Indiana and basketball go together like baseball and hot dogs, the Pope and the Vatican, Turner and Hooch. It's no surprise, then, that Indiana University has one of the most storied college basketball programs in history, along with one of most passionate fan bases. Five national championship banners -- third best all-time -- hang proudly from the ceiling of legendary Assembly Hall, where basketball greats such as Calbert Cheaney, Isaiah Thomas (he was a great player, I promise) and coach Bob Knight graced the court. It's the history of IU basketball that makes the story of the program-wide collapse so fascinating.
Just a couple months ago, I was walking around Dartmouth talking of a potential sixth Indiana national championship, for on the morning of February 13, IU stood with a record of 20-4 and was ranked in the country's top 10.
Then the bombshell came. Second-year coach Kelvin Sampson was hit with five "major" NCAA recruiting violations. Inexcusably, Sampson made the same mistakes he was caught and sanctioned for just two years earlier at Oklahoma -- abusing the NCAA telephone call regulations. His stupidity ignited a firestorm that has yet to be extinguished.
The previously-clean program degenerated into turmoil. Though Sampson was forced to resign by week's end, the season was already lost.
The IU players never respected the interim head coach, Dan Dakich, who was given the impossible task of navigating the team through the end of the ill-fated season. Indiana lost two out of its last three games before getting blown out by Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Just a month before, I heard analysts predicting a final four trip for Indiana, but the season ended in a first round burnout.
Indiana fans everywhere have since been furious, depressed, or suicidal. No team with two future lottery picks -- Big Ten Player of the Year D.J. White and Big Ten Freshman of the Year Eric Gordon -- should lose to Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA tournament. This was supposed to be the year that Indiana put a sixth banner in Assembly Hall, not the year that knocked Indiana off its pedestal as one of the premier programs in the nation.
The brief Sampson era was a veritable disaster for Indiana. Self-imposed sanctions for previous infractions at Oklahoma initially resulted in the loss of one scholarship. One star recruit was caught dealing cocaine last year and had his scholarship stripped. Another top-10 recruit withdrew his commitment to IU recently and who can blame him?
Just last week, Indiana announced that four players from last year's roster, including three of IU's best remaining players, will not be returning next year due in large part to academic issues. The NCAA has yet to rule on punishments regarding Sampson's major violations and Indiana's recent below-acceptable Academic Progress Rate score of 899. Bob Knight spent 29 years as head coach at Indiana building the school into a college basketball juggernaut -- Kelvin Sampson spent two years destroying everything.
This leaves Indiana's new head coach Tom Crean, fresh off a successful nine-year stint with Marquette, with four returning players, although more may leave before the dust settles. It will take years for Crean to bring respectability back to Indiana. Next year will most likely be an embarrassment for fans who do not handle embarrassment well.
But you have to give Crean credit. Knight had his character flaws, but he knew how to run a basketball program. He's a legendary coach not just for his wins, but for the way he graduated his players and the way he molded freshmen into men.
Sampson, in contrast, ran a loose ship, to put it nicely. Crean has taken the hint. He dismissed three of his best returning players because they did not meet academic standards, and he has shown willingness to sacrifice immediate success for pride and dignity, something that Sampson was never able to do.
Crean is trying to create a family again with players who do not consider themselves bigger than the team they play for, and this is what Indiana basketball is all about. Like Turner and Hooch, is it possible for Indiana and basketball to stay so connected without love and a little sense of family? I don't think so.
