If all else fails, Kelvin Sampson can always return to Montana Tech

February 26th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

We’ve kept most — if not all — of our thoughts about now former IU coach Kelvin Sampson over at ITH, because well, it’s an Indiana basketball blog we write for. (Confusing, twisty logic — I know!) But hey, time to throw the guy a bone here. Even if it’s a small bone, devoid of meat and from the leg of a hen. (Huh?!?) You may not know this, but before Sampson claimed asshole-ish authority over beat reports in Norman, OK. and Bloomington, IN. on a daily basis, he coached at Montana Tech.

Turns out he’s still got much love for them, donating enough scrill to get his name on the court. And they, in turn, have much love for him.

“He’s a great man and did a tremendous amount for our university,” Joe McClafferty, Montana Tech athletics director, said last week. “For me, especially as a player here, I learned life lessons from him I’ll never forget. He’ll always be someone I think of fondly in my heart.”

At a time when Sampson is being butchered by the national media - he’s been called everything from a “cheater” to a “very bad man” to “flat-out dumb” - McClafferty’s loyalty is intriguing.

“Our court will stay Kelvin Sampson Court,” McClafferty said. “We still love the guy and if he wants to come back, we’d sure take him.

“He came here, thought he was taking a job for $1,100 a week, and it was actually $1,100 a month. He took over a program in shambles and within one season he turned it into a winning program.”

Now friends, it’s time for a predictable, played-out, unimaginative and unoriginal joke: I bet Sampson has been calling the AD to inquire about a job all week just like he called all those recruits! *Laugh track from Full House because this is the type of humor we’re dealing with here*

{Via FanHouse.}

Jonesin’ for college basketball

January 2nd, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

If you are a fan of a college basketball program with eyes on the Big Dance that has been killing fools all pre-conference season, you likely have been anticipating the conference season with much fervor. (Or perhaps your team actually saw some competition this season in one of those exotic tournaments; this was not the case for our Hoosiers.)

On any accord, the Big Ten season kicks off tonight and other conference schedules are gearing up here after the first of the year, and goshdarnitall, I am more than a little thrilled about that. The NFL has its glorious Sundays, but I’ll take the weekday and weekend matchups of college conference basketball foes over even the most thrilling of NFL games.

There are plenty of reasons for this: teams that appear to have no shot at winning a game with 10 minutes left always seem to crawl back, you get to root against (or for, I suppose) Duke multiple times a season, and well, I just like it a lot, that’s all. I suppose we could draw this out into one of those silly little debates (college basketball totally pwns the NBA, man) but that’s just a waste of time. We all have our preferences and are certainly entitled to them. I just happen to side with collegiate-based passing, dribbling and rebounding.

So yes: here here for IU. Let’s not blow a road game against Iowa we should be more than capable of grasping, OK?

This is the next logical step

September 7th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

You’re Joe Cullen. You’re 38. You’ve had a reasonably extensive college coaching career, and recently you made the illustrious jump to the professional ranks. Sounds like a positive situation for you, Joe. Sky’s the limit, perhaps.

Oh wait, you forgot. You’re Joe Cullen, and the two college teams you’ve served as an assistant have been two of the worst big D-1 programs in the country, Illinois and Indiana (R and I’s Indiana.) Oh, and the jump you made to the pros? The Detroit Lions. Seems like you’ve really carved out a nice niche there, you know, refusing to coach any sort of successful enterprise.

And then, this happens. You get arrested twice in two weeks, once for drunk driving, and once for being completely nude in public (”NUDE,” as the report says).

Oh, but this isn’t the first time you’ve been in trouble. No, back at IU in 2003 (when we were just wee lads), you slapped a dude violently on the helmet. When you coached at Mississippi (another great program), you were fired for public drunkenness.

So yeah, quite a career you’ve got going there, Joseph. Quick question, though: If the Lions were to fire you, where would you go? You’ve been fired from some of the worst football programs anywhere in the country. Is there a rec league somewhere, a high school team perhaps, that would be willing to take you on? Could you handle yourself around youngsters?

You know what? Don’t answer that.