NateO

Hi Kevin,
 
This is quite a column you have here:
 
http://www.al.com/sports/birmingham

news/kscarbinsky.ssf?/base/sports/1212999317206060.xml&coll=2&thispage=1
 
I think what I enjoy most, is that your motives are very transparent:
 
"That means one thing.
 
More than a few Indiana basketball fans are going to read it and see red."
 
That means one thing, Hoosier Nation is huge, and we're going to generate more clicks than UAB fans who are probably off thinking about football, or something.
 
To entertain your question, Indiana fans have every right to be upset with Bobby Knight, Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson, for different reasons, but they all left the program in under dubious circumstances. Sampson being the worst but Mike Davis not getting a free pass, either.
 
To be honest, I was always a Mike Davis apologist until he made one fatal mistake, which you didn't mention in your column. Mike Davis' story at IU was mostly one of luck, some of it was good luck, some of it was very bad. He was in the right place at the right time, inherited a team that could shoot the lights out and lucked his way all the way to the National Championship game, in 2002. I give Mike Davis quite a bit of credit for that, IU's victory over Duke (a 13-point spread underdog) and the incredible comeback IU made (the most incredible basketball game I have ever watched) had a lot to do with Mike Davis' coaching. Anyone who doesn't recognize that is foolish.
 
Mike Davis also had some stretches of horrific luck. DJ White going down for a year, Bracey Wright constantly being injured, Kirk Haston leaving early at the advice of a bitter Bob Knight.
 
But Mike Davis had to go. He was in way over his head, this not a good rookie job. Indiana has 5 National Championships, 3rd most in College Basketball (more than UNC, more than Duke, etc...), we want more, and we have one of the biggest followings on the planet. Note how the Indiana game was the first sellout Minnesota has had in years:
 
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap

?gameId=280170135
 
"Playing in front of their first sellout crowd in nearly three years, the Gophers just couldn't take it away."
 
And keep in mind that Minnesota's campus is in the biggest metropolitan area in the entire Big Ten. Yeah, Indiana Basketball really is that big. I was there, it was electric!
 
Simply put, Mike Davis was in way over his head. I could stand him missing out on Indiana talents (Josh McRoberts, Sean May, Dominic James, etc...), I could stand the odd marginal performance team. And I could even stand his emotional blowout at Kentucky, although this was a sign he was in over his head, that kind of decorum, on National Television, is not recommended.
 
So what was that fatal mistake I mentioned? Simple, he missed on Greg Oden. I'll never forgive him for that, Oden wanted to attend IU as a high school junior, even said it on ESPN, and Davis botched it! Not sure how he botched it, but he did. That single mistake, which is an unforgivable sin, compounded every single mistake he ever made.
 
Okay, so the past is the past, I'll forgive. In fact, I think you have it all wrong, you don't want me to let Mike Davis go. Not only do I not wish Mike Davis any illwill, I actually hope he does well with UAB, I just wanted him out of the Indiana University coaching job, couldn't handle it. However, I think UAB's the perfect job for him, a mid-major type programme, not the pressure cooker IU is. He'll do better out of the limelight, and he recruits well in his home state of Alabama. Davis is my only connection to Conference USA, so sure, go UAB. Best of luck this year.
 
Regards,
Nathan Oliver
B.Sc. Finance & Economics - Indiana University
Microsoft Excel MVP

The ones with Brooke Shields carrying on about how people shouldn't have babies for German engineering. That's not even funny, it's just dumb, no one's having a baby for your piece of crap minivan.

Get Bobby Knight back on there, now that stuff was actually entertaining. Not that I'm buying one of these gutless things anyways.

Piece!

This is one of my favourite things to make, super-easy, and good eats. There's a couple of ways to make this, but here's the microwave version.

Take some Creamette pasta and nuke that on high for 4 minutes. Drain. Add one pack of 'Easy Mac' noodles and 1 cup of water, nuke that for 1 minute. Now it gets good. Remove some water, add the Easy Mac cheese, stir. Now add a bunch of milk, frozen vegatbles of your liking, and a ton of meat. For example, my last batch had two diced hot dogs, two pieces of crumbled, cooked bacon, and diced ham and turkey. You need to add more cheese, a lot more cheese. I like the blocks of mild cheddar for this, like half of one. For good measure, I throw in a lot of garlic, pepper and Chiles.

You nuke it from here for about 4 minutes, yoink it out, stir it. You might need to add more milk, you get some boil-off. You probably want to nuke it for another 4 minutes from here, perhaps longer. And Bingo, you've got one one huge bowl of good-to-go food. Super-easy to make and good for the big game!

So I went over to the local store to score me some supplies and they had a hot buffet of Tater Tot Hotdish. So I bought 1 1/4 lbs of that, scarfed it down and chased it with a banana. My appetite has been satisfied, now onto Millers.

For those of you who are curious about this delicacy, see the following:

http://www.movinon.net/Recipes/Main
dishes/Tatertothotdish.htm

Mmmm, Tater Tot Hotdish...

Beginning of the Xavier/WVU game and Raftery just provided an incredibly insightful analytical tidbit, but I couldn't quite make it out. It sounded like:

He goes nmbmnbnmbnmbmn!!!

If anyone heard this and understood it, please let me know, I feel like I'm really missing out on something important, here.

And now, I shall hit the mute button!!

Your shot selection during the NCAA tournament is critical. My recomondation is to take 1-part shots and avoid fufu shots, like Blueberry Vodka; Jager's a pretty safe bet. And remember the rules!

http://www.drunkard.com/issues/01-0
2/01_02_booze_rules.htm

It's also critical to manage the shot-clock, you don't want to throw up too many bombs early in the shot-clock. Remember, you're looking for solid but clean, easy looks down low. Don't go crazy, let the shots come to you and play within your game.

Good hunting, people.

Apparently, according to credible news sources, he's now having players over for dinner in an attempt to seem more personable.

I could see this one backfiring, let's just hope they're not eating as much as Chuck is, while that's probably not possible...

You heard it here, first.

According to Vitale, in order for Tennessee to win their next game:

"Chris Lofton will have to be Chris Lofton".

Thanks, Dick.

Don't sweat it A-Rod, I probably would've done the same thing.

I'm not sure if it was his wife or not, I have an email into a buddy, but the Joser hangs around with *extremely* good looking women. I was walking down 1st Ave in Minneapolis one night, a few years back and the White Sox were in town. All of the sudden, I spot the most smokin' blonde I have ever seen in my life, from a block away. I almost cold-cocked myself, literally, the third leg went straight-up with no warning.

Turns out she wanted to talk to me, she wanted directions to a local club, "The Lounge". I'm so busy dancing around my tongue and drooling that I didn't realize who the enormous gorilla standing next to us was. I knew he was absolutely huge, but I didn't even look at him. That is until my buddy says "Holy [censored]! You're Jose Canseco!!" Man, his eyes were an interesting shade of red...

In any event, if that was his wife, I know all of this about coveting and whatnot, but hey, I've seen the goods. Good grace!

Yeah, I know, he only attended IU for a couple of weeks (thanks Benson). But it's time to right this ship. Look, Xavier's Miller has recently started a nice tradition of beating Purdue and Bennett's throttling of Notre Dame was impressive. But the time for screwing around at Indiana (note: Davis and Sampson) has come and gone. We've got the cash (thanks Cuban and Cougar!!), it's time to make it happen. And Larry-legend will make it happen.

It's been suggested that Larry would be able to recruit Indiana. You think? It's also been suggested that Larry might not be able to recruit outside of Indiana? Are you kidding me? You're going to tell me that Devin Ebanks wouldn't know exactly who Larry Bird is?? That's crazy-talk, he'd probably drop a deuce in his shorts at the chance to play for Larry Bird.

Now, I'm not entirely enthralled with NBA coaches with no Collegiate experience, Wittman and Skiles need not apply. But we're talking about Larry Bird. The man knows how to play the game, anyone who thinks he couldn't X & O / motivate a team in D-1 College Hoops is probably flat-out wrong.

C'mon home Larry; it's time for the final stage of your amazing legacy.

You want to rip Kelvin Sampson a new one for his repeated transgressions with the telephone? Fine, it's the chic thing to do, everybody who's anybody is doing it, so jump on the bandwagon. But, here's two suggestions, for your sake, before you do so:

1. Know what you're talking about
2. Take a good, hard look at your own program, first

First, it's important to note that the first round of phone calls made at Oklahoma were ruled by the NCAA as a Secondary Violation. There's more information that can be found, here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/
story?id=2457878

While 577 phone calls certainly seem excessive, 233 by Sampson himself, keep in mind that this was over a 4-year period (2000-2004). So we're really talking about ~58 extra calls per annum over the period in question. Now, I don't mean to totally diminish this, but I've had girlfriend's who make 58 extra calls in a 4-day span.

Now, with the most recent issue, Sampson was involved in 13 prohibited 3-way calls last year:

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/genre
l/103007aac.html

A second document is the self-report to the NCAA enforcement staff regarding the phone calls that violated NCAA rules. That report concluded that out of these 32 phone calls it is likely only 13 actual conversations occurred. Also among the documents are two other reports detailing the circumstances of impermissible personal contacts with recruits or their families not related to telephone calls.

Now, keep in mind that these calls are not actual NCAA rules violations, but a violation of Sampson's probation, as noted:

Although permissible under NCAA rules, three-way recruiting calls involving Sampson were in violation of the stricter, NCAA-imposed sanctions which were in effect on the IU staff last year from May, 2006 to May, 2007.

And it's also important to note that Indiana has imposed serious penalities, which Sampson has fully agreed to:

As penalties, Greenspan has imposed a second year of restrictions on recruiting calls tighter than is permitted by the NCAA, reduced Sampson's off-campus recruiting opportunities and taken away a basketball scholarship for 2008-09. The basketball staff will also have one less coach available for recruiting during the 2007-08 recruiting year. Sampson also voluntarily agreed to forego a $500,000 compensation increase this year.

That's fairly significant versus being a slap on the wrist, when's the last time you've kissed off $500 Grand? And note, the University has also submitted these violations as Secondary Violations, in good faith:

"Through extensive and lengthy discussions with our legal counsel, it was concluded that these violations are of a secondary nature because they represented isolated instances. They provided little, if any, recruiting advantage and did not involve any extra benefits," Greenspan said.

Okay, so now we all know what has reportedly happened. Keep in mind these are Secondary Violations and no one at Indiana or within their fanbase thinks this is okay. Sampson's been punished and we need 100% compliance out of him and our Program as a whole.

But let's also look at this for what it is, Secondary Violations. Has a coach ever been so lambasted by the media for Secondary Violations? Has a Coach ever been deposed for Secondary Violations? Not to my knowledge.

Secondary Violations run rampant in College Basketball, almost as common as missed Shaun Pruitt free throws, which is incredibly common. Before you throw Sampson under the bus, I recommend you look at your own program, in order to avoid playing the role of hypocrite, because no one likes a hypocrite.

Let's look at a few different cases. We'll start with Illinois. I've noticed a lot of Illinois fans referring to Sampson as Sampscum and Sanctions over this, but is your Program and Coach any cleaner? Have a look at Self's history at Illinois:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/
mi_qn4179/is_20030722/ai_n11802406

Now, in the same spirit I'm taking about with Sampson, I'm not sure how big of a deal these 20 Secondary Violations really are but the point is that they exist, and as in Sampson's case, a Secondary Violation is a Secondary Violation.

And speaking of Bill Self, what's he up to these days at Kansas? Well, a little more of the same:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire
?section=ncb&id=2623115

The basketball violations occurred from 2002 through 2005, spanning from Williams to current coach Bill Self, who will be starting his fourth season with Kansas next month.

I don't mean to pick on Bill Self alone, but I find it curious as to how the media and fans are giving all of these coaches free passes while they're burning Sampson's name in effigy.

Perhaps the most humerous conversation I've recently had on the subject was when an Oklahoma State fan referred to Sampson as a cheater and claimed Eddie Sutton has never been a cheater. Eddie Sutton is one of the most infamous rules violators in the history of NCAA Basketball, he was involved in a scenario where his players at Kentucky (late 80s) were being paid to play!

You can read about it here, if you like:

http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb
/cheating.html

In the end, none of this is a-okay, but before you trash the bejesus out of Kelvin Sampson, come to terms that these are Secondary Violations and have an understanding that your Coach and Program probably has recently committed Secondary Violations as well.

After that, fine, throw Sampson under the bus. Just make sure you leave room for your Coach and Program, because I'll be placing them there shortly.

Can you hear me now?!

Sure, my favourite player, Adrian Peterson, just scored a touchdown in the 3rd quarter. Meanwhile two receivers were blatantly holding defenders right in front of the referees. Great player, total crap play.

Let's not kid ourselves, here. The Pro Bowl's a farce of a football game. The only people who hit hard in this game were Ronnie Lott and Sean Taylor (RIP) and they're not playing in it anymore.

This also leads me to wonder why the AFC won't kick to Devin Hester? Does it really matter? Why not give this guy a chance to highlight his skills? The only reason to watch this game is to watch offensive talents do talented stuff with little to no resistance.

Wow, Al Harris just got an Unsportsman-Like Penalty for playing press coverage. And now a penalty for Blitzing. What a joke. Nice that both calls were on Packers players, but it's still a bad joke and the joke is on the viewers.

Give me College Hoops. There's more physical play in these games.