Indiana coach faces damning list of NCAA allegations

In his statement following Indiana's loss to Wisconsin, Kelvin Sampson made it clear he believes he has been falsely accused. AP

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Before he blew his first whistle as coach at Indiana, Kelvin Sampson had one strike against him. He had already been sanctioned by the NCAA for making more than 500 impermissible phone calls to recruits while he was the coach at Oklahoma.

Last fall, Sampson suffered his second strike when Indiana announced he had violated the penalties imposed on him as a result of his initial violations. When Sampson's assistant, Rob Senderoff, was let go, it gave off the unseemly impression that he had been thrown under the bus to save his boss' job.

On Tuesday, Sampson was tossed another high hard one. It came in the form of a public release of the 14-page notice of allegations presented from David Price, the NCAA's vice president of enforcement, to IU president Michael McRobbie on Feb. 8. There are two basic points to make about this latest development:

1. Sampson deserves a fair hearing. He made clear in his statement following Indiana's loss to Wisconsin Wednesday night that he believes he has been falsely accused. In this, the Age of Nifong, It is imperative to remember that these are only allegations, and we the people should not rush to judgment.

2. If Indiana and the NCAA accept these charges as fact, it will mean the end of Sampson's tenure in Bloomington. Strike three, he's out, no question about it.

Speculation is already running rampant that Sampson won't even last through this weekend. That, however, does not seem to be the course athletic director Rick Greenspan is intent on taking, based on what he said in a news conference on Wednesday. Indiana must now conduct its own review of all the NCAA's allegations, which will entail interviewing the two dozen or so people who provided information to the NCAA -- people Indiana never spoke with during its own investigation last summer. Indiana technically has 90 days to answer the NCAA, and I anticipate the school will need every one of those days to formulate its response. That means Sampson would at least coach through the end of the season.

Price and his staff have laid out a devastating litany of allegations. Their notice includes the names of 15 players who were allegedly contacted by Sampson and his staff during impermissible periods, as well as several more whose names were redacted. Given the history of violations that had already pushed Sampson to the brink, any one of these charges could prove to be his undoing. Taken together, they are breathtaking.

Here is how the charges break down:

The NCAA doesn't believe Sampson's explanations. As part of the sanctions for his previous excesses, Sampson was not allowed to call recruits for one year. (He could send text messages and receive calls.) He was explicitly forbidden from using three-way calls placed by his assistants to get around that penalty. When Indiana confronted Sampson with records that he had in fact been on three-way calls with Senderoff, he claimed that he did not know Senderoff was on the line.

Now Price and his staff have provided the names of eight different players whom the NCAA says Sampson knowingly spoke to either on a three-way call or by speakerphone on a call initiated by his assistant. Thus the damning conclusion: "Sampson repeatedly provided the institution and the enforcement staff false information regarding his involvement in violations of the Committee on Infractions' recruiting restrictions."

Again, Sampson is insisting he did not "knowingly" violate this rule. For his sake, the NCAA better change its mind. Because short of being caught red-handed forking over cash to a recruit, it's hard to imagine a more serious allegation than saying a coach lied to both his school and the NCAA during an investigation.

Sampson and his assistants violated NCAA rules, not just the sanctions. It was bad enough that Senderoff and his former colleague, IU assistant Jeff Meyer, apparently could not comply with the penalties the NCAA had levied as a result of Sampson's violations at Oklahoma. They are also alleged to have broken the rules that apply to everyone. The NCAA limits coaches to one call per month to high school players between June 15 of their sophomore year through July 31 of their junior year. Senderoff and his fellow assistant, Meyer, are charged with having made 25 calls to nine different recruits that violated this rule.

Remember now, it was excessive calls that got Sampson into hot water in the first place. The notion that he and his assistants could repeatedly violate the same rule is mind-boggling.

Sampson did not run a responsible office. In some ways, this is the most serious charge. The NCAA's letter cites "Sampson's failure to promote an atmosphere for compliance within the men's basketball program and failure to monitor the activities regarding compliance of one or more of his assistant coaches." These ominous words echo the dreaded "lack of institutional control" finding which so often results in the most drastic of penalties.

The letter is especially harsh on Senderoff, accusing him of misleading the committee on multiple occasions, including providing false, signed monthly statements indicating he hadn't made illicit calls from his home phone. If that allegation holds up -- and again it is just an allegation -- it's the kind of thing that could result in a show-cause penalty that would bar Senderoff from coaching anywhere in the NCAA for an extended period.

The final allegations concern a possible improper meeting with a prospect during Indiana's basketball camp last summer, as well as the gifts of a T-shirt and a drawstring backpack. If those were isolated incidents, they would be relatively petty stuff. But they were apparently not isolated incidents.

Sampson has a lot of friends in the coaching profession who are hoping that he will be proven innocent of these charges. As someone who has gotten to know him and his family over the years, I share those hopes. But this latest set of revelations paints a very bleak picture. If that picture remains intact, it will be impossible for Sampson to continue as coach at Indiana. The end could be nigh, and it won't be pretty.