Kelvin Sampson is a confusing man.
Watch my latest video commentary or read below:
Lots of things in this world, I don’t understand.
Why chocolate can taste so good but be so bad. Why my speedometer goes over a hundred but I’m not supposed to.
But nothing confounds me as much as Kelvin Sampson.
No doubt you’ve heard the latest with the former Oklahoma basketball coach. Last week the NCAA indicated that Indiana, Sampson’s new school, has committed five major violations. Primary among them is Sampson making too many phone calls to recruits. Of course, these were the same type of transgressions that got Sampson in trouble when he was still coaching the Sooners.
Listen, I don’t condone any coach breaking NCAA rules, but at least you can understand trying to bend them when you’re a basketball coach at a football-rabid school like Oklahoma. Convincing basketball recruits to come to Norman is no small task.
By convincing them to come to Bloomington, Ind.?
That’d be like trying to coax a bikini-clad woman out of a snowstorm. It shouldn’t take too much convincing.
But apparently, Sampson felt like he needed to cheat to draw players to one of the most storied basketball programs in the country. It was foolish. It was stupid, especially since Sampson had been given a second chance like no other. He didn’t just land on his feet after his problems at OU. He landed in one of the best five college basketball coaching jobs in the country.
What did he do?
He threw it all away. At least that’s what it appears he’s done. Indiana officials say they’re still mulling what to do, and Sampson is expected to coach Tuesday night’s game against Purdue. But after that, most folks around the Hoosier State expect Sampson to be fired before the weekend.
Kelvin Sampson had the second chance of a lifetime, and he botched it worse than a 5-on-1 fastbreak.
One more thing in this world that I don’t understand.