Since the Rob Senderoff news broke yesterday, we’ve had a few people take issue (both via email and comments) with the initial report’s classification of Senderoff as a “fall guy” and our tenuous adoption of the term in our poll to the right. These people seem to think Senderoff is being punished for deeds he committed alone and without provocation, and that once Senderoff is gone the program will be again and forever without rule-benders.

Sorry, folks: Rob Senderoff is your fall guy.

No one familiar with Kelvin Sampson — hell, no one familiar with college coaches in general — could possibly believe that Senderoff acted on his own in initializing three-way calls with recruits. Do you really think any Type A personality, one that exists in the dictatorship-esque heirarchy of college basketball coaching, would really allow an assistant to actively flout the rules? Do you think there’s any way Senderoff decided to take matters into his own hands? Or that he misinterpreted some edict laid down by Sampson at the beginning of recruiting season? Please.

Again, Senderoff shouldn’t be fired, and neither should Sampson. This stuff is not that big of a deal. But somewhere, whether Rick Greenspan or an angry booster or both, someone wanted blood. And if you don’t think Senderoff took a fall for indiscretions as much Sampson’s as his own, I’ve got some oceanfront Indiana property I’d like to show you.