HOOPSWORLD | Basketball News & NBA Rumors

by Bob Kravitz, USA TODAY Sports

Tom Crean doesn’t play one-on-one basketball against brother-in-law Jim Harbaugh anymore. He’s had his fill of elbows, knees and shoulders.

“I have no interest in doing that anymore,” said Crean, whose Indiana Hoosiers play Penn State at Assembly Hall Wednesday. “Guarding him, it’s what I imagine it was like to guard Charles Barkley. Nobody’s going to keep him from going where he wants to go. He just overpowers you. Jim had that Tim Tebow quarterback strength before there was a Tebow.”

Golf?

Crean doesn’t play the game anymore, which is a good thing, because he has no interest in going out on the course and getting his brains beat in by the Harbaugh boys.

Between now and Super Bowl Sunday, there will be approximately 3,649 stories written about the Brothers Harbaugh, and for good reason. What they’ve done is both rare and extraordinary. Two brothers, two kids who shared a bedroom, born 15 months apart, facing one another in a Super Bowl.

The Harbaughs themselves would rather talk about any story line other than the sibling rivalry, and they will try to minimize the talk in the days and weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

Speaking Monday, Jim, the 49ers head coach, said playing against his brother was “a blessing and a curse. A blessing because that is my brother’s team. The curse part would be that the talk of two brothers playing in the Super Bowl and that takes away from the players that are in the game. I just feel like the fighters are first.”

Speaking Monday, John, the Ravens head coach, said the Jim-and-John angle isn’t exactly “Roosevelt and Churchill,” adding, “We’re not that interesting. There is nothing more to learn. It’s just like any other family. We get it; it’s really cool and it’s exciting and all that. It’s really about the players.”

Yeah, well, nice try.

But we’re telling you now, come Media Day, every columnist in the Western World will be doing the sibling rivalry angle.

The interview requests already are rolling in. J.D. Campbell, IU’s sports information director, is helping Joani (Harbaugh) Crean handle interviews. The Ravens and 49ers staffs are helping … [For more on Harbaugh brother-in-law Tom Crean expects 'intense' bowl, click here.]