Indiana Basketball: Once-Promising Season Ends Far Too Soon

Stew WinkelMar 21, 2008

I wonder if Kelvin Sampson was watching.

Indiana ended its once-promising season unceremoniously with an 86-72 loss to Arkansas in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Sampson’s arson job at IU is now complete.

At one point this season, the Hoosiers were 17-1, ranked No. 8 in the country in the ESPN/USA Today poll. IU would keep winning into February. Then, about 12 hours before the Hoosiers were to play Wisconsin on February 13, Indiana officials released a report that the NCAA was accusing Sampson of major rules violations.

Indiana would lose that game but then appear to rally around their coach, even as the controversy continued to swirl. IU knocked off Michigan State 80-61 in an emotional game, that at the time appeared as if it could possibly be the final game for Sampson on the Indiana sideline.

IU’s freshman sensation Eric Gordon said at the time, “We play for coach every game. I think that’s why we are all here. We came here to play for coach.”

Sampson would get one more game, and Indiana would win that one too—77-68 over Purdue to climb within a half-game of the Big Ten lead. The Hoosiers were 22-4, and ranked 14th in the country.

Senior D.J. White said following the win over Purdue, “We have a chance to do something special here.”

But Sampson had already lit the match, and any chance of IU doing something special in 2008 went up in flames.

Three days after the win over Purdue, Indiana bought out Sampson’s contract for $750,000. Not a bad chunk of change. Sampson in turn agreed to waive his right to sue the university.

The school named Dan Dakich interim coach. Six players boycotted the first practice under Dakich in a sign of support for their former coach. The six quickly ended their boycott and played in the next game, against Northwestern.

IU won a close contest, 85-82, against a team that at the time was winless in the Big Ten.

The team went on to win another close game, this time over Ohio State, before being blown out at Michigan State, 103-74. After a win against Minnesota, Indiana finished the regular season with an embarrassing loss at Penn State, followed by a first-round exit from the Big Ten tournament with a 59-58 loss to Minnesota.

Then came the final game of the season, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. A Lance Stemler three-pointer put the Hoosiers ahead 19-18 with 10:06 left in the first half. It would be the last lead of Indiana’s season, as Arkansas took the lead back with 8:53 to go in the half and did not trail again.

Afterwards, IU players didn’t blame the loss on any lingering distraction from Sampson’s departure. The evidence, both on the court and in the stat book, proves otherwise.

At the time of Sampson's departure, the team appeared headed for at least a five-seed in the tournament. With Sampson, it is unlikely the team looses to both Penn State and Minnesota and falls to an eight-seed.

A quick look at the numbers shows the impact Sampson’s self-inflicted demise had on this Indiana team.

Under Sampson, the team went 22-4, averaged 76.2 points per game, and allowed only 62.8. In the seven games after Sampson left Bloomington, the team went 3-4, while scoring only 70.6 points per game and giving up nearly 12 more points per game, 74.6.

But the numbers don’t even begin to measure the full effect that Sampson’s inability to put the phone down, as well as his inability to be honest about what he did, had on this year’s Indiana team.

From what I saw from IU while Sampson was still there, I thought Indiana was the best team in the Big Ten. The Hoosiers had a chance to not only win the conference, but to also make a run in the NCAA tournament.

Gordon and White had to be one of, if not the, best inside-outside combinations in the country. The freshman-senior duo were surrounded by a quality supporting cast.

It was clear from watching this team, however, that any chance IU had to make a run ended when the school booted Sampson. It also didn’t help when the school inexplicably announced prior to the NCAA Tournament that it had assembled a search committee to find a new coach, sending a clear message that the administration had no confidence in interim coach Dan Dakich. He was clearly a lame duck.

When on the sideline, there can be no argument that Sampson is a great coach. No matter what the reason, any team would suffer from his unexpected departure. That he would no longer be there in practice, preparing for games, in the locker room and on the sidelines, hurt this team’s chances.

It went beyond this too—the players, at least a number of them, felt an attachment to Sampson. As noted above, a many boycotted a practice. Several wrote “K.S.” on their shoes to support their coach.

(I wonder if Sampson wrote the players’ names on his shoes while he sat on his couch tonight watching the team lose.)

After the first game without Sampson, sophomore guard Armon Bassett said, “It just wasn’t the same, not having [Sampson] around.”

Gordon added, “[Sampson] wasn’t just like a coach. He was more like a father to us. We just miss him.”

No player exemplified the impact of Sampson’s loss more than Gordon, who was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year. In the 25 games he played with Sampson as his coach, Gordon averaged 21.7 points and shot 46.6 percent from the floor. With Sampson gone, Gordon scored only 18.1 ppg, and his shooting dropped to 32.3 percent.

In the game against Arkansas, while D.J. White shot 10-16 for a team-high 22 points and nine rebounds in his final collegiate game, IU’s other star Gordon struggled all game.

He shot just 3-15, tying his season low with only eight points.

With about 10 minutes to play in the game, Gordon forcefully drove the lane for a thunderous dunk, cutting the Razorback lead to 53-49. I thought maybe this would get him going, and help Indiana retake the lead. But that didn’t materialize.

Gordon scored only four more points, on two free throws and then a layup in the final minute when the game was already essentially decided.

I am not writing to criticize Gordon. He had an outstanding season, and has the talent for a great NBA career. But watching this team play throughout the season, it was a different Hoosier team over the final seven games than it was over the first 26.

It is obvious from his words how much Sampson meant to Gordon—it cannot be easy for a 19-year-old to just get back to playing basketball without showing any ill-effect from losing his coach.

How Gordon wound up at Indiana received a great deal of publicity. A quick version is that Gordon initially committed to Illinois. But when Sampson replaced Mike Davis following the 2006 season, Gordon let Sampson know he was still interested in signing with IU.

From reading about this story, it is obvious how important Kelvin Sampson was to Gordon, and that had it not been for Sampson, Gordon would have been wearing a different uniform in college.

Gordon wasn't the only Hoosier who had an attachment to Sampson, and he wasn't the only one who appeared to never really get over him not being there. The players got hit twice by this—first by actually not having a talented coach and then again from the psychological effect of his loss late in the season.

Sampson not only ruined this year’s Indiana team, but as interim coach Dan Dakich alluded to after the Arkansas game, his actions, the fall-out, combined with White’s graduation and Gordon’s likely leap to the NBA, have the potential to negatively impact a program that not only two months ago appeared ready to reestablish itself as one of the premier basketball teams in the nation.

Following the loss to Arkansas, Dakich said, “I’ve never seen like [the current situation at IU]. And it’s probably not over, to tell you the truth. The season’s over, the games are over. But there are a lot of things that have to occur within Indiana basketball, or a lot are going to occur with Indiana basketball that need to occur here in the springtime. It’s far from over.”

As a fan of college basketball, I was deprived the chance to see this Indiana team compete with UCLA, UNC, Kansas and the other top schools for this year's national title. Nothing is guaranteed, obviously—but with Sampson, IU had a shot.

But what bothered me the most while I watched Indiana lose to Arkansas was thinking about the stories I have read of Sampson spending time with the San Antonio Spurs recently. At some point Sampson will resurface, whether it is at another school or with an NBA team. I am sure he will at the time talk about how he has learned his lesson. He will get to move on.

The IU players will move on too—but because of Kelvin Sampson, they will never get another chance to see if the 2007-08 Indiana team had a chance to achieve something special as D.J. White had envisioned.