Kelvin Sampson at it again

Bob Kravitz hit it out of the ballpark with this column. No I'm not Bob, but thought I would share.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071017/COLUMNISTS01/710170430&theme=

 

Interesting points, especially the number of IU fans who feel their coach is a cheater.
Good column.

 

A lot of IU fans feel like they've been kicked in the stomach. The program hadn't had a whiff of violation for 40 years, a fact its fans wore with pride, sometimes smugly. Then Greenspan takes a chance and hires a guy under NCAA investigation and it takes him just one year to get IU its 1st violation and change the program's image to one more similar to the outlaw programs Indiana fans used to look down on.

 

I've been used to coaches screaming at me in high school and college as a player. I became desensitized to it after a short period of time. I ignore his tantrums and cursing exhibitions, and starting listening to the assistant coach telling me why the HC is blowing a gasket.

I can't stand coaches who are scum, no matter how long he has done it and where he has done it.

Piotr, is Howland the cross-breed of Sampson/Knight? If that is, I never thought of Ben in that light.

 

I can hear the Orange Crush and Grateful Red student sections in the not so distant future:

"Kel-vin Sanc-tions (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)" ;D

 

I don't want to hear it from IU fans who feel they got "kicked in the stomach".

Many of those same IU fans were ready to run Mike Davis out on a rail and looked the other way when Sampson was hired, even though it was clear Sampson had a past.

Out of whack entitlement has a way of reaping what it sows. Lap it up IU fans.

 

I think of Tully's.

 

Nope.

Just think he's a hell of a coach, and the one I would want to play for at this point.

Bubbler: Excellent point. I'm an IU fan who thought Davis should have been fired after he had consecutive years of a player flunking out during fall of his freshman (!) year. But many fans decided they couldn't handle 20-10 seasons under Davis, whereas with Knight that was just fine.

Of course, then he really coached the program into the toilet of missing the NCAAs and he was finished, rightfully so.

 

As I recall, there were a lot of quotes from the AD and major alum types that Sampson was basically the best coach who was interested. Coaches were fleeing when Indiana approached them -- who wanted to deal with all the crap sure to come, especially from a mickey-mouse AD's office? It was clear from the beginning that IU would rue the day it hired Sampson. People desperate to fill tarnished jobs often end up in a state of great rueness. Is that a word?

 

Bob, I understand where you're coming from, but look at Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA. Every single one of those schools has had a coaching change in the last, what, five years. Two of them were firings (like Indiana) and two of them were coaches who left. None of those schools had any trouble filling the position. UNC got its first choice. Kentucky whiffed on Donovan -- understandably, to say the least -- but picked up choice number two. And while I can't remember where Howland stood in the UCLA race or where Self was in the Kansas search, I'm quite sure both of them were at the top of the list.

Granted, each of those programs has had more success in the past decade or so than IU, but all of them have fan bases that make coaches live with big pressures and big expectations. And they had no trouble landing big name coaches to fill the job.

Even at Louisville, which isn't as history-rich as IU, UK, UCLA, Kansas or UNC but still has a lot of basketball tradition and an emotional fan base, there was little problem landing a huge name coach.

So what was different at IU? Sure, Sampson was a big name, but you'd think IU could land a big name that didn't bring baggage. In my mind, IU is still one of the premier jobs in college basketball. Why wasn't anyone else interested?

 

Never spent much time around Indiana basketball, have you, CJ?

 

I can't believe this whole mess is over some phone calls ... and they weren't even to a 900 number.