Kelvin Sampson fallout at Indiana
All things with the coach and NCAA violations
How long until Tom Crean doesn’t regret taking the Indiana job? Two years? Three? Four?
There’s going to be time when Crean has the Hoosiers winning. It may not be soon, but it’ll come. But when it finally arrives, just how exhausted is he going to be?
Because Crean sounds like a coach who’s desperately hoping the worst has passed.
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Tuesday reading, with an eye on the Vols vs. Commodores and Hoosiers vs. Buckeyes. But first, another Kelvin Sampson update.
Former Indiana University president Adam Herbert, who approved the Sampson two years ago, commented on the Sampson fiasco, telling the Jacksonville Times-Union that he thought the coach’s previous NCAA violations were “an aberration.”
Ex-squeeze me? Baking power?
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If this is it for Kelvin Sampson, it was a helluva exit.
A 77-68 victory against in-state rival and Big Ten leaders Purdue surely left an impression upon Indiana fans. Tuesday’s win – maybe Indiana’s best performance of their season – came under the klieg lights from TV, reporters and fans, all wanting to know what would happen to the coach, and when.
The exceptions: Sampson and his players.
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If the speculation is correct, Kelvin Sampson can forget about taking D.J. White and Eric Gordon to the Final Four. He’ll be lucky if he gets to face in-state rival Purdue.
Indiana University has seven days to decide Sampson’s future. A three-person committee will weigh the NCAA allegations of five major violations, and then recommend to the University by Friday what action it should take. Then again, it may be sooner.
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Indiana players may not say it, but it wasn’t surprising the Hoosiers lost to Wisconsin on Wednesday. Their coach provided a supreme off-court distraction.
Kelvin Sampson’s alleged lying to the NCAA was the talk of college hoops on Wednesday – and would’ve dominated the news if not for Roger Clemens’ trip to Capitol Hill. Instead, after a well-played game with its share of on-court drama, it figures that a banked three-pointer would win it for the Badgers. Such was the Hoosiers’ luck on Wednesday.
So what did the Web say about Sampson?
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First it was Kelvin Sampson’s 577 impermissible phone calls made between 2000 and 2004 while coaching at Oklahoma.
Then Sampson, shortly after becoming Indiana’s new coach, violated telephone recruiting restrictions when he and assistant Rob Senderoff made approximately 100 impermissible phone calls to recruits.
Now, it’s come out that Sampson lied about the violations to Indiana and the NCAA. In an NCAA report, Sampson is accused of five major violations and failed “to deport himself ... with the generally recognized high standard of honesty.”
In short, the NCAA isn’t happy.
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One of the best features of this new blog format is the comments that can be posted with each article. Now, until hoops season begins (less than three weeks!), I don't expect the comments to pour in. It's hard to get too riled up over something until the games begin. Otherwise, that's what message boards are for.
But this was message waiting to be approved. And it's impossible to ignore.
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