Kelvin Sampson’s NCAA penalty is over

I cannot believe it’s already been five years since Kelvin Sampson put my favorite college basketball program in a really bad spot.

The Sampson “show cause” has expired.  Schools no longer have to tell the NCAA why they should be able to hire someone pegged by the NCAA as a cheater without penalty themselves.  Sampson is fair game.

Indiana University basketball felt good in those days.  That is, until the coaches allegedly broke texting and calling limits set by the NCAA.  Conveniently, that rule isn’t there anymore.

But, now, Sampson is a free man according to the NCAA.

Will he come back to college?  Who knows.  Sampson declined to be interviewed by USA Today.

But former IU assistant and partner-in-crime Rob Senderhoff did talk.  Does he think Sampson would come back to college hoops?

“I really don’t know, to be honest with you,” said Senderoff, a former assistant under Sampson at IU who also received a show cause penalty for the violations.

“I don’t talk to coach Sampson about the sanctions. He’s moved on, and I don’t want to speak for him, but he’s now coaching, working in the NBA, and I don’t know if he thinks about it daily or not.”

They weren’t great students, but DAMN were they good athletes at Indiana while Kelvin Sampson was coach.

I’m glad Tom Crean is at Indiana now, don’t get me wrong, but I did enjoy the time Sampson was there.

Sampson made IU hoops relevant nationally again, if only for a short while.

[Photo credit: usatoday.com]