And I agree with Taskmaster75, the ITH blog tends to be one of the more reasonable places to find discussion of IU hoops. So far, I've not seen anyone hammer on Crean and I doubt anyone will. So far, no one is amped up on crap they've read here (from what I've seen)
IMO, the Sampson issue was, he was hired (somewhat inexplicably) with a history of over 500 impermissible calls, he then began to violate that same rule almost immediately upon arrival in Bloomington, and then threw IU under the bus after getting us in hot water with the NCAA.
Is the NCAA silly? Yep. Your points re: USC are valid and will likely go without a single sanction against them. Is the phone call rule silly? Yes and no. As indicated below, it is designed to prevent perceived recruiting advantages to programs who employed the ol' AT-5000 Autodialer to tell recruits how much they like them etc. It seems a rule that is bound to trip people up in honest mistakes (i.e. a few extra phone calls in a week as opposed to hundreds).

And I agree with Taskmaster75, the ITH blog tends to be one of the more reasonable places to find discussion of IU hoops. So far, I've not seen anyone hammer on Crean and I doubt anyone will. So far, no one is amped up on crap they've read here (from what I've seen)
IMO, the Sampson issue was, he was hired (somewhat inexplicably) with a history of over 500 impermissible calls, he then began to violate that same rule almost immediately upon arrival in Bloomington, and then threw IU under the bus after getting us in hot water with the NCAA.
Is the NCAA silly? Yep. Your points re: USC are valid and will likely go without a single sanction against them. Is the phone call rule silly? Yes and no. As indicated below, it is designed to prevent perceived recruiting advantages to programs who employed the ol' AT-5000 Autodialer to tell recruits how much they like them etc. It seems a rule that is bound to trip people up in honest mistakes (i.e. a few extra phone calls in a week as opposed to hundreds).

Now, I agree, the NCAA is the root of the problem here, and for the exact reason you said, inconsistency. They choose to punish us for phone calls, while OJ mayo and Reggie Bush have a grand old time in SoCal. It's really stupid, and I think that the fact that we weren't one of the top teams in the NCAA and USC had great football and college teams had something to do with it, but that's just me, the conspirator.

Back to the phone call rule, I think you need to take into account that if Sampson is calling recruits way above the limit, and he's probably not the only coach doing it, then how many phone calls is a recruit/high school kid getting in a week?

I played college basketball at the D2 level and I remember in high school most nights I would go to my girlfriends house in the evening just so I didn't have to be on the phone half the night. Sunday's were the worst since it started a new week and coaches wanted to be the first to call you, and like I said I played D2, so I was by no means some major recruit. I can't imagine what it's like for some major D1 recruit getting 30 calls a night. Just a different angle to think about when discussing this rule.

Im still waiting on the NCAA to react to the Reggie Bush COURT CASE, where he and his family got a house, money, plane tickets and much more. How bad does a rule violation have to be to go to a federal court, all the while the NCAA chosses to ignore the alligations and let Pete get away with recruiting murder. But we make some phone calls and we go from a possible final four team to outed in the first round to playing 9 freshman the next year.

You people need to wake up and direct your anger at the real culpret here, the NCAA and stop getting amped about the crap you read on blogs.

This sort of thing happens daily across the country. We're just hypersensitive for obvious reasons. If they are wondering if this needs any more attention just look at our record and let us know how all those extra Sampson calls worked out for the program.

This sort of thing happens daily across the country. We're just hypersensitive for obvious reasons. If they are wondering if this needs any more attention just look at our record and let us know how all those extra Sampson calls worked out for the program.

Remember the days when http://www.firemikedavis.com was the hottest website in Indiana…

Remember the days when http://www.firemikedavis.com was the hottest website in Indiana…

I understand the phone call rule and why it was enacted (to eliminate a perceived recruiting edge to those coaches who continue to “cold call” recruits to keep them committed to the program or to get such a commitment – honestly, if Kelvin Sampson went up against Lloyd Braun and George Costanza, he'd sell way more computers than those two guys) but the phone call rule is largely impractical and this sort of thing demonstrates just why its a form of legislated lunancy. Not to defend Kelvin Sampson, but let's remember that he was not giving $1000 handshakes, having boosters buy players cars etc. He was a serial, pathological phone caller incapable of following the rules (and I sort of view this inability as a possible “gateway” violation – how long would it have been before he might have started doing that sort of really bad behavior…). All that is in the past, well except for one extra phone call, but I think Crean is someone who plays by the rules and that he'll get us turned around in the next 2-3 years.

I understand the phone call rule and why it was enacted (to eliminate a perceived recruiting edge to those coaches who continue to “cold call” recruits to keep them committed to the program or to get such a commitment – honestly, if Kelvin Sampson went up against Lloyd Braun and George Costanza, he'd sell way more computers than those two guys) but the phone call rule is largely impractical and this sort of thing demonstrates just why its a form of legislated lunancy. Not to defend Kelvin Sampson, but let's remember that he was not giving $1000 handshakes, having boosters buy players cars etc. He was a serial, pathological phone caller incapable of following the rules (and I sort of view this inability as a possible “gateway” violation – how long would it have been before he might have started doing that sort of really bad behavior…). All that is in the past, well except for one extra phone call, but I think Crean is someone who plays by the rules and that he'll get us turned around in the next 2-3 years.

Based on IU's defense to the NCAA we are in the top 10% at doing this. I am not surprised we caught it so soon after the fact despite the difficulty. This report actually makes me feel real good about out compliance

Based on IU's defense to the NCAA we are in the top 10% at doing this. I am not surprised we caught it so soon after the fact despite the difficulty. This report actually makes me feel real good about out compliance