I have a close friend who taught Bassett in high school at Terre Haute. He was plenty of trouble. Holman also had hs transcript issues, I seem to remember a story about his relationship with a guidance counselor that was the source of a lot of speculation regarding grades.
People seem to forget that Sampson had a 0% graduation rate at OU. Let that sink in - not a single kid who played for him earned a degree. When he was hired at IU his response to that was that he had to recruit those kinds of kids to be successful at a non-bball school and state (jucos who were non-qualifiers out of hs, kids with low SAT scores, kids with sketchy pasts) . He swore that he would not need to take those kinds of kids at IU because of such a rich basketball heritage. Yet those are exactly the kinds of kids he immediately set out to bring in here. KS wasn't just a guy who made improper phone calls like hundreds of other coaches. He was a liar at heart - someone who had no contrition or remorse for past transgressions and who had no intention of changing. He was just concerned about not getting caught.
That was the same approach he took with player conduct and academics. He was interested in keeping players eligible and their character/legal problems covered up. My daughter was a student at IU at the time, living at Varsity Villas. Several bball players lived there as well. My daughter talked to me about their behavior around the apartment complex and on the campus buses. Her opinion of them was that they were criminals who did not belong on a college campus. Has everyone forgotten that several players were failing multiple courses when KS was let go and Dakich was trying to determine who should stay and who should go.
Kelvin Sampson is a terrific basketball coach. But if you believe in any way in the idea that college basketball should be played by true college students ( and many here obviously don't share that value) then it would be impossible to respect and defend a guy like Kelvin Sampson. He doesn't belong in the college game. Sadly, there are a lot of coaches like that. I think it would be pretty obvious what Bob Knight would think of his approach and ethics.
I'm squarely of the opinion that if universities and college basketball fans reach the point where they are ok with guys like KS running programs, then the whole idea of college athletics is unnecessary and should be converted to a corporate-sponsored enterprise like in Europe. What is the over-arching purpose of spending billions of taxpayer dollars on coaches and massive facilities for what is essentially a business only marginally related to the mission of a university ? We may already be past the point of no return but I hate the thought of just accepting that the concept of student-athlete is archaic. Personally, if a choice must be made, I would like to see the whole of the NCAA adopt the Div. III model and let the corporate world run minor leagues for those who see college basketball (and football and baseball) as a nothing more than a stepping stone to the pros.
We don't have to root for IU or Purdue. We can send our young people there to get a true education and be fans of the "Eli Lilly Fighting Syringes" or the "Cook Stents", or the "Subaru Wheelers". Redirect the money that goes to fund massive coaching salaries, massive stadiums, and massive athletic departments into cutting tuition and housing costs and paying for professors and true academic research.
If college isn't an essential part of college athletics, then college athletics is pointless.