Law Professor calls Indiana recruiting violations "major"

The Indianapolis newspapers are now full of negative articles about the Indiana basketball coaching staff, based on recent revelations about recruiting activites under coach Sampson. This article discloses that the phone calls by the IU coaching staff were actually 35 to 100 in number, and not the 10 that were widely discussed after the initial disclosure by the University.

IndyStar interviewed IUPUI law school dean Gary Roberts, who has some expertise in NCAA enforcement matters. Quoting from the story:

"The 10-member NCAA committee on infractions will decide whether to add further punishments. It could call a hearing to help decide the issue.
The committee is composed of three outside attorneys and seven school employees, including an athletic director, a conference commissioner and a law professor. When the infractions committee decided the Oklahoma case, it determined Sampson's rule-breaking was intentional, saying he "fostered an atmosphere of deliberate non-compliance." The committee added significantly to the self-imposed penalties.
Roberts said he can't predict how the infractions committee will react to the current case because it is apparently unprecedented. Instead of breaking a standard NCAA rule, Sampson broke restrictions imposed by the committee from a previous case.
"I don't even know how it's classified," Roberts said. "I assume it's a 'major' violation."

To the credit of IU basketball fans, many are calling for Sampson to be fired. For those of you who have not had a chance to attend a basketball game in Bloomington Indiana, I can attest that IU fans probably know the game of basketball better than any other fans, and are a very classy group. I attended a game there several years ago when they were defeated by the Illini, and came away very impressed.