Amaker Raising Eyebrows at Harvard

Harvard basketball coach Tommy Amaker has secured the best recruiting class in schol history (and probably the best recruiting class in the history of Ivy League basketball). But Amaker's recruiting practices are coming under scrutiny.

The New York Times reports that Amaker and Harvard may be skirting NCAA rules.

Mike DeCourcy on Indiana

Today, Mike DeCourcy has a must read article in the Sporting News regarding Indiana University's Kelvin Sampson scandal. DeCourcy says that Indiana faces a difficult road now that Sampson is gone. He thinks that it will be difficult for IU to avoid falling into irrelevance in the coming years. And he predicts low crowd turnouts at Bloomington's assembly Hall in the near future.

But if what DeCourcy predicts comes to pass, Indiana has no one to blame but themselves. The blame for IU's current predicament lies firmly on Indiana's shoulders for hiring Sampson despite having full knowledge of his prior transgressions.

Sampson was brought to Indiana for the specific purpose of preventing home grown stars from continuing to snub the opportunity to suit up for the crimson and creme .

During the Bob Knight era, the best players from Indiana wouldn't have thought of playing their college basketball anywhere other than IU. But under Mike Davis, the best players from Indiana all chose to play elsewhere. Sean May chose North Carolina. Mike Conley and Greg Oden left for Ohio State. And Eric Gordon committed to Illinois.

Kelvin Sampson was hired to "lock down the borders." And he says that Indiana knew what they were getting with regard to Sampson's baggage. It's just that they didn't care.

Indiana, Sampson Finally Taking Some Heat

By Trashtalk Superstar

It's no secret that Indiana head basketball coach Kelvin Sampson has had trouble following NCAA rules.

Sampson committed recruiting violations when he was the head basketball coach at Oklahoma. And Indiana was well aware of Sampson's checkered past when they hired him to replace Mike Davis.

When it became obvious that Sampson was continuing to skirt NCAA rules at Indiana, IU conducted an internal investigation which resulted in their "self reporting" some of Sampson's "minor" violations -- relating to improper phone calls that had been placed to recruits -- to the NCAA.

The results of that investigation were released in November.

But Wednesday, the NCAA accused Sampson of committing five major infractions while at Indiana.

IU is now in an unenviable position.

Indiana has been one of college basketball's traditionally elite programs. But they endured some trying times during Mike Davis' tenure as head coach. Davis' Hoosiers missed the NCAA Tournament in 2005. Indiana did get back to the Tournament in '06, but they made an unexpected early exit -- despite the fact that they'd been expected to be one of the top teams in college basketball that year.

And recruiting had fallen off significantly under Davis' watch.

Although he's considered a player's coach, Mike Davis struggled to recruit top talent to Indiana. To make matters worse, Davis was unable to "lock down the borders" of the talent rich Hoosier state. That is, Davis couldn't convince the state's best high school players that it would be in their best interest to continue their basketball careers in Bloomington (donning the Crimson and Creme Indiana uniform).

Bloomington's Sean May chose North Carolina. Indianapolis' Mike Conley and Greg Oden left for Ohio State. And Eric Gordon (also of Indianapolis) originally committed to Illinois (before Davis was let go, Sampson was hired and Gordon reneged on that commitment).

In just two seasons at Indiana, Kelvin Sampson has guided the Hoosiers back to national prominence.

Sampson has one of the most talented teams in college basketball. Eric Gordon is one of the most electrifying freshman in the game. The Hoosiers have either been atop, or near the top of the Big Ten standings since the start of the season. And, this year, Indiana has been a fixture in top 15 of the AP Top 25.

But Kelvin Sampson has infected the once proud (and clean) Indiana basketball program with his slimy, shady ways.

And it's finally catching up to him

After ignoring Sampson's legacy of sleaze for years, members of the national media are beginning to call Sampson out.

And there are even voices in the local Indiana media that are starting to cry foul.

In today's Indianapolis Star, Bob Kravitz labels Sampson "slime" and calls for his ouster at Indiana.

The NCAA won't rule on Indiana's fate for several months. So IU has time to decide what to do with coach Sampson and its basketball program.

But the university is already deliberating in order to consider its options with regard to Sampson.

It's a shame to see what Kelvin Sampson has done to the image and reputation of Indiana basketball. The Indiana basketball brand used to be synonymous with hard work, teamwork and old school values. Bob Knight may not have always been the nicest guy in the world, but he ran a clean program and focused on teaching/motivating his student athletes to be the best basketball players that they could be -- both as individuals and as a team. Over the years, many of Knight's players left the program early, but among most of those who remained in the program (especially the guys who played before the mid 90's), there exists a deep, profound loyalty to coach Knight and to what his Indiana basketball program represented.

Kelvin Sampson has taken one of the most storied institutions in college basketball and turned it into a renegade program.

Indiana should be better than that.

North Carolina Investigates Itself For Possible Recruiting Infraction ... Surprise! ... Clears Self of Wrong Doing

By Trashtalk Superstar


The University of North Carolina conducted an internal investigation over potential violations of NCAA basketball recruiting guidelines. UNC determined that no NCAA rules had been intentionally violated and that the basketball program is, therefore, totally clean.

Whew!

What if North Carolina had decided that they were guilty? Would they have imposed sanctions upon themselves?

The act of conducting an internal investigation is a total charade. In the last two years, the Ohio State and Kansas basketball programs have conducted similar internal investigations. Like UNC, they also determined that while some violations may technically have occurred (unintentionally, of course), they all resulted from big misunderstandings. Honestly.

Not surprisingly, in the previous two cases, the NCAA determined that the self reporting was sufficient and that no NCAA sanctions were necessary. North Carolina will get the same response.

Look, the recruiting violation that UNC committed was minor and probably was actually unintentional. And for the record, the NCAA is a shockingly inefficient bureaucracy whose rules and bylaws are often vague at best. It's unbelievably easy to unintentionally violate some ridiculous NCAA bylaw. Anyone who has ever played or coached a college sport at an NCAA institution can attest to this.

North Carolina violated a ticky tacky NCAA rule. They almost certainly were unaware that they were committing a recruiting infraction. After all, the recruit merely talked to two former UNC basketball players at a UNC football game. That could have even occurred without anyone in the basketball program knowing about it. Logically, what's to stop a recruit from recognizing a former player and initiating a conversation with that former player? And accordingly, would a former player have to refuse to acknowledge a stranger who attempts to initiate a conversation with him? Even if he's unaware that the person attempting to initiate the conversation is a basketball recruit?

Many of the NCAA's bylaws are preposterous. North Carolina (which is generally regarded as a clean program) violated one such bylaw. But the rules are the rules. And North Carolina should be treated like any other basketball program which has committed a recruiting violation.

Unfortunately, the NCAA's method for distributing sanctions/punishment may be even more mysterious and questionable than any of the inane bylaws in their dauntingly volumnous rulebook. Marquee programs like Kansas, Ohio State and North Carolina are almost almost never held accountable for their infractions of NCAA bylaws. But programs of lesser stature usually get the book thrown at them. Kentucky basketball has long been notorious for not playing by the rules. At various times in their history, they haven't even pretended to follow the rules. Take for instance the fact that during one practice session, legendary Kentucky coach Adolf Rupp erupted at one of his players: "For what we're paying you, you damned well better play better than that." That was in the 1940's. Yet the NCAA left Kentucky alone until 1989 - when the FBI busted the Kentucky basketball program and coach Eddie Sutton for mailing thousands of dollars in cash to recruits. Only after the FBI became involved did the NCAA decide it was time to look into possible recruiting violations at Kentucky.

North Carolina's recruiting infraction was minor. They really don't deserve anything more than a slap on the wrist. Not that Tar Heels fans have anything to worry about: a slap on the wrist is the most that UNC will receive (truth be told, they probably won't even get slapped on the wrist - they're North Carolina after all). But the NCAA has dished out heavy penalties to other schools for committing similar minor violations. Our readers who are Illinois fans know this all too well.

For the purpose of clarity, it isn't Drive and Dish's intent to slam North Carolina. What we're slamming is the uneven treatment of member institutions by the NCAA.