The Kelvin Sampson situation

Sure IU beat Purdue the other night, and yes we want a winning men's basketball team. A group of five students in the stands held up placards during the game that listed some of Bob Knight's infractions; the last one read: "Who cares about phone calls?"

We do. Pat Forde at ESPN.con has is a good analysis of the situation. Money quote:

...the it's-just-phone-calls crowd is missing a central point.
Read this paragraph from the NCAA Committee on Infractions report on Oklahoma in 2006, when Sampson and his staff were slammed for making 577 impermissible
calls:

"The committee has consistently heard that the key to successful
recruiting is being able to develop relationships with prospects and their families. The obvious purpose of these violations was to be the first institution to make recruiting contact with prospects and then to build on the relationship by having multiple impermissible contacts with the prospects in the very important early stages of their recruitment. These calculated violations created a significant recruiting advantage over institutions abiding by the telephone contact limitations."

Sampson then went out and allegedly attempted to create the same recruiting advantage at Indiana. While on probation.

Read the whole thing.

A.J. leaves IU basketball team

From all the news reports, it looks like AJ Ratliff (a former Indiana Mr. Basketball) is undergoing a personal crisis of sorts. Not unusual, in a college senior, but not fun to go through and certainly not when there is a lot of public scrutiny of your motives. We say: Good luck to A.J. We hope you get everything figured out and get your life onto the path that will make you happy.