Four players to leave basketball team

Another day brings more changes for the men''''s basketball team. \nIU coach Tom Crean announced in a statement this afternoon that junior forward DeAndre Thomas will be dismissed from the team. In addition, suspended guards Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis were informed they would also not be reinstated.\nThis news comes a day after forward Eli Holman told Crean he will not return for 2008-09 season, in a situation that ended with the police being dispatched.\n"Before you build a team you need to develop a family," Crean said in a press release. "We will go through the learning process, feel some growing pains and experience some bumps in the road along the way. We need the Hoosier Nation to rally around this program as we go through these stages."\nThe dismissals leave the Hoosiers with only three players returning to the active roster - sophomore guards Jordan Crawford and Brandon McGee and forward Kyle Taber, along with walk-on Brett Finklemeier.\nIn his brief and eventful tenure as the program''''s 28th head coach, Crean has already brought in four new players - freshmen Nick Williams, Tom Pritchard, Matt Roth and junior-college transfer Devon Dumes - to help fill a vacant roster.\n"Our staff if going to ensure that anyone who attends this University and wears the Indiana uniform will make this privilege among their highest priorities and not treat the opportunity as an entitlement," Crean said in a press release.\n"We fully expect our student-athletes to accept the responsibilities academically, athletically and socially that come with representing one of the top programs in college basketball history"