Indiana set to hire Tom Crean

[BRM]

Originally Posted by Razor Shines

It's really not. I am verrrrry happy with everything that Crean has done so far. I am glad he upheld Dakich's decisions and I'm glad he's concerned about the academic performance of the kids. The more I see from Crean, the happier I am with the hiring.

I agree with everything you said. I was actually quite pleased with his decision on Bassett and Ellis.

[Razor Shines]

Originally Posted by BRM

I agree with everything you said. I was actually quite pleased with his decision on Bassett and Ellis.

Yeah. It's nice to be proud of IU basketball again. This is the first time I've been proud of an IU coach since that one guy.

[Revering4Blue]

Georgetown guard Jeremiah Rivers, who announced his intention to transfer this past week, plans to enroll at Indiana, according to a source close to the program. A 6-foot-4 guard who served as the Hoyas’ defensive stopper during his two seasons with the Hoyas, Rivers joins another former Big East performer in Bloomington, Ind., where he will attempt to help former Marquette coach Tom Crean rebuild the Hoosiers.

According to a story published in yesterday’s Boston Globe, Celtics coach Doc Rivers was not pleased with his son’s decision to leave Georgetown. But the young guard felt like a shift to Crean’s perimeter-oriented system would help him improve on last season’s pedestrian production: 2.5 points and 2.4 rebounds in 18.4 minutes.

http://www.insidethehall.com/

[BRM]

Interesting. I have to admit that I don't know a whole lot about Rivers though. Time to do some reading.

[fearofpopvol1]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3392460

Indiana agrees with NCAA's allegations of wrongdoing
By Andy Katz
ESPN.com

Indiana University essentially agreed with all five violations that the NCAA cited against the men's basketball program in a Feb. 8 major notice of allegations sent to the school, ESPN.com has learned from multiple sources.

The school is expected to formally release its response to the public as early as Tuesday. Representatives of Indiana are due to meet in Seattle with the committee on infractions on June 14. A final result on any possible penalties likely won't be known until later in the summer.

What exactly did the NCAA allege happened? Take a look at what the NCAA sent to the president of Indiana University. Notice of allegations (pdf)

The notice was sent in February, four months after the university self-reported a cluster of secondary phone call violations. The major difference between the two reports was the allegation against then-head coach Kelvin Sampson that he provided false information to investigators.

According to sources, Indiana agreed with all of the first allegation that stated Sampson and his staff of Jeff Meyer and Rob Senderoff failed to comply with the penalties assessed against the staff in a previous infractions report. The allegation covered March 29, 2006 to July 31, 2007. The restrictions involved telephone call restrictions placed on the school as punishment for Sampson's previous penalty while he was at Oklahoma.

Indiana agreed with the second allegation that assistants Meyer and Senderoff placed at least 25 impermissible telephone calls to prospective athletes or parents or legal guardians from May 7, 2006 to July 17, 2007. A source said the university agreed that this was a second violation.

The university also agreed with the third allegation, that during a period of May 25, 2006 to May 24, 2007, Sampson acted "contrary to the NCAA principles of ethical conduct when he knowingly violated recruiting restrictions imposed by the NCAA's committee on infractions as penalty for Sampson's prior involvement in [the Oklahoma case]." This allegation essentially stated that Sampson knowingly provided false information to Indiana and the NCAA's enforcement staff.

The fourth allegation stated that during the period of May 25, 2006 to May 24, 2007, Senderoff failed to report that he used his home phone for recruiting purposes.

The fifth and final allegation stated that on June 30, 2007, Sampson and Meyer engaged in impermissible recruiting contact with a prospective student-athlete and that on July 1, 2007, Meyer provided the recruit with extra benefits (a T-shirt and backpack).

Sampson, who took a $750,000 buyout in February after less than two years at IU, was hired recently to work on Scott Skiles' Milwaukee Bucks staff. Assistant Dan Dakich coached the team the rest of the season, and former Marquette coach Tom Crean was hired in April to succeed Sampson. Senderoff was just hired at Kent State as an assistant. Another former assistant, Ray McCallum, got the head coaching job at Detroit.

Meyer and Dakich are the only former members of the staff who aren't currently employed.

The Hoosiers have only three returning scholarship players for next season after freshman Eric Gordon declared for the draft; D.J. White and Lance Stemler exhausted their eligibility; DeAndre Thomas, Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis were dismissed; and Eli Holman was allowed to transfer. Crean is adding newcomers, however, with the count already up to six. Georgetown transfer Jeremiah Rivers recently visited IU's campus and might end up in Bloomington.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

[WVRed]

Something I just thought about.

Myles Brand was president at Indiana before he ended up as president of the NCAA. If the NCAA goes light on the Hoosiers, will a lot of people call out the NCAA?

[fearofpopvol1]

Originally Posted by WVRed

Something I just thought about.

Myles Brand was president at Indiana before he ended up as president of the NCAA. If the NCAA goes light on the Hoosiers, will a lot of people call out the NCAA?

Myles Brand punished IU plenty by pushing The General out the door, deserved or not.

IU has not historically had any problems with academics or otherwise. They fired Sampson once they found out the true scope of his practices and are definitely on the right track now. I don't see what more they could/should do.

[Betterread]

Originally Posted by WilyMoROCKS

Man IU would have been loaded this year if Sampson could've kept himself out of trouble.

You don't think think there's a correlation with Sampson's ethics and how "loaded" IU's squad appeared to be?

[BRM]

Originally Posted by Betterread

You don't think think there's a correlation with Sampson's ethics and how "loaded" IU's squad appeared to be?

There is absolutely a correlation. I'd rather see them lose 20 games with Crean's current squad than win 30 with Sampson's "loaded" team next year.

By the way, you should never use "ethics" and "Sampson" in the same sentence.

[BRM]

Here is Sampson's letter to the NCAA Committee on Infractions. Per Sportsline.

Dear Committee Members:

Enclosed is my written Response to the allegations set forth in the NCAA enforcement staff’s Notice of Allegations to Indiana University, Bloomington, dated February 8, 2008. I have been assisted in the preparation of this Response by legal counsel to ensure that I proceed as expected by your policies, procedures and practices.

When I appeared before you in April 2006 to address recruiting telephone contact violations at the University of Oklahoma, I accepted responsibility for my mistakes, I answered your questions truthfully and with great candor, and I pledged to do everything within my power to avoid violations in the future. That experience had a profound effect on me. I was embarrassed and I was wholly determined to not put myself and my family through another experience like that.

When I arrived at Indiana University, I hired an experienced staff and made my expectation of strict compliance with NCAA rules and with the restrictions imposed upon our staff very clear. As set forth in detail in the body of my Response, each member of my staff confirms that my expectations were made clear. I endorsed and cooperated fully with the monitoring systems set in place by Indiana’s athletics compliance staff. I relied upon the monitoring program that was set in place. Again, the statements of my staff as set forth in my Response confirm this. I told my staff repeatedly that I never again wanted to go through an experience like I had in the Oklahoma case and that we as a staff needed to completely buy into the monitoring systems implemented by Indiana’s compliance program.

On the day the recruiting restrictions ended in May 2007, I felt a sense of great relief and peace. I believed that the darkest days of my coaching career were behind me and that we could now move forward with our goal of returning Indiana’s basketball program to a position of prominence. I went to Athletic Director Rick Greenspan’s office and together, we celebrated the occasion with “high fives.” With the recruiting call monitoring system we believed was being operated by the compliance staff, neither of us had any reason to think there might be issues.

Accordingly, I cannot adequately describe in words how stunned I was to learn from Mr. Greenspan later that summer that the compliance office’s review of my staff’s phone records had revealed possible violations. First, I could not believe that if in fact the records showed violations, some since my staff’s earliest days at the University, the matters had not been detected and brought to the attention of Mr. Greenspan and myself much earlier so they could have been addressed in a timely fashion. And second, given how strongly and frequently I had communicated to my staff that I expected 100 percent compliance – I could not believe that NCAA rules and Committee on Infractions’ imposed restrictions had apparently been disregarded.

My life since that day has been a nightmare and my family has suffered profoundly along with me. I have been judged by many in the media and public to be a cheat and a liar and I have lost my job – all long before I will have had an opportunity to present my case to you and without Indiana University conducting a meaningful investigation into the allegations made by the enforcement staff. Even this NCAA process has not followed the prescribed course. A date for the hearing of this case was set before interviews, including one of me, were completed by the enforcement staff and before the enforcement staff issued its Notice of Allegations. These pre-determined results are of grave concern to me. It is my hope that the scheduled June hearing will allay my fears that final judgments have already been made.

As difficult as this process and experience has been for me, I do, given the circumstances, look forward to the opportunity to appear before you and, with the assistance of my counsel, to attempt to ensure that you have all of the information available on the relevant matters so that you can make a fair, unbiased and accurate determination on whether I knowingly participated in telephone conversations with recruits that were contrary to the restrictions imposed upon me and Indiana University by your committee following the Oklahoma infractions case.

Sincerely,

Kelvin Sampson

[redsfanmia]

Originally Posted by BRM

Here is Sampson's letter to the NCAA Committee on Infractions. Per Sportsline.

How can Sampson look himself in the mirror knowing he tells such lies?

[WMR]

Originally Posted by Betterread

You don't think think there's a correlation with Sampson's ethics and how "loaded" IU's squad appeared to be?

Oh of course. It was more just an idle rhetorical observation as much as anything else.

[Revering4Blue]

The nation's top unsigned player, Devin Ebanks, has chosen to sign with West Virginia.

"I really respect Coach (Bob) Huggins and I trust what he's saying," Ebanks told FOXSports.com. "I also feel like I can make an impact quickly at West Virginia."

The Mountaineers edged Memphis, Texas and Rutgers for the services of the 6-foot-8½ senior forward.

"`I enjoyed my visit to West Virginia and just feel as though it's the best situation for me," Ebanks added.

Ebanks (the No. 13 prospect in the country according to Scout.com) was a one-time Indiana signee who was let out of his letter-of-intent following the departure of former Hoosiers coach Kelvin Sampson.

Ebanks, a Brooklyn native who is extremely talented, spent the past two years at St. Thomas More (Conn.).

http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/8...lands-prospect

[WMR]

Man that's a great get for Huggy bear. Wonder if Joe Alexander is definitely gone?

[BRM]

Huggins must have offered more "perks" than Calipari.