BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) -Kelvin Sampson just wants to coach basketball.
Embroiled in the second investigation into improper telephone calls to recruits since his arrival at Indiana last year, Sampson said Thursday that he is satisfied with a university report to the NCAA that has already led to the resignation of an assistant coach, the forfeiture of one scholarship and new restrictions on recruiting.
Sampson, who also gave up a scheduled $500,000 pay raise, said he didn’t know whether the self-imposed penalties would satisfy the NCAA.
“The report speaks for itself,” he said during a news conference at Assembly Hall, his first public comments since the resignation of assistant Rob Senderoff on Tuesday. “I read the report and agree with the school’s findings.
“I know what I know. That’s all I need to say on that,” Sampson said.
The report detailed more than 100 impermissible recruiting calls, most of them by Senderoff. But at least 10 of them were three-way calls that Sampson had been patched into, an apparent violation of NCAA restrictions imposed on Sampson for previous telephone improprieties while he was coach at Oklahoma.
Sampson was not accused of any direct NCAA violations in last month’s report by the university, but he was sanctioned by the NCAA in May 2006 for making 577 impermissible calls between 2000-2004 at Oklahoma. He was barred from calling recruits or making off-campus recruiting trips for one year, but on Oct. 14, less than five months after those sanctions expired, Indiana announced its compliance office had discovered the new violations that occurred while the original sanctions were still in place.
Sampson would not address any specifics of the IU report.
“The NCAA still has to come in and make a final decision,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything to be a distraction to that. A lot of these things I can’t answer. I wish I could. We all wish this hadn’t happened, but it did.
“We’re determined to move forward and do the best we can. How much this hurts us (in recruiting) remains to be seen.”
As a result of the internal investigation, Indiana gave up one basketball scholarship in 2008-09 and Sampson, starting his second season with the Hoosiers, voluntarily forfeited his scheduled pay raise.
Also among the actions Indiana proposed in its report to the NCAA infractions committee were letters of reprimand to Sampson, Senderoff and assistant coach Jeff Meyer, who made at least four impermissible calls, and attendance at biweekly compliance meetings for Sampson and the rest of the coaching staff for one year. Sampson, Meyer and assistant coach Ray McCallum would also be required to attend a 2008 NCAA rules seminar.
Sampson also announced Dan Dakich, a former Indiana player and assistant coach and former head coach at Bowling Green, has taken Senderoff’s spot on the coaching staff.
Dakich, who was hired as IU’s director of basketball operations in June, is subject to the same restrictions the university imposed on Senderoff, who was banned from calling recruits and making off-campus recruiting visits for one year. Also, Sampson is restricted to four off-campus recruiting days during the fall 2007 contact period and no more than 10 additional off-campus recruiting days through July 31, 2008.
Senior center D.J. White said the recruiting turmoil shouldn’t be a problem for the team, which plays the first of two exhibition games Sunday against North Alabama.
“Me in particular, I’ve been through this before, I’ve been through a change of coaching, been through the first sanctions (against Sampson), so I don’t think it’s a problem right now,” said White, Indiana’s leading scorer and rebounder last season. “We’ve got a game Sunday. We’re just getting ready for that, trying to put whatever’s going on behind us.”
White said Senderoff would be missed.
“He was a good man. When I got extra work, he was the one that worked me out. Obviously, he worked with the big men and we became close,” White said. “Coach Dakich, I think it’ll be the same. We respect him just like we respect coach Senderoff, so I think the transition will be just fine.”
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