ROSEMONT, Ill. -- On Thursday morning, in advance of Saturday's renewed football rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State, the Detroit Free Press told the story about Spartans basketball coach Tom Izzo's long-term relationship with Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh. Halfway down that story is a photo, taken in 1993, of Indiana coach Tom Crean's wedding party. In the middle, among a cavalcade of recognizable -- if considerably more youthful -- coaching faces, shoulder-to-shoulder with Crean, stands Izzo.
It was a helpful reminder: Izzo has known Crean longer and better than almost anyone else in the sport.
And now, as Crean embarks on his eighth season at Indiana -- a season that may be his most riveting, replete as it is with high expectations, talented players and zero margin for error -- Izzo can be at once supportive and critical in a way only close friends can.
"Personally, I think -- if you want to get deep on it -- Tom had to learn how to handle the media and everything down there," Izzo said. "It's a different animal at certain schools. It really is. It's different at Kentucky than it is at Michigan State. You can't just do it one way. I think that hurt him."
"I see him more at peace with himself now than I've seen him in five years," Izzo continued. "I think he'll have a better team, and I think he'll enjoy it more. He can embrace the thing and say, he's a damn good coach, he cares about his players and he's just run into a couple of problems in a place where they're not used to it."
Those recent problems -- mostly alcohol- and marijuana-related issues with players -- have come off the court and only added to the apparent pressure of Crean's consensus hot-seat status.
Despite that, the Hoosiers still found themselves at Thursday's Big Ten media day generally regarded by their competition as the league's second-best team, behind only a loaded Maryland. The returns of Yogi Ferrell, James Blackmon, Robert Johnson and Troy Williams kept one of the most enticing four-man perimeters in the sport intact. And the arrival of freshman Thomas Bryant, whom Crean said had increased his vertical leap by seven inches in just nine weeks on campus, fills the roster's most glaring hole. Indiana expects to score at its top-10 level of a year ago, while defending and rebounding far better, thus limiting the inconsistency that saw a mostly overachieving team booed off its own floor late last season.
"The ball is going to go in the hoop," Ferrell said. "We've got great shooters, inside presence. We'll do what we do. But defensively, if we're one unit, I don't see how we can lose."
Combine disappointing recent results, discipline-related dismissals and an undeniably talented roster focused on collective defensive improvement, and it's an unusual combination. It has led Indiana to the fascinating crossroads where high expectations and low patience collide -- and where coaches' jobs are officially on the line.
It should be, on paper, the most pressure-packed preseason of the notoriously intense Crean's career. Instead, Izzo said, he seems more relaxed than ever.
"You get to the point where everyone's on your tail, and you kind of have to trust yourself sometimes," Izzo said. "I've had years when I've said, 'What am I doing? I can't win! Not to the level [I want]. So you question yourself.
"I think Tom has adjusted [and said], 'You know what, this is a tough thing. Everything's not my fault,'" Izzo said. "I think Tom's at peace with himself. I think he's going to have a hell of a year. I really do. I just hope it's not at my expense."
BIG TEN BIG MEN
Purdue's Caleb Swanigan and Maryland's Diamond Stone share at least a few things in common. They are very large men. They are highly-touted freshmen. They are joining ascendant teams that should contend for a conference title. They were absent from the All-Big Ten preseason teams, and both omissions felt conspicuous.
Sure, media voters haven't had a chance to see either in a college setting. Still, that relatively quiet greeting feels likely to change, sooner rather than later, for both.
Stone's biggest challenge, Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said, is on defensive end, where he's been thrown headfirst into a whole new set of second-by-second considerations.
"It's hard for him," Turgeon said. "It's a lot right now."
What about the offensive end?
"He can do it all," Turgeon said.
Purdue coach Matt Painter, for his part, has to figure out how to work Swanigan in alongside two 7-foot centers -- A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas -- who took turns as starters a season ago. Swanigan is big enough to play center but mobile and skilled enough to play the 4, even if Purdue, as Painter expects, sees a lot of packed-in zone. Most important, the reigning Indiana Mr. Basketball is evolving so quickly as to be malleable.
"He can move," Painter said. "He's really worked hard. He's got a strict diet. All the things you try to get kids to do by the time they leave, he does walking in."
THE RULES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'
By far the biggest recurring question on Thursday was the effect the NCAA's 25 suite of rules changes will have on styles and systems in the 2015-16 season. Most of the Big Ten's coaches seemed nonplussed, though that hasn't stopped them from drilling new rules, inviting officials to speak at practices and occasionally fretting over the full-court zone presses they assume they'll soon see.
Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan is among that number on both fronts, especially so when it comes to being unimpressed.
"You know, it's still going to be you've got to put the ball in the basket, and you've got to try to stop the other guys from putting the ball in the basket, whether it's a 5-second shot clock or 30," Ryan said.
And who could possibly argue with that?