Evidently that poster counts thusly, one, two three, many - 557 isn't on his abacus.:tongue2:
They should be happy he kept DJ from transferring as he promised.
Purdue walking all over IU on recruiting trail
By Steve Warden
The Journal Gazette
Sampson
Painter
The sky is still there, the apocalypse never came, and if the weatherman’s five-day forecast is halfway accurate, the sun is expected to come up tomorrow for Indiana University’s basketball fans.
Because the early-week announcement to attend Purdue in 2007 by Valparaiso’s 6-foot-7 forward Rob Hummel was the third in-state recruiting coup by Boilermakers coach Matt Painter, it’s only natural the “now what are you going to do?” focus falls on Kelvin Sampson, the first-year Indiana coach who came to Bloomington in late March and has yet to lure an Indiana high school standout to IU.
Although there isn’t panic in the streets of Fee Lane or 17th Street that border Assembly Hall, Indiana fans nevertheless have to be concerned that rival Purdue is off to an impressive in-state recruiting start by not only getting Hummel, but also 6-foot-10 JuJuan Johnson of Franklin Central and E’Twaun Moore of East Chicago Central.
Posted Web site messages express concern that Sampson, hired in March to replace Mike Davis after coaching 12 seasons at Oklahoma, is considerably behind Painter and other schools when it comes to recruiting in-state basketball talent.
“I’d like to think that had we been here four or five years and had a chance to build those same relationships, that maybe those kids wouldn’t have gone to Purdue,” Sampson told the Indianapolis Star before he reportedly left Bloomington on Wednesday. “But Matt Painter and his staff have done a great job. They went after those kids in the eighth or ninth grade.”
Even Hummel, who was recruited by Davis, then by Sampson, who came to Valparaiso, admitted that Painter had his foot firmly in the door better than anyone else.
“I knew (Sampson) for about 2 1/2 months,” Hummel said. “By then I had Purdue for three years or so. It would’ve been tough.
“You’re offered a scholarship, and you just talk and talk and talk,” Hummel said. “By now I feel like I can call (assistant) coach (Paul) Lusk any time and just talk to him, or call coach Painter and talk to him, or any of those coaches. It’s just a good relationship. You just develop your relationship with these coaches and get to know them like friends.”
Hummel isn’t the only value from Valparaiso, however. Teammate and senior-to-be classmate Scott Martin, a 6-foot-8 forward who averaged 20 points a game last season, is a plum ripe for the picking by other big-name teams. Indiana has expressed an interest. Purdue has one more scholarship to give. And there are at least a half-dozen other teams that have drawn Martin’s interest.
While the prospect of playing with close friend Hummel at Purdue is intriguing, Martin is keeping his options open.
“You still have to look out for yourself,” Martin said. “You have to look out for you and be selfish in this situation and do what’s best for yourself. It’s the next four years of your life, and after. It affects the rest of your life.”
Yes, he said, he likes Sampson. But he admits he doesn’t know him as well as, say, Painter.
“He’s a great person, first of all,” he said of Painter. “He’s very honest, and he tells you like it is. I think that’s one thing that you have to respect from him. And he showed you that he can coach – that he knows what he’s doing. I feel pretty confident – especially with the class they have now – that they’ll be good in no time soon.”
Acting as coach/confidant/counselor to both Hummel and Martin has been Valparaiso head coach Bob Punter. He’s seen college coaches come at his tandem from every angle, including Sampson and Painter. And even before Hummel made his expected announcement to attend Purdue on Monday, Punter knew that IU and Sampson had two strikes against them.
“He got a late start, first of all,” Punter said of Sampson. “He didn’t get to Indiana until April. He came by here one day and met with both Rob and Scott. Indiana’s been heavily recruiting both of them ever since. But they were about a year behind everybody else. I would imagine it was the same thing with E’Twaun Moore and JuJuan Johnson. All those kids have been a year ahead with Purdue in terms of interest.”
Punter said that Davis had heavily recruited Hummel, then later showed an interest in Martin.
“He had offered Rob a scholarship before he was taken out of that position at IU,” Punter said. “I know he obviously let some talent get away – (Carmel’s) Josh McRoberts (to Duke) and (Lawrence North’s) Greg Oden (to Ohio State). We’ve had some really talented people leave the state and play big time elsewhere. I don’t know whether that was something that IU did on purpose or it just happened to happen that way. I don’t know.”
Adds Dave Telep, the national recruiting director for Scout.com: “This was going to be a hard year for Indiana for a number of reasons, and first and foremost is that Purdue had been recruiting these guys a lot longer than Indiana had. That’s really one of the disadvantages when Kelvin Sampson took the job – with these guys in particular. These were Purdue’s main targets almost two years ago. Playing catch-up at that rate is difficult.”
Not only has Sampson gotten out of the blocks late compared to Painter and other coaches, but he is hamstrung for a year with NCAA sanctions that prohibit him from telephoning recruits or visiting them off campus.
This spring, Sampson was penalized by the NCAA after it was discovered that he and his staff at Oklahoma had far exceeded the number of permissible phone calls to recruits.
But there are other ways to keep tabs on recruits. They can call Sampson, and he is allowed to send text messages. In-person recruiting is done by his three assistants, Jeff Meyer, Ray McCallum and Rob Senderoff.
“Recruiting is all about building those relationships,” Sampson told the Star. “I’ve been lucky because my three assistants are all doing a great job, and because the kids we’re recruiting and their coaches have been gracious enough to call me and maintain close contact.”
Sampson has yet to receive an oral commitment from a member of the 2007 graduating class.
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Sampson must win ? and not tarnish Indiana
Hoosiers coach, Huggins at K-State among highest-profile changes
Kelvin Sampson takes over as coach at Indiana under a cloud of suspicion. He must win and not tarnish the school's image, writes MSNBC.com contributor Ray Glier
OPINION
By Ray Glier
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 11:17 p.m. ET Oct 3, 2006
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Ray Glier
Kelvin Sampson?s new shoes are caked with mud. There is no shine left.
He traipsed into Indiana under a cloud of suspicion because of all the impermissible phone calls to recruits. The NCAA slapped him with a penalty.
Then came the sorry graduation rates. Oklahoma, his former school, ranked 259th out of 318 schools in Division I in the latest findings.
One wonders if more revelations will come out.
Sampson has drained some of his good will. He has baggage. Somebody is going to be held accountable if there is something else embarrassing behind the curtain.
When does the season start?
I?m sure there are other coaches out there with two cell phones ? one that the university can inspect, the other that is kept under the mattress to make illegal calls or text messages to recruits. There are other coaches whose graduation rates can also be found in the toilet.
But Sampson is not at any Oklahoma any longer. He is on a billboard. He?s at Indiana, a high-profile place like North Carolina, Kentucky and Duke.
Sampson needs to turn a corner, publicly, in front of some of the best basketball fans in the country. Heaven help the first IU player who gets a DUI.
Sampson, of course, can settle the boiling pot. He just has to win ? and recruit Indiana prep talent. The players seem to be leaving to places like Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Ohio State and beyond. If he keeps one at home, the good will returns.
There is a sign Sampson is about to have some of that good will. Eric Gordon, one of the top high school players in the country, a 6-foot-3 guard from Indianapolis, said he was going to Illinois. Now he has visited Indiana.
That?s a big deal because top recruits ? Josh McRoberts, Greg Oden ? were walking away from Indiana when Mike Davis was there.
As you look through the lengthy list of new coaches, there are other stories you don?t want to turn your back on.The Bob Huggins Story, for one. This is going to be dramatic.
Ticket sales are up at Kansas State and there is buzz. The spotlight is being wheeled in. K-State will be on national television at least four times.
When is the last time you saw K-State on national television?
The buzz is about Huggins? recruiting class. Chicago-area point guard Jacob Pullen is committed to K-State, so is Michael Beasley, a 6-8 forward from Oak Hill (Va.) Academy.
Small forward Bill Walker, a member of the class of 2007, has been ruled ineligible for his senior year in high school in Ohio, so Rivals.com is reporting he could graduate in December, then jump to K-State for the second semester.
Walker is 6-6 and rated one of the top 10 players in the nation. He could be playing Big 12 games in January. Beasley is rated among the top five.
After Sampson and Huggins, keep an eye on Herb Sendek at Arizona State. He is a very good basketball coach, but how does his possession-by-possession style going to look when you hold it up against all the full-court, racehorse talent at rival Arizona?
The Wildcats are the standard for college basketball in the state. They are also coached by a Hall of Famer, Lute Olson.
It will be interesting to see how new Missouri coach Mike Anderson unsettles things for Big 12 rivals with his style: blanket press, fastbreak.
It worked well in Conference USA while Anderson was at UAB. It got Anderson a win over Kentucky in the NCAAs, but I still remember that shellacking a more talented Kansas team laid on the Blazers a week later in the NCAA Tournament, throwing over top of the press.
Speaking of UAB, Mike Davis is back home in Alabama and, well, he could care less what you IU fans think.
Chances are Davis will show up in the NCAA Tournament.
There are plenty of other significant hires. John Chaney was a living legend at Temple. Here comes Fran Dunphy, from the other side of the tracks, at Penn. His teams were well-schooled, on and off the floor, and it will be interesting to see what Dunphy does at Temple, which had been floundering.
You have to wonder what Bobby Cremins has left in the tank as he takes over at Charleston. The former Georgia Tech coach is well rested. He has a nice city ? and the beach ? to sell. Expect to see him on a New York City playground selling.
Louis Orr got bounced at Seton Hall ? for good reason we were slow to admit ? and now Bobby Gonzalez gets his shot. I?ve said it before; even when you finish in the middle of the pack, it looks bad in a conference with 16 teams. How do you sell ninth or 10th place to recruits if you are Seton Hall? Gonzalez has his hands full.
No conference has been in a state of flux with coaches like the Big 12. Remember when the faces of the league were the graybeards: Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State, Roy Williams at Kansas, Norm Stewart at Missouri and Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma?
Now look. Jeff Capel has four years head coaching experience at Virginia Commonwealth and is the new Oklahoma coach. Sean Sutton has never been a head coach, by name, and he has the reins at Oklahoma State.
Anderson is young at Missouri, so is Billy Gillespie at Texas A&M and Scott Drew at Baylor.
At least, Capel is joining the league at the right time. He fits right in with the restocking of coaches. His immediate problem is that Oklahoma was a fixture in the NCAA Tournament under Sampson, so Capel better grow with the job.
Ray Glier writes regularly for MSNBC.com and is a freelance writer.
