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http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/bozich/200...
Gordon does seem to be defending Sampson a bit by putting this team's failures on the stoners. If drugs were such an issue with this team and ultimately caused its destruction, why did this spectacular implosion commence only after Sampson was canned? Were they just not as stoned until Feb. 22nd? And when EJ says, Sampson “tried to stop it,” but the coach “was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything,” isn't that really just saying Sampson was so preoccupied with keeping his job that he put winning above everything else that's valued at IU? Yeah, that's about what he's saying, but in a way that doesn't hold Sampson to account for his players' drug usage, failing grades, and general disciplinary issues. No foul in sticking up for an old coach, but I gotta wonder why AB's departure must now open the flood gate for more piling on the guys that left.
I'll agree it didn't feel like an IU basketball team. It was "a waste, basically."
Wait! Come to think of it, was Crawford stoned 1/2 the time last year on defense?!? Now that would make some sense......I wonder........
Apologies, it's 5 am and I'm typing up a research paper.
With that said, I hate to keep remembering how talented that team was and know that our best shot at a championship since 2001 was derailed b/c of drugs. I graduated in '06 and just kept thinking before last year that this team could be amazing, as we all did. To know that it went out the window b/c guys couldn't own up to their responsibility just sucks.
Umm excuse me Armon, Jamarcus, and others......Here is a box and a map to the exit door, get the hell off this team and campus. Have a merry Christmas.
Imagine a program that has a reputation for developing graduates and successful citizens out of boys who could have easily failed at life. Seems like a recruiting advantage while being also a source of pride. For many kids the most important influence at this age is their coach...........thats a start.
Sampson did little of what I am talkign about and sadly , why I disagree w Dakich on Hillman's comments , so did other coaches on the staff
As for your other comments, let's see...30k students who want to hang out with Eric Gordon the basketball player, instead of Eric Gordon the person, doesn't exactly sound like a good time to me...
You are obvioulsy missing out on the concept of team and the ability to compete a the highest level...there has to be trust on the court and off it that your teammates will do what is best for the team and can be counted on to do this...IF you breakdown the trust within the team and take away its leadership, the team is bound to fall apart.
The half that wasn't doing drugs, wanted no part of hanging out with the half that were. The half that were doing the drugs couldn't figure out why we (I was in the half NOT doing drugs) didn't want to hangout together. Their thought was "you don't have to do drugs, but but you can still come to our party's".
We ended the second half of our conference schedule 1-5 and snuck in as the last seed in the playoffs and were bounced in the first round by a team we beat twice in the regular season.
And if you read Gordon's comments, he said that all of this went on while Sampson was there, and that Sampson was aware of it...I'm not sure how that is protecting him...
The team fell apart because of a lack of leadership, Sampson became a rallying cry for the team and even the students for his last few games of the season, and finally when the University got wind of how bad things really were, they were forced to fire him...As a result the players were without their leader, Dakich was incapable of bringing the team together, McCallom started looking for a new job and the season was lost...
I'm not nearly as concerned with last season's on court finish as I am with the fact that Dakich and others have cleared themselves of any responsibility in what was going on with the team...
Frankly, it is probably a good thing that we got bounced last year because if the team got any more national attention, the NCAA would have been more likely to extend our post season ban.
What responsibility does Dakich hold? You're talking about an interim coach that the players didn't want anyways. This is a guy who took a ton of heat (from me included) for kicking guys off the team. I'm not sure what else he could have done?
Dakich's job as the director of basketball operations was to monitor and prevent situations like this...
He kicked the guys off the team, only after the season, when he knew what was going on during the season...
His original responsibility was to the program, not the players...and he failed to live up to the code of conduct expected of his position.
Dakich took over the team in almost an impossible situation. If had begun kicking players off the team from the get go he would have been destroyed by the fans, he almost was anyways because of some of the losses.
It's really to sit here and criticize him when you have no idea what the real situation was.
I didn't know you needed time with the players to tell them that excessive drug use would not be tolerated. Sampson knew what was going on and most of the campus did as well...
If Dan wants to remove himself from this position than he should have acted in the best interest of the program for the duration of his tenure...
He doesn't get the luxury of being told that he is not going to return as head coach, and then dismiss two players and call his effort of restoring order to the program a full and valiant effort...it wasn't and he shouldn't be excused from the problems that took place and how they were handled while HE WAS IN CHARGE OF SUPERVISING THEM...
I don't care if you have a substitute teacher in high school, if they catch you cheating on a test, than you should be held accountable...you excusing him because he was the interim coach and the potential backlash that would have taken place had he done what was right is pretty close to condoning the behavior that the team displayed... Something that Dakich's lack of action clearly did...He was an enabler and is only getting a free pass because he is an "IU" guy...
Its garbage and so was his judgement
I am not a Dakich apologist because he's an "IU guy". I was one of many that hammered him on this and other blogs because he dismissed two players basically the day before Crean was hired. At the time I felt it should have been Crean's decision, not the decision of a lame-duck coach.
Now I commend him for his actions and I respect him for not airing the dirty laundry in public. Why does he have to tell you what really happened on his radio show? He doesn't have to do that and I respect him for it. He's taking heat from people like you when he probably could avoid it by speaking publicly, but he has class and isn't throwing people under the bus on public radio.
Anyone here think JeMarcus Ellis wasn't on drugs?? What about Armon Bassett ?? Anyone think that Brandon McGee wasn't ??? How about Eli Holman???
Sure its college and kids will smoke grass and drink to excess, but that isn't the tone of this article and IU should demand more from its student athletes because of the opportunities ahead of them for pro basketball and the national image of the program...Its a shame that all of this went down on Greenspan's watch, under Sampson's nose...
I want someone to ask Dan Dakich on his radio show if he knew anything about this and if he did why he didn't do anything immediately...Because his decision to allow this to happen in season is inexcusable as well...and if he was going to kick JeMarcus and Armon off the team after the season, he should have had the guts to do it in season, to send a message to the remaining kids that this kinda crap ain't gonna fly...
Instead he will sit on his radio show and just pass judgement on those of us who are critical of those kids and the institution that permitted their misbehavior...
And we wonder how it got to that point...
Not the specifics of what they were, but when they started and when he became aware of them???
I commend EJ for saying something and I hope this extends KS ban from coaching kids again, to where he is so tainted no one would touch his sorry .....bleep....
I hope more and more people are seeing KS for what he is and i hope I get to tell him to his face one day what I think of him. Ya know sometime I think this program becamse cursed the day Brand fired coach....Very little has gone right since then except for the run in the 02 tourney.
He wants to protect the locker room, that's fine...than do it while you are the coach. Not after you fail to keep the team in order and cause the biggest meltdown of an athletic program since SMU...
Frankly, Gordon should be clearing the air on all of this, it will put the future teams under the microscope more and keep them away from situations like we went through and are going through...
Dakich is a coward for not being able to say that he failed as a leader, as a coach and to blame Gordon for outing his teammates is just stupid...He didn't name names of the players, only of the coaches who were aware of it, and neither Sampson nor Dakich deserve any reprieve for the actions and lack there of...
The interesting thing is that Marijuana is not on the substance list for NCAA drug tests, unless there is suspicion of use...Meaning the NCAA has to declare in advance that they will be testing for marijuana.
The other rumor, which can not be confirmed is that Ellis and Bassett failed there NCAA drug test and as a result of that, they were kicked off the team, so that they wouldn't draw any further attention to the program during the NCAA investigation period. ..Now if the NCAA announced a suspicion of marijuana, we could understand that, but if they didn't the drugs that would be tested for and possibly found would have been cocaine, ecstacy and other performance enhancing drugs (not that coc and e are performance enhancing, but the other drugs that would have been tested for would have been perf enhancing)
That was the decision of Dakich, and one that really set the ball in motion for the way the team quit, transferred, etc...and was the reason why Eli Holman went crazy when Crean wouldn't allow them back on the team after passing a drug test...
http://www.straitpinkie.com/sports/hoosiers/gor...
http://www.straitpinkie.com/sports/hoosiers/gor...