Mike DeCourcy

In more peaceful times, I wrote the following two sentences, which will haunt me at least until we solve some important world crisis, like global warming or the thing with Ellen DeGeneres' dog.

This is what I said less than a week ago:

"For the first time in decades, there'll be no drama at Indiana. Just basketball."

They almost got there, those Hoosier rascals.

They almost made it to a season without another blistering controversy. There hasn't been a year at Indiana in which somebody wasn't mad at somebody since Bob Knight redefined the word "disciplinarian" in the mid-'70s. From the days of the pro-Bob and anti-Bobby factions, to the division between those backing Myles Brand and those worshipping the man he fired, to the days when Mike Davis got to the NCAA title game but neglected the state's rich talent base, to the first Kelvin Sampson phone scandal but subsequent recruitment of five-star prospect Eric Gordon, IU basketball has been college basketball's most eruptive program.

Sampson had to know this. He had to know the consequences for getting jammed up again, even for a measly 10 phone calls, would go well beyond whatever the university might inflict upon him to preempt NCAA sanctions, and whatever the NCAA might tack on, anyway.

He had to know if he got nicked for breaking a rule, influential Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz would call for him to be fired. Kravitz all but issued that declaration the day after the press conference to announce Sampson's hiring in March 2006, and he took another good whack at the coach following the NCAA's decision roughly two months later to forbid Sampson to recruit off campus.

Sampson had to know the many former IU players still fiercely loyal to Knight, such as former All-America center Kent Benson, would suggest amputation as the best solution to solve a nasty sunburn.

He had to know that if the Indiana program wound up kneeling before the NCAA lords of justice, even a subsequent national championship would not lead to a full embrace from the fan base.

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That's what's so disappointing about what occurred here. That's why it's so disappointing it was allowed to occur. Even though Sampson's hiring was controversial because of previous phone call violations at Oklahoma, mistakes that were made early in his IU tenure were not flagged until more than a year after he took the job. Given the record that followed him from Oklahoma to Indiana, Sampson should have been insisting on monthly audits of the program's phone logs. Failing that, Indiana should have insisted for him.

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What was IU's compliance office doing all that time? Ordering pizza? The excessive and impermissible phone calls this time did not approach the 577 number that became tattooed onto Sampson's OU legacy. But there might have been almost none if some clerical oversights had been caught earlier and the program's vigilance increased. No one charged with operating or overseeing Indiana basketball understands what it's going to take to make it right, make it whole again.

Instead, you've got Sampson under fire as he prepares to coach his most talented team ever, assistant coach Rob Senderoff's reputation damaged for his involvement in connecting Sampson to three-way calls that violated the terms of his NCAA punishment -- and the IU family yet again choosing sides in their own hoops civil war.