Here is the Monday fallout from new penalties against Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson, assistant coach Rob Senderoff and the program for violating telephone restrictions placed on Sampson from Oklahoma, as well as a new round of impermissible calls:
1. Sampson has plenty of friends in the business. And when I say plenty, I would argue that the majority of coaches really do enjoy his company. But a number of them are perturbed by these latest violations. Some of his good friends even told me that they do think this will put a distinctive mark on the public perception of Sampson.
2. Poor public perception is a reality for Sampson right now, but it doesn't mean much if there aren't any more penalties. And there is still a chance there could be more to come. A former committee on infractions member told ESPN.com Monday that the committee is expected to review the new round of information provided to it by Indiana. When this meeting occurs is still up for debate. It could happen on a conference call or at its scheduled meeting later this fall. Once the committee reviews the information, they can decide to add further penalties to Sampson. His year-long ban from recruiting off campus and from making telephone calls expired in May. The committee allows for glitches during the penalty phase, which means if a coach is not allowed to have contact with a recruit's family but had an inadvertent bump at a soccer game, then that would be excused.
In Sampson's case, the committee will have to determine whether or not participating in a three-way phone conversation, which is allowed under NCAA rules but wasn't under Sampson's penalty, is an affront to the COI's penalties. Sampson said Sunday he didn't know that he was participating in a three-way phone call (initiated by Senderoff, who Sampson said would then just be silent on the phone but didn't hang up so the call wouldn't be dropped) in all but one of the cases. Sampson said he lives in a bad cell area in Bloomington, making it harder for the recruits to reach him the past year. So, what apparently happened on a few occasions was Senderoff would call the recruit and patch Sampson in without Sampson knowing, according to Sampson. That would mean the call would come in from the recruit and, according to Sampson, Senderoff wouldn't say a thing, making it hard Sampson to know if he were on the call. The COI will have to determine if they believe Senderoff never spoke to indicate that he was on the phone and set up the call.
3. Indiana athletic director Rick Greenspan specifically said they met with attorneys and determined the course of action -- taking away a budgeted $500,000 bonus for Sampson for 2007-08 -- was enough of a punishment instead of termination. But it should be noted that in Sampson's contract, which his available on the Indianapolis Star's Web site, Sampson can be terminated with just cause for violations of NCAA rules (which is common). But there is a specific mention of the Oklahoma case in No. 14 of the termination portion that states, "Repetitive violations and that result in additional significant penalties or sanctions against the Employee beyond the University of Oklahoma's self-imposed sanctions taken against the Employee, including any action of the NCAA that would materially impair the Employee's ability to perform under this agreement."
4. I'm waiting to see if the NCAA ever passes down a penalty that says a coach cannot coach in the NCAA Tournament. A university may have an easier time fighting any kind of ban from individual games, but the NCAA controls the tournament. It's their dance, and they hold the invitations for everyone involved.
Final nuggets
• More and more schools are using at least one of their two exhibitions as a scrimmage against another Division I school. Saint Louis coach Rick Majerus said he will take his team to Memphis to scrimmage John Calipari's Tigers next week.
• Georgetown is clearly a national name again, especially with big men, and landing the commitment of Greg Monroe out of Louisiana for 2008 is yet another example. What would be interesting would be to see how a big man from the West would compare G'town and UCLA if the two ever went head-to-head for a future recruit.
Andy Katz
