KHOU-TV has the scoop:

HOUSTON—Sources tell 11 News that former Indiana University Athletic Director Rick Greenspan has been selected as the new AD at Rice University.

Greenspan will replace Chris Del Conte, who left last fall for the same post at TCU.

Greenspan was at Indiana for four years, during which time he was credited with getting $55 million worth of upgrades on university facilities.

The report goes on to mention that an announcement at Rice could come as early as Friday.

– 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.

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.

(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?

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.

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.

… former Indiana University Alumni Association President Ken Beckley told current IUAA President Tom Martz that there were ultimately far more people responsible for Sampson’s hiring.

“In my opinion, Rick had input in the hiring of Sampson but certainly at least one trustee and the president (Adam W. Herbert) led the charge to hire Sampson,” Beckley wrote. “Rick, of course, is the front guy to the public. I think the university needs to step up and say that whatever happens in regard to Kelvin Sampson will be a university decision that involves the president, trustees, and director of athletics and not leave Rick hanging out there by himself. Unfair.”

[ ... ]

“Thank you Ken…” Greenspan wrote. “As you and I have confidentially discussed, a couple of Trustees and (Herbert) have more than fingerprints on this.”

Again, this isn’t that shocking of a revelation. In fact: I would be more surprised if IU’s president, director of athletics and trustees didn’t all have input on a new basketball coach. It’s a big decision, one that needs to be viewed from all sides by multiple figureheads at the university. In any event, this should at least provide some justification to back off the “Greenspan needs to go” train a bit. At least I would think.

Also, here’s a one-on-one interview with Crean: