Case Against Indiana

I'm going to address this in an upcoming column, but in regard to what the NCAA will look at in deciding what to do with Indiana, here are the key elements:

First, pattern of behavior. Kelvin Sampson violated the phone call rule at Oklahoma. The same thing happened at Indiana. Granted, it was his assistants who made excessive calls, but he's responsible for them. Plus, he admittedly broke a condition of his Oklahoma-caused sanctions by participating in a three-way call.

Second, atmosphere of compliance. The absolute No. 1 priority had to be following all the rules and sanctions. No exceptions. The NCAA criticized Sampson for fostering an atmosphere of non-compliance at Oklahoma. I'm sure Sampson talked about following the rules. Obviously, he didn't stress it enough.

Third, the possibility of willfully breaking the rules. Coaches are required to log all their phone calls. They are required to sign those logs, thus taking responsibility if there’s a mistake. If you don’t record all the calls, if some go undocumented, that can be regarded as willful. At some schools, that’s reason for termination.

At least one assistant, Rob Senderoff, did that. But don’t blame this all on him. Maybe he was overzealous. Maybe he didn’t know the rules. Or maybe he was trying to please a demanding head coach who didn’t emphasize the rules enough. And certainly the university should have had a system in place to catch this sooner.

This is why IU imposed the sanctions it did. It’s trying to avoid a bigger crackdown by the NCAA. Will it succeed? You'd better believe Hoosier fans hope so.