Hoosier Daddy Sampson to Dakich

February 16, 2008 10:31 AM

Kelvin Sampson probably gone Sooner than later.Ever since Bob Knight got fired from Indiana University, alumni have been upset that one of his lineage was not brought in to replace him.

Mike Davis was never able to rally the troops, IU alumni pulled donations and the athletic department balance sheet went from black to red.

IU hired a great coach in Kelvin Sampson, but he came with sanctions from his Oklahoma days.

It looks like IU Athletic Director Rick Greenspan may have had the machine going to replace Sampson over a year ago.

Former IU player and assistant coach (under Bob Knight) Dan Dakich resigned his Bowling Green coaching job last March, walking away from a $125,000 salary with no apparent plan. By June, he was IU's Director of Basketball Operations, an administrative position with no coaching duties.

However, after Assistant Coach Rob Senderoff resigned under fire, Dakich found himself on the bench behind Sampson.

Dakich had walked away from tripling his salary at West Virginia after one week due to concern over possible program violations. He said 'This is how you do things honestly, not based on money,' and so he looks very clean for a tarnished IU program.

One more advantage; he already knows about IU's problematic phones.

posted by dragonsi55 (12 comments total)

Regrets, missed a link:

Mike Davis was never able to rally the troops,
posted by dragonsi55 at 10:52 AM on February 16, 2008

Alford would be a fool to take the IU position. Anyone in that post inevitably operates under the shadow of Knight's ghost. Alford would be doubly eclipsed. If he brings-in anything other than championship-season-after-championship-season immediately, the mutterings will be all about how he obviously didn't pay attention when he was under Knight's tutelage.

Other than the huge wad of cash IU would probably throw at him, I don't see an up-side for Alford in coming back to Bloomington.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:54 AM on February 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Also: Alford is a prick and a shitty coach. So he has that going against him as well.
posted by anomie at 10:58 AM on February 16, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

It's Dakich who's poised to take over. The timing is interesting, too; late February leads into March Madness with two NBA players on the team, which looks good for the NCAA tournament if the coach can hold everyone together. Mike Davis bought himself a half-decade with a championship appearance. Whoever is coaching IU in the tournament has a team that can go far, and an excuse if it doesn't.
posted by dragonsi55 at 11:01 AM on February 16, 2008

Dakich had walked away from tripling his salary at West Virginia after one week due to concern over possible program violations.

And WVU fans thank him for that every single day.
posted by tallthinone at 11:02 AM on February 16, 2008

... and there ended up being no violations at West Virginia.
posted by netbros at 12:06 PM on February 16, 2008

Greetings from Bloomington (where I spend every third weekend) . . .

Samson is toast, if the talk in this town is to be believed. You'd think he was a murderer from the tone on sports radio here (and there is a lot of sports radio in southern Indiana, about all you can get in the car sometimes).
posted by fourcheesemac at 12:46 PM on February 16, 2008

As a lifelong Kentucky fan, there's nothing that warms my heart more than "five major violations" at Indiana.

It's a great day in the bluegrass.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:11 PM on February 16, 2008

Also: Alford is a prick and a shitty coach.

Needs to be reiterated. Also, his hair approaches parody.

It's too bad Jim Beiline already went to Michigan, he seemed like a good fit at IU. As a life long IU fan, here's what I think fans really want in a coach - a person who understands the need to recruit and get the best players in the state. It's where I think Davis went wrong and what Sampson was doing right - he got Eric Gordon. We'll forgive losses so long as we're losing with "our boys." And considering Indiana graduates a pretty impressive class of players every year, we'd always be competitive. The coach can be an outsider so long as he understands the dynamics of intra-state Hoosierphilia. Don't let our guys go to North Carolina. Don't recruit a bunch of guys from Alabama. Get the Indiana boys and we'll win.
posted by billysumday at 2:36 PM on February 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Et tu, Metafilter?

As I type this I can hear my neighbors screaming. They have overflowed their house; at least twenty guys dressed in red are running around in the street trying to hold on to their cans of Keystone Light while they pass and dribble. Propped on an empty folding chair, next to a bottle of Captain Morgan's, is a handwritten sign: "You Honk We Drink!!!" And tonight's game doesn't even start for three hours.

This week I did a double take walking past the dispenser for the Indiana Daily Student, the free student paper. Biggest damn headline I've ever seen, and all it said was "LIES." Took me a minute to figure out what was going on. I thought maybe the student body had finally risen up against the blatant and unconscionable corruption of power that has characterised our country for nearly 8 years now. Hahahahaha.

I feel like a crochety old lady. It's really not that I have anything against basketball. I like basketball. But Jesus Christ, this town.
posted by bookish at 3:20 PM on February 16, 2008

Sampson should have been fired Wednesday when the report came out. Greenspan and the committee obviously knew about his past indiscretions and therefore they should also take a piece of blame pie. The NCAA wasn't pleased about IU hiring him, much less using Senderoff as a scapegoat AND Sampson lying to them about the calls. The longer he hangs around the more likely the NCAA will institute a post season ban. What kills me is that you don't need to cheat to get players to go to IU.

Concerning Alford - not many fans actually wanted him to come back. He is a poor coach and an ass.
posted by curlyelk at 3:35 PM on February 16, 2008

On Alford -- the Iowa alums/supporters I know were jubilant when Alford bolted for New Mexico. After Mike Davis was fired they practically begged IU to come get him.

On Sampson -- I'm still not sure why he left Oklahoma, other than he was trying to run away from that cloud. He reminds me of Rick Neuheisel, in that he's pretty blatant about the NCAA violations, but acts all innocent and "Oh I didn't know there were RULES against that" when cornered on it.

I feel like a crochety old lady. It's really not that I have anything against basketball. I like basketball. But Jesus Christ, this town.

My pastor's son writes for the Daily Tarheel. He did an article before the Duke-UNC game correctly surmising that UNC would lose because their point guard was out with an injury. Alums called the paper demanding he be fired.

Alums are asking for a college kid to get fired from a college paper because the kid wasn't 100% in support of the team. Yi yi yi.
posted by dw at 3:59 PM on February 16, 2008