Indiana Hire New Coach that is Still Not Bobby Knight

I am officially an IU alum. And I did search actively for www. firemikedavis. com And I don't believe Indiana has lived up to its legacy as one of the big four NCAA basketball programs (UCLA, Duke, Kentucky, Indiana) for several years. So I've been anxiously awaiting the end of the season to find out who they get to replace the coach who led IU to the final four and owns one of the best winning percentages in the big ten over the last five years.

The IU alumni have been clamoring for a return to the Bobby Knight era by hiring Steve Alford, a star from the Knight coached 1987 championship team and current coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. FOr some reason, they prefer a coach with a lower winning percentage whose team got knocked out of the first round by Northwestern State, a 14 seed. Others felt Indiana should get Gonzaga coach Mark Few, whose teams, despite making the sweet sixteen this year, have failed to the last four years before that despite racking up the gaudiest winning percentages in the country. But Indiana seemed to shock all when it announced the hiring of Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson. Sampson has a final four appearance (2002, where he lost to a Mike Davis coached IU team) and nine straight twenty win seasons. But even OU seems anxious to get rid of him. His teams have accounted for more NCAA first round loses than any school save Penn and Murray State and this is despite normally having the higher seed. He's had a number of top recruits transfer out of the program. Guards Drew Lavender and Lawrence MacKenzie transfered just before the season, a year after big men Brandon Faust and Larry Turner. And before that De'Angelo Alexander who this year led the Charlotte 49ers in scoring in the Atlantic 10. And then there was All Big-12 freshman and McDonald's All American Ryan Humphrey who led Notre Dame in scoring and rebounding for two straight years and got drafted by the Utah Jazz (and immediately traded). And then there is attendance. WHich is down at OU for the fourth consecutive year. Now that probably won't happen at IU where the season ticket packages include only 6 games so everyone can get tickets who want them... but it is something to consider.

OU games are dull to watch. Because Sampson stresses defense and rebounding, they look like brawls and scores sit in the 40s and 50s. Why do you think people keep transfering? Now, I'm saying that style won't transfer well to the Big 10, it probably will, but its not going to look anything like the finesse teams of IU's legacy. And Sampson has often said that there is only time to teach a team one thing in the short season, so he teaches defense. Maybe there isn't enough time because he keeps losing players and has to rely on JUCO-Transfers. And IU has had enough of recruiting woes, having lost out on Indianapolis product and u.s.a. top prospect GREG ODEN to Ohio State. Ohio STate???? How is that possible. So Mike Davis wasn't able to recruit for shit and Kelvin Sampson isn't able to keep the recruits he does get. Actually, Oklahoma's recruiting class is one of the tops in the country for the upcoming year (we'll see if they all show after the latest news), but they is another concern. Sampson leaves OU amid scandal allegegations of some extra 500 illegal recruiting calls his staff made, 200 by Kelvin himself over a four year period. So Sampson may actually bring violations with him to Indiana (this just worse and worse).

Which brings us here, why was Mike Davis so bad? Sure his teams have underacheived, and he can't recruit instate talent, but this is not unrelated to the alumni's unfair expectations and culture of dissent that has arrisen around the IU program since Bobby Knight was ousted. The alumni want Knight back. THat's not going to happen. So they nitpick his successor and discuss very publically that Davis should be on the hotseat. Now who wants to go play for a coach in that position? And then there is the race factor. IU is full of racist KKK hicks who want a white guy coaching and white guys on the floor (spend some time reading the posts on www.firemikedavis.com and you'll see what I mean. So for that reason, I am glad Sampson is a person of color. Will he have any more luck with the alumni than Davis? Probably, because he is replacing Mike Davis, who they hate, instead of Bobby Knight, who they loved. Will he recruit better? Who knows. Will he recruit legally? Who knows.

I guess I'm just wondering is this the best they could do? I mean North Carolina got Roy WIlliams, who had already won a championship, and this Indiana University, the main program in the state of where they made a movie called Hoosiers. I'm sorry, but they obviously didn't throw enough money at whoever they really wanted, or they didn't even try.

p.s. special thanks to OU and IU alum Richard Ford for his insights on the issue.