Kelvin Sampson Joins San Antonio Spurs

Kelvin Sampson has landed on his feet. The disgraced former Indiana basketball coach has been hired by the defending World Champion San Antonio Spurs of the NBA.

Reaction from Spurs fans here.

Bruce Weber to Missouri State?

Coachingnewsonline.com is circulating the rumor that Illinois' Bruce Weber has been in talks with Missouri State about that school's head coaching job.

According to said website:

"Weber may only have 1 season to right the ship at Illinois before being let go, so he may be looking at other options now."

Missouri State already has a very good coach in Barry Hinson. The Bears' program has been quite successful during Hinson's reign. But despite having made Missouri State into a consistent contender in the Missouri Valley Conference, Hinson has never taken the Bears to the NCAA Tournament. And with a new arena about to open next year, the school is, apparently, looking to go in a new direction.

But the hot rumor has been that Missouri State is targeting Bob Knight to be its next coach. The Bruce Weber rumor really comes as a surprise.

And the same website is reporting that Kelvin Sampson may be back in coaching as soon as next year. Allegedly:

"Detroit has been in close contact with former Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson. The recently resigned Sampson is facing major recruiting violations from Indiana, yet the Detroit Administration is apparently willing to overlook those to hit a home run for their next coach."

Also, according to the website, LSU has targeted USC head coach Tim Floyd to fill its coaching vacancy.

Edit:

Missouri State hired former Purdue Associate Coach Cuonzo Martin as its new men's basketball head coach.

Drive and Dish discussed Martin's hiring here.

As we said in the linked post, it's likely that Missouri State did talk to Illinos' Bruce Weber about the open men's head basketball coaching position. Weber coached Martin for all of his four at Purdue when Weber was an assistant to Gene Keady. Missouri State probably used Bruce Weber as a reference when they were researching Cuonzo Martin.

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.

Sampson Out at Indiana

The Kelvin Sampson era is over at Indiana.

The Bloomington Herald Times is reporting that the, now former, Indiana University head basketball coach has agreed to a $750,000 buyout of his contract.

Dan Dakich will coach the Hoosiers for the remainder of the season.

Drive and Dish Tidbits

By Trashtalk Superstar

It's mid February, it's 10 degrees in Chicago, the second half of the NBA season has officially begun, college basketball's regular season is heading into its stretch run, and Drive and Dish presents another installation of the ever popular Drive and Dish Tidbits:

1.) North Carolina coach Roy Williams has taken umbrage with remarks made by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, with regard to "certain" college basketball teams' reporting of injuries.

Much has been made by the media -- both local (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) and national -- of the injuries that have plagued several members of the North Carolina basketball team this season. On Sunday, Krzyzewski stated that Duke doesn't discuss injuries, "unlike other schools."

Williams interpreted Krzyzewski's statement to be a backhanded jab at him and at his North Carolina program.

On his Monday radio show, Williams opined that an unnamed coach should "coach (his) own damn team, I'll coach my team."

And in a Tuesday news conference, Williams revisited the topic: "It's not like I'm getting a dadgum plane and flying it around to say, 'Roy fell against a wall and banged his nose' or anything." Williams continued, "We have to do those things (talk about injuries) and everybody's hurt. But there's different stages of being hurt."

"If you're hurt and missing games, that's not exactly like having a hangnail. And so we do have some people that are getting hurt and missing games. I don't think that somebody should say we're putting it in front of the public."

Apparently, Coach K's comments really got under Roy Williams' skin. According to the linked article:

When a reporter attempted to ask a follow-up question, Williams said he didn't want to discuss the comments further and have "battles through the media." But when the news conference ended, Williams came back to the topic once more.

"I said before we played Duke it's impossible to have any more respect than I do for Mike," Williams said, "but I felt like that comment was aimed towards us."


After thoroughly researching the subject matter, and following hours of intense deliberation, the Drive and Dish editorial staff has arrived at the following revelation: Coach K and Roy must really not like each other as much as they say they do.


2.) ESPN's Pat Forde says that a "source close to the unsettled coaching situation at Indiana University" has told him it's likely that Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson will be suspended "for the purpose of future termination."

Drive and Dish has heard this before. Our official position is: we'll believe it when we see it.


3.) Speaking of the Indiana/Sampson scandal, Toki Wartooth at Paint the Town Orange reminds readers that Indiana knew exactly what they were getting when the hired Sampson in 2006.

IU was well aware that Sampson had a history of violating NCAA bylaws at Oklahoma. They simply didn't care.

Last Thursday, Drive and Dish discussed Sampson's history, his hiring at Indiana, and his shady behavior since arriving in Bloomington.

Indiana used to be one of the cleanest programs in major college basketball.

But integrity has been in short supply in the IU Athletic Department as of late.

Hopefully, Indiana will have to pay a price for their indifference toward the following of NCAA bylaws (just to be clear: Drive and Dish likes Indiana University and IU basketball [and we've got several friends and associates who are IU alumni] ... we just don't like Kelvin Sampson, or what Indiana basketball has become under his stewardship).


4. ) Also at Paint the Town Orange: despite being a few days old, Mr./Ms. Wartooth's post game account of the Penn State / Illinois game provides a great synopsis of Illinois' 2007/08 season.


5.) Tuesday's upset victory over #16 Drake marked Bradley's sixth game of the season against the four Division I basketball programs from the state of Iowa. Bradley has now defeated all four of Iowa's Division I teams.

Bradley beat Iowa State (65-56) Nov. 14 at Carver Arena in Peoria, beat Iowa (67-56) Nov. 23 at the South Padre Island Thanksgiving Tournament and beat Northern Iowa (75-73) Jan. 12 in Cedar Falls, IA.

According to the official website of the Bradley Athletic Department:

"Of the states that boast multiple NCAA Division I institutions, Bradley has not swept every Division I team a state has to offer since beating both Arizona (67-59) and Arizona State (92-85) during the 1963-64 season (Northern Arizona was not yet playing Division I men’s basketball at the time)."


6.) Drive and Dish doesn't like to discuss recruiting, but since we've been so Duke/North Carolina-centric lately (and since hardcore Duke fans account for a significant portion of the Drive and Dish community), we'll pass along the following recruiting buzz: Duke appears to be the likely destination for 6'11" power forward Mason Plumlee, of the Christ School in Arden, NC.


7.) More Duke stuff: DeMarcus Nelson takes viewers on a tour of Duke's practice facilities at Dukeblueplanet.com.


8.) As the NBA trade deadline approaches, two league sources have indicated that Denver is in "full pursuit" of troubled Sacramento forward Ron Artest.

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.

Indiana Krushes Illini Hearts

By Mark Buckets

Eric Gordon was harassed all night, both on and off the court. The Orange Krush, as the Illinois Student Section is affectionately called, voiced their displeasure with Eric Gordon and Indiana all night.

If you don’t know about that situation, you’ve been living without Drive & Dish for a long while.

Eric Gordon had originally committed to Illinois. But he changed his mind right before the November signing day. Bruce Weber and Illinois were left standing at the alter as Eric Gordon showed up at Indiana's Midnight Madness on November 1, 2006 and pledged his commitment to Kelvin Sampson and Indiana.

As for tonight's game, this was a critical loss for Illinois: not so much in the win-loss record category, but for the psyche of an already crumbling Illini team. They gritted for every loose ball. They played with a boatload of heart.

But in the end, it wasn’t enough.

Demetri McCamey, it must be stated, was the player of the game - for both teams. He outshone Eric Gordon, who had a quiet 19 points. McCamey’s 32 kept this Illinois team in the game.

The kid had ice water in his veins tonight.

If it weren’t for a three-point prayer from Eric Gordon to essentially send the game into OT, along with four Shaun Pruitt missed free throws down the stretch and in overtime - Illinois would have won this game.

This game was an absolute microcosm of the Illinois season.

Aside from the Eric Gordon-Kelvin Sampson saga, this was a game in which Illinois needed to make a statement.

There is no doubt that they did just that.

Not in the way they wanted to, however.


Edit (Friday, 2/8/08):

Trashtalk Superstar adds:

Eric Gordon's reneging on his commitment to Illinois set the Illini basketball program back about four years.

Because he'd secured an early commitment from Gordon, Bruce Weber didn't bother to recruit other shooting guards for the class of '07. When Gordon slithered out of his commitment at the last minute, it left Weber and Illinois without the player they had planned to build their program around.

But it also left the Illini without any options.

Since Illinois hadn't recruited any other shooting guards, the Gordon fiasco left them with a gaping hole in the middle of their lineup. This year's Illinois team can't score to save its life. But that wouldn't be the case if Eric Gordon were suiting up for the Illini.

Having said that, I think that Illinois fans need to get over their hatred for Eric Gordon. Their anger toward Gordon was understandable a year ago. But by making this game a grudge match centered around Eric Gordon, the Illinois basketball program and their fans looked like childish losers.

Furthermore, Bruce Weber needed to state that he and the program are officially "over" being spurned by Eric Gordon.

But the Illini Nation is reveling in their hatred for Eric Gordon. And Bruce Weber -- the leader and public face of the Illinois basketball program -- hasn't done anything to discourage that sentiment.

The truth is, Bruce Weber appears to be every bit as furious at Eric Gordon, the Gordon family and Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson as any of the nutty, orange clad Illini fans who packed Champaign's Assembly Hall last night. And one can hardly blame Weber for being mad at Sampson and the Gordon family.

Eric Gordon is, at least, partially responsible for Illinois' dismal season. Despite their poor wins and losses record, these Illini aren't an abysmal team by any stretch of the imagination. They've been competitive in almost every game they've lost. They have a decent team of roll players. But they don't have a scorer.

Eric Gordon was supposed to be that guy.

This Illinois team was put together with the understanding that Eric Gordon would be its "go to" guy. And with Gordon, Illinois would probably be fighting for third or fourth place in the Big Ten, and for a decent seeding in the NCAA Tournament.

But by leaving Weber and the Illini standing at the alter, Eric Gordon effectively relegated Illinois to the status of Big Ten doormat.

Eric Gordon lied to Bruce Weber up until the last minute. He kept telling Weber that even though Indiana's Sampson was trying to persuade him to back out of his commitment to Illinois, he would remain steadfast in that commitment.

Thus, when he switched to Indiana without giving Weber any indication of his change in plans (which prevented Weber from being able to recruit another player to replace him), Gordon absolutely decimated Illinois' best laid plans.

So Bruce Weber had every right to be upset . . . a year ago.

But Bruce and the Illini Nation need to move on.

Look, there's no doubt that Eric Gordon did Weber and Illinois wrong. Yet by behaving with such a lack of civility toward Gordon and his family, Illinois fans actually make Eric Gordon look like the sympathetic party. Gordon and his family come off as the victims of Illinois' vicious hostility.

Besides, by maintaining their grudge against Eric Gordon, Weber and the Illini Nation have effectively ceded him the power to continue tormenting them.

Let's be honest: almost anyone would agree that any guy who couldn't get over having been dumped by his girlfriend a year and a half after she left him would be a pathetic, self-flagellating, wussy, girlyman.

And that's exactly how Bruce Weber and the Illini Nation must have looked to the national television audience that tuned into last night's game.

Illinois should be better than that.

You'd expect that kind of thing from Iowa.

But now Illini fans are making themselves look like backwater fools.

North Carolina No Longer #1: This Week's AP Top 25

After Saturday's shocking home loss to unranked Maryland, North Carolina dropped to #5 in this week's AP Top 25. Unbeaten Memphis is the new #1 team in America, while similarly unbeaten Kansas is ranked #2. The OTHER college basketball team from Knoxville, Bruce Pearl's Men's Tennessee Volunteers, are ranked #3. Duke and North Carolina round out this week's top 5.

With Memphis ranked #1 and Tennessee ranked #3, the Volunteer State has become the new capitol of college basketball (take that North Carolina and Indiana). Too bad Vol's spring football, football recruiting and the Lady Vols basketball team trump men's college basketball in popularity.

And it's great to see that "class" guys (who run such pristine programs) like Bruce Pearl and John Calipari are sitting atop the college basketball landscape. What's more, with Indiana at #7, it's possible that the Hoosiers could move into the top 5 by next week. Then Calipari, Pearl and Kelvin Sampson, paragons of virtue that they are, would be atop the polls and would, thereby, represent the pinnacle of their profession.

How great would that be for the image of college basketball!?!

This week's AP Top 25:
1. Memphis
2. Kansas
3. Tennessee
4. Duke
5. North Carolina
6. Washington State
7. Indiana
8. UCLA
9. Georgetown
10. Michigan State
11. Wisconsin
12. Texas
13. Pittsburgh
14. Vanderbilt
15. Butler
16. Dayton
17. Mississippi
18. Texas A&M
19. Villanova
20. Stanford
21. Marquette
22. Drake
23. Xavier
24. Arizona State
25. Baylor

IU's Cellvin Sampson Profiled in Lexington Herald-Leader

This Saturday, Kentucky plays at Indiana. IU vs. UK has always been one of my favorite non conference rivalries in college basketball. Those two flagship state universities carry the torch for the basketball obsessed residents of their respective states. I can't think of two better states for basketball than Indiana and Kentucky. Basketball is so deeply rooted in the cultures of these two border states that the game is practically in the natives' DNA.

So in preparation for Saturday's upcoming IU v. Kentucky game, the Lexington Herald-Leader has what may be the definitive profile of Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson and the ethical maze that the Hoosier basketball program now finds itself in (including, but not limited to, Sampson's apparent disregard of the NCAA's recruiting bylaws regarding phone calls to recruits).