Everyone knows about Eric Gordon, a top recruit who decommitted from Illinois after Sampson sent newly hired assstant Jeff Meyer in the summer of 2006 (who had connections with Gordan's father) to follow around Gordon all summer long making him decommit, breaking the Big Ten coaches code of conduct to not recruit committed players.
As it turns out, it's not even close to being Sampson's biggest controversey. In 2004, the University of Oklahoma was placed under a three year investigation for recruiting violations that happened under Sampsons' tenure as head coach. At the end of the their investigation, the NCAA issued a report citing more than 550 illegal calls made by Sampson and his staff to 17 different recruits. Ironically before the investigations, Sampson was the president of the NABC, an organization dedicated to solving problems around college basketball like the ones Sampson himself creates. The punishment: Sampson was barred from off campus recruiting for one year and removed from his duties as the president of the NABC.
Appearantly that punishment wasn't enough. Sampson, and already notorious cheater, has recently been under fire for making impermissable phone calls to recruits. Now the head coach at Indiana, Sampson, while being restricted from making any outbound recruiting phone calls by the NCAA, made 10 of them. Also, one his assistants at Indiana named Rob Senderoff made a reported 35 illegal phone calls to recruits and has since resigned. Relevations from the University of Indiana however indicate that the number was closer to 100.
Along with his well documented recruiting violations are Sampsons' equally impressive graduating rates. His 0% graduating rates while at Oklahoma were the worst in the nation. No excuse.
Kelvin has claimed to "learn from his mistakes" and to have "moved on" since his days at Oklahoma, and he's right, he has moved on...755 miles to be exact to the campus of the University of Indiana. Now when you want to know what's wrong with college basketball, all you have to do is to look to Bloomington, IN.
Hoosiers fans: Go ahead. Be happy about your top 10 program. But just so you know, there's absoluely nothing Kelvin Sampson and his circus act can do that will eclipse what the 2005 Illini team did...legally or not!





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