There’s no shortage of reaction to today’s announcement from the NCAA Infractions Committee. As always, the guys over at The Hoosier Scoop are right on top of it.

– Kelvin Sampson’s official statement
– Audio: Tom Crean reacts to NCAA ruling
– Greenspan and McRobbie reaction
– Kent State backs Senderoff

You can also listen to the entire NCAA teleconference that took place this afternoon by clicking here.

Take a deep breath. And then take a sigh of relief.

After a lengthy investigation, the NCAA Infractions Committee has decided that Indiana’s self-imposed sanctions are sufficient and that no further penalties to the men’s basketball program are warranted.

IU will have a probationary period of three years in which it will need to maintain a clean slate in order to avoid further sanctions.

The story was first reported by Terry Hutchens of The Indianapolis Star and Doug Wilson of the H-T/Hoosier Scoop.

The self-imposed sanctions, announced in October 2007 by Rick Greenspan and Grace Calhoun, included the following:

• A second year of restrictions on recruiting calls tighter than is permitted by the NCAA.
• Reduced Kelvin Sampson’s off-campus recruiting opportunities and took away a basketball scholarship for 2008-09. The off-campus recruiting penalties were extended to Tom Crean after he took the job in April, but IU opted to allow Crean 10 days to recruit off-campus.
• The basketball staff also had one less coach available for recruiting during the 2007-08 recruiting year.
• Sampson also voluntarily agreed to forego a $500,000 compensation increase for the 2007-2008 season.

Sampson and former assistant coach Rob Senderoff were not as fortunate. Sampson received a five-year show cause order and Senderoff a three-year show cause order.

Under a show cause penalty, a school must show cause for hiring a coach to avoid being sanctioned. Since Senderoff is currently an assistant at Kent State, it’s unclear what his future will be as a member of their coaching staff after this ruling.

The Hoosier Scoop has the, ahem, scoop: The NCAA faxed a letter to IU today telling the school it was being granted an extra nine days to send its response to the NCAA’s allegations that Kelvin Sampson did some very naughty things. What’s more, the letter from the NCAA specifically tells IU not to file its response ahead of the new deadline.

(Click for full-size version)

This is where I drop any pretense of having any clue what’s going on here and just ask: What’s going on here? Why would the NCAA push back its self-imposed deadline, and then force IU not to respond before a new deadline? Are they really just not finished with their work? Did someone take an untimely vacation? Is the office printer low on toner?

Thoughts?

Forgive us for being a little late to the party on this — yours truly is under the weather — but both Hoosier Nation and The Hoosier Scoop have uncovered the severance package details for everyone’s favorite athletic director, Rick Greenspan.

Despite his involvement in the Kelvin Sampson scandal, Greenspan will leave Bloomington in December with a healthy severance package. He’ll get $369,000 on or around January 15, 2009 and $4,600 monthly in the calendar year of 2009.

And if that wasn’t enough, he’ll get $1,400 monthly on top of that in the event that he’s unable to secure “substantially equivalent employment.” (Translation: He’ll be getting this money as well.)

The only other item of note beside the legal lingo that says Greenspan can’t sue IU: He can write a book about the whole fiasco. It’s hard to say what the market for the said title would be, but you can be sure Richard has considered this or it wouldn’t be in the agreement.

Here’s a link to the five-page agreement.

Here’s video of the presser, courtesy of the Big Ten Network:

Just as I breathlessly thanked everyone for our first year and alluded to all the drama of the past year that has seemingly passed us by, something else creeps up. Rick Greenspan has resigned as athletic director at IU, effective at the end of this calendar year. The Infractions Committee has also charged IU with “failure to monitor” which seems to coincide with what castaway Kelvin Sampson was trying to use as his defense.

From IU Media Relations:

Indiana University today (June 26) released the text of a further allegation that has been made against it by the NCAA Committee on Infractions. This allegation, called Allegation 6, is titled “failure to monitor,” and follows five other allegations made against the university earlier this year by the NCAA. A hearing concerning these first five allegations was held on 14 and 15 June. The text of the letter citing this new allegation can be viewed at http://www.indiana.edu/~iunews/letter.pdf. Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie said the University intends to defend itself vigorously against this additional allegation.

According to the Hoosier Scoop, a 4:30 press conference has been scheduled at Assembly Hall. More information is sure to trickle out from it and in the coming days. But wow: a preliminary glance at this puts IU at just as much fault as Sampson. Who would have thought that. (Certainly not me. This post might look a bit foolish now.) We’ll have more as this develops.

I think Tom Crean just got a massive headache.

Indiana fans in the Southern Indiana-Louisville area will have a chance to listen to Tom Crean, Bill Lynch, Rick Greenspan and Felicia Legette-Jack speak at Huber’s on May 28th at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $50 each and you can get more information by calling Leslie Wright at (812) 967-3052.