was unique to say the least.
"I'm the one who decided to keep these guys," he said of the players he inherited from Mark Fox after Fox was fired last spring.
"It doesn't mean that they are not great kids. But very few programs when there's a takeover, when you have guys that haven't done it at any point in time really in their career, a lot of those guys, they move on. That's what happens in a job change. And I didn't do that."
It should be pointed out that NCAA rules technically prohibit stripping a young man or woman's scholarship as long as they remain academically eligible and steer clear of university violations such as illegal drug use, assault or cheating.
First-year coaches can and do often advise a player that the coach doesn't see a meaningful role for that player moving forward, and at that point the player must decide if it's more important to get playing time or a degree from the school he originally signed with.
But the coach can't force the player to leave if he's a model student and citizen. Ever.
And perhaps because of that, or maybe because he truly, as he claimed Monday, didn't realize what had poured forth from his mouth, Crean apologized in public. No faux Twitter or Instagram apology. This was in person, in front of many of the same media he'd embarrassed himself in front of two days earlier. For that, if nothing else, Crean deserves high marks.
"It's been on my mind since Saturday night," he said during his routine news conference prior to tonight's game at Texas A&M. "I wanted to wait until we got out in front of you guys. I definitely thought about putting out a statement, but I thought it'd be better to do it this way."
He soon added, "I always tell me players you can't let frustration in, and I always preach that and try to be very cognizant of that. But I think I did. I think I let losing that game and the fact that we had those lettermen there and our fans in general, because I didn't think we played with the spirit and the passion that we need to. I looked back at those comments and I saw them and it was like I was blaming the players, and that was never my intent to do that."
Crean's behavior toward his players - be it good, bad or misunderstood - reportedly has cost him before.
His Indiana Hoosiers were ranked No. 1 in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls before the 2012-13 season but eventually fell to Syracuse by 11 points in the NCAA tournament's round of 16.
Whispers afterward centered on Crean's daily intensity wearing his veteran team down to the point that the players just wanted the season to end, the sooner the better.
Now, less than one year into his UGA tenure comes this. If Crean handled it about as well as he could Monday, a Twitter post over the weekend from Shantell Crump - mother of junior guard Tyree Crump - sounded as if the coach soothing his current team's hurt feelings might take a while.
Tweeted Ms. Crump: "Really? Tom Crean, you want to blame the players? What coach would say something like this to the media about his players?"
There is an alternative explanation to this, one that Crean certainly would never admit to but in the dastardly, disturbing, diabolical world of college basketball coaches makes at least a tiny bit of sense.
Edwards is hoping to encourage more four- and five-star players to join him. With nine underclassmen currently on the roster and three newcomers (including Edwards) set to arrive in the summer, if Crean could run off two or three more before next season, Edwards would have the scholarship openings he'd need to help his coach dramatically improve his roster.
Then again, maybe that's too harsh. After all, what coach ever would intentionally say what Crean did to the media about his players?
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com