College Capsules: NCAA denies Kelvin Sampson appeal

INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA is finished with the latest Kelvin Sampson saga.

The NCAA on Tuesday rejected an appeal from the former Indiana basketball coach, who was slapped with five years of potential penalties for taking part in more than 100 impermissible calls to recruits while coaching the Hoosiers.

The NCAA said its infractions committee upheld the violations found in the case, which prompted an overhaul at the storied program and led to Sampson's departure after just 1½ years. An NCAA spokeswoman said Sampson has used his only appeal, and the case is closed.

Sampson, now an assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks, is essentially barred from coaching in college until 2013.

The NCAA ruled that Sampson ignored signed compliance agreements with Indiana, ignored the recruiting restrictions he was already under from a similar case at Oklahoma and deliberately lied to infractions committee members.

In his appeal, Sampson claimed the penalty was too harsh, the NCAA misinterpreted evidence and that the infractions committee was biased against him.

The NCAA rejected each claim, saying "it found no basis on which to conclude that the findings of violations were contrary to the evidence."

Sampson's new publicist, Chris Capo, said Sampson "will not be making any comment on the recent NCAA ruling." A Bucks spokesman said "Sampson declined comment on the report."

Sampson defended himself last September in a statement made through his former publicist, Matt Kramer.

"In no way did I ever hide or withhold information from Indiana University's compliance department," the statement said. "I vehemently deny the inference that I made and concealed impermissible calls. The NCAA has never alleged that I initiated any illegal phone calls to recruits while serving as the head coach at Indiana. I always provided Indiana with everything they requested, including all documents and phone records."

He later acknowledged that he and his staff had made mistakes, though not deliberately.

"I think they were wrong," he said of the NCAA in January. "They were wrong in every way. If I didn't think they were wrong, I wouldn't have appealed."

The fallout from the case created major changes at Indiana. Sampson's assistants all left the school, the compliance department was restructured, athletic director Rick Greenspan resigned and new coach Tom Crean has had to rebuild while accepting the school's self-imposed recruiting penalties.

Indiana hired Sampson away from Oklahoma in March 2006 and signed him to a seven-year contract worth an average of $1.5 million a year, despite knowing that he faced an NCAA investigation into 577 impermissible phone calls that he and his Oklahoma assistant coaches made to recruits.

Months before Sampson even coached his first game at Indiana, the NCAA banned him from calling recruits and visiting them off-campus for one year and determined he deliberately broke its phone call rules while coaching at Oklahoma.

Indiana found in a self review that the impermissable phone calls continued. The school revoked a $500,000 raise due Sampson and one team scholarship for the 2008-09 season, and reported the violations to the NCAA.

In February 2008, an NCAA report accused Sampson of major rules violations and says he and his assistants gave false information to university and NCAA officials. Later that month, Sampson accepted a $750,000 buyout from Indiana and waived his right to sue the university.

The NCAA added a charge of failure to monitor against Indiana last June, and the NCAA placed Indiana on three years of probation in November.

Sampson has said he likely wouldn't pursue coaching in the NCAA again.

"You never say never," Sampson told The Associated Press in April. "But I'm really excited about the NBA, and I'm excited about the possibility of becoming a head coach in the NBA one day, maybe. And if it works out, it works out. If it does, it does. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But just being here with the Bucks, being part of this rebuilding, is exciting for me."

Henry brothers reconsider choosing Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The father of highly sought Kansas basketball recruits C.J. and Xavier Henry said Tuesday his sons may not play at Kansas, after all.

Xavier Henry, a 6-foot-6 guard, is considered one of the most talented players Kansas coach Bill Self has ever recruited. Adding him to a deep and experienced squad which returns almost everyone from the team that reached the NCAA round of 16 last year would likely make the Jayhawks preseason favorites for the national championship.

Xavier and his older brother, C.J., were headed to Memphis before switching to Kansas in the wake of John Calipari's decision to coach at Kentucky.

But their father, Carl Henry, told Kansas City sportstalk station KCSP on Tuesday that the family was upset with a story in The Kansas City Star on Sunday. The story, the father said, portrayed his sons as being disinterested in attending classes at college.

Henry said he planned to meet Tuesday night with his sons at the family home in Oklahoma City to see if the boys want to go to Kentucky or keep their commitment to Kansas.

"We have a meeting set up tonight where we're going to set down and talk about this whole deal," the elder Henry said.

Asked if there was a chance his sons would not come to Kansas, Henry said, "Yes. I don't know what they're considering. When coach Self came down, my oldest son, C.J., said, ‘No matter what, we're going to Kansas.' But a couple of weeks ago, my youngest son tells me he wants to go to Kentucky, said he's thinking about it."

The extensive story in the Sunday Star indicated the family was mostly interested in preparing an NBA career for the brothers and that Xavier has no interest in school.

"If he didn't have to go to college, he wouldn't do it," Carl Henry was quoted as saying.

When pressed by the interviewers, the elder Henry said there was nothing factually inaccurate in the story.

"The guy who wrote that story kind of betrayed my whole family and kind of made us look bad, like my kids are prima donnas, all I do is talk." he said.

When Calipari left to be head coach at Kentucky, the brothers switched to Kansas, where their mother, father and aunt all played basketball. Carl Henry said they might have chosen to follow Calipari to his new school but that their mother did not want to live in Kentucky.

But he said she no longer feels that way.

"She told coach Self she's out of it. She don't care where they go," Henry said.

Krzyzewski: ‘I'm not going to the Lakers'

DURHAM, N.C. - Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski made it clear: He's not going to ever be the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Krzyzewski held his annual summer meeting with reporters Tuesday, and one of the first topics he covered was talk that had him taking over the Los Angeles Lakers if Phil Jackson retires.

Krzyzewski said he is "not going to the Lakers" and that he won't leave Duke "until I leave coaching."

Krzyzewski, who guided the U.S. men's basketball team to the gold medal at the Beijing Games, also said the coach for the 2012 Olympics will be announced on July 21 in Las Vegas.

-- Joedy McCreary

Ohio State AD to lead men's hoops committee

INDIANAPOLIS - Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith has been appointed chairman of the Division I Men's Basketball Committee for 2010-11.

The NCAA made the announcement Tuesday.

Smith will succeed UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero, who will be chair for the upcoming school year. Smith has been at Ohio State since 2005 and is in his second year as associate vice president.

Smith, a Cleveland native, played football at Notre Dame and was on the 1973 national championship team. He was named Iowa State's athletic director in 1993, then held the same position at Arizona State in 2000 before the move to Ohio State.

Football

NCAA reduces Alabama State probation to 3 years

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The NCAA reduced the probation period for Alabama State University's football program on Tuesday from five to three years, citing efforts by the school to fix problems while the investigation was ongoing.

In December the NCAA placed the Hornets football program on probation for 17 rules violations that allegedly occurred from 1999-2003. Violations included changing grades, allowing ineligible players to play and practice and conducting offseason workouts not allowed by NCAA rules.

Alabama State officials had appealed the sanctions and the NCAA said in a release Tuesday that it determined ASU officials took actions to fix problems, contrary to what the NCAA initially thought.

The NCAA said that the five-year penalty was based partly on the length of time it took to complete the investigation and the belief that there appeared to be little activity by the university over the probe's two and a-half years. But the NCAA release said a committee considering Alabama State's appeal found that "substantial activity by the university occurred during this time."

The NCAA did not lift a penalty that prevents the Hornets from competing in postseason play in 2009, including the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship game.

University President William Harris said ASU has hired compliance officers and academic advisers to insure that the school remains in compliance.

"We have created a system that makes it impossible for this to happen again," Harris said.

The violations occurred under former head coach L.C. Cole, who was fired by Alabama State in 2003 and is currently the head coach at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa.

Many of the NCAA's penalties have already been imposed by Alabama State on itself, including limiting the number of scholarships and official paid recruiting visits during past seasons.

Alabama State head football coach Reggie Barlow said having the probation reduced will help him get his players to concentrate on football during the upcoming season.

"We've put things in place to prevent the past from happening again," Barlow said.

ASU Athletic Director Monique Holland said reducing the length of the probation will help recruiting efforts by getting the school "out from under the probation cloud" sooner.

-- Bob Johnson