Now that Tom Crean has left Marquette to become Indiana's new basketball coach, you can scratch his name off the list as a potential replacement for Tom Izzo.

Crean, who went 190-96 in nine seasons with the Eagles and led Marquette to the 2003 Final Four, was widely considered the frontrunner to be Michigan State's next coach, whenever that is. He spent four seasons on the bench under Izzo, was associate head coach during MSU's 1999 Final Four run, and had great success rebuilding Marquette into a Big East power.

But now that Crean's landed the most storied job in the Big Ten, you won't convince me he'll leave to fill Izzo's big shoes. When is Izzo retiring? I have no idea. If he wins a championship next year, I could see him walking away from the college game. Of course, with the recruits he has coming in, I could just as easily see him coaching well into next decade.

Since there's no timetable on Izzo's retirement, it's impossible to tell who the hot coaching commodities will be then. Of course, Jim Boylen, Izzo's close friend and former assistant, will be in the mix (assuming he has success at Utah), and Dayton's Brian Gregory, another former Izzo assistant, would be a candidate as well.

But Crean will not. He has a little bit of a rebuilding project ahead of him at Indiana, but a long, successful future in store there, too.