Sources close to Pitino said that the Louisville coach has reached out to Nets brass in recent days, making himself a candidate for the job now held by GM and interim coach Kiki Vandeweghe, and due to open after their woeful season is completed in April.

According to sources, Pitino had intermediaries recently contact Nets president Rod Thorn on his behalf. Thorn himself is in the final year of a contract, and is looking to get a new deal from incoming owner Mikhail Prokhorov.

Pitino, unsurprisingly, has denied any interest in the job to ESPN.com’s Pat Forde:

“There’s not an ounce of truth to it. I have no interest, period. I’m done with coaching professional basketball. I’ve put the professional ranks behind me.”

So, why, you ask, is this pertinent information for this here blog? Two words: Marquis Teague.

Louisville has long been recognized as the leader to land Teague. This rumor, regardless of its validity, only aids Tom Crean and other schools in the pursuit of Teague, no? The wildcard in all of this is Kentucky, where Teague will visit Saturday for a game against Tennessee. Also still reportedly in the mix: Cincinnati, Purdue, Ohio State and Wake Forest.

Indiana’s main arguments are, simply, that the “failure to monitor” charge brought against it by the NCAA can’t be true. Why? because former coach Kelvin Sampson and his staff intentionally misled the school about their use of cellphones, particularly in the case of Sampson’s infamous party-line maneuver. (If you’ll remember, he would have assistant Rob Senderoff three-way call from a recruit into Sampson’s cell phone; this was very much against the rules.)Also, according to the school, the “failure to monitor” can’t be true because the University reported all of these violations itself. And lastly, Indiana is making a similar argument to Mad Men’s Freddy Rumsen Sunday night — isn’t the embarrassment punishment enough?

I think I’ve got most of it there, and if those are indeed the main arguments at hand, I’ve gotta say: I am pretty impressed by them. They at least make sense, right? Do I think the NCAA will immediately raise its hands in defeat, admitting IU’s rhetorical genius and ceding the case, Perry Mason-style, in one fell swoop? No. But at the very least, IU’s administration didn’t turn in a gomer of a report. They made it clear why this was Sampson’s fault. Because it was.

Anyway, thoughts? Anyone get a different read?

Now Indiana has actually become Kyle Taber’s team.Let’s put this into perspective. This is a 6-foot-7 forward who averaged 1.3 points and 2.5 rebounds in a little more than 11 minutes per game a year ago.

If Crean has to rely on Taber, then the Hoosiers are in major trouble.

I’m not saying Taber has to go out and become a combination of Gordon and White, but he’s the face of the program and the likely leader of a team with seven new faces.”He’s grown up being appreciative of what Indiana basketball is all about,” Crean said, “He realizes that it’s a real honor to be here and he’s got a chance to provide leadership and have a senior year to be remembered for in this state for a long, long time.”

There’s not a whole lot else in the story — Taber refused to confirm or deny the drug-use rumors that surrounded the team last year — but the general gist is terrifying. Kyle Taber is an OK player, and a seemingly nice dude, but he is not a Division 1 centerpiece. I hate to be pessimistic, but items like this are like a slap of reality: IU is going to be really bad next year. Sigh.

Last night and this morning I had the opportunity to apologize to Coach Crean and today I would like to extend that to everyone involved in the program for allowing my frustrations to get the best of me. I appreciate everything Indiana University and Coach Crean have done for me and I hope nothing but the best for the program in the future.

Pretty milquetoast stuff. And we still have absolutely no idea what got Eli so riled up in the first place. Thirty Five Seconds has a pretty decent hypothesis — that Crean maybe, just maybe, questioned Holman’s manhood for abandoning the program in its hour of need — but since that hypothesis is untestable, best to leave it alone. Who knows, right?

Regardless, it’s unfortunate Eli isn’t going to get to pursue his potential here. He seems like a good kid, and would have been a lot of fun to watch. And I hate potted plants anyway.

Bassett’s first choice would be to return to Indiana, but the big question is will he make the cut academically? And in addition to that, will he make the necessary changes to be reinstated by Coach Crean? Finals begin today in Bloomington and run through Friday, so we should know more on the status of Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis in the upcoming weeks. My guess is that both players will exhaust all avenues that could lead to a return to the Indiana program before opting to go elsewhere. If that is the case, this could play out well into the summer.

(Anytime you talk about rumors, it’s essential to reference this post by Hutch.)

Kelvin Sampson is close to finding his first full-time gig since getting the big boot out of Bloomington. The job: help Scott Skiles condescend to NBA players. Milwaukee Bucks players, specifically.

While I won’t spend too much time analyzing the state of the Bucks, or what these hires do for them, I will say quickly that the organization must really think they need regimented player development above all else. Skiles’ demeanor is far closer to the traditional college coach’s — he’s more the tyrant who can run all aspects of a program than he is the Phil Jackson-esque, philosophizing nuts and bolts NBA strategist. Sampson is pretty much the same thing, though he does seem to get along with players better.

Anyway, enough about this. Godspeed, Kelvin. May the wind always be at your back, and may your Palm Treo always be buzzing.

Those of you interested, I wrote a quick post this morning discussing Dan Dakich’s huge huevos for dismissing Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis at the Dagger. Here’s a little taste:

The entire situation is incredibly weird: According to this report in the Indianapolis Star, the two players missed a meeting that they weren’t allowed to miss, which is not something one should be doing but which is not at all grounds for dismissal. According to the Bloomington Herald-Times, Dakich wanted the players to run sprints, and they told him they wouldn’t, another act of insubordination that’s not exactly polite but which isn’t grounds for getting the long boot goodbye, either.

Of course there’s more: Both players had disciplinary issues under former coach Kelvin Sampson that caused them to miss games, and those issues were never revealed. So Dakich’s sudden curb-kicking was seen by some last night as an administration cleaning house by using a surrogate lame-duck coach to do so; all the while Dakich gets coaching cred among Indiana’s conservative faithful for clearing the team of troublemakers. [...]

Check out the whole piece if you have a chance, and feel free to leave a comment at The Dagger.

This thing is so incredibly weird. Either Dakich is acting alone, without the permission of the university and the athletic department, and just dismissing players he’ll never have a chance to coach again … or the administration is using him to clean house before they bring in a new coach. I still don’t get it. Does anyone else?

The rumor is this: IU is currently conducting a one-week investigation — and investigation might just mean “window to decide” — what they’re going to do about Kelvin Sampson. That itself is not inherently new, but the more tenuous bit is that officials are leaning toward suspending Sampson. That’s the second time we’ve heard today from relatively well-connected people that the reaction is leaning toward “non-drastic.”

Also: Supposedly, there’s a press conference tomorrow at 3 p.m. That makes sense, considering the bright glare of ESPN’s cameras will be on campus Saturday, and the squeaky clean press machine that is IU media relations probably doesn’t want uncertainty to dominate the story.

So, to recap: Just a rumor(s). What we’re hearing. What’s in the grapevine. All that. Take it with as many grains of salt as you so desire. But we probably wouldn’t be running an IU blog right now if we decided not to pass this along.

Update: Terry Hutchens reports that IU orders investigation, seeks recommendation quickly.