THE SEARCH

There's a thin barrier between rumor and reality.\nAnd as IU's coaching search stretched on and on, that barrier seemed to stretch thinner and thinner. That is until Wednesday, when rumor and reality were finally separated -- once and for all.\n"The reality is that I didn't read a single article that was accurate in terms of projections of what was happening," IU President Adam Herbert said. "I was amazed that people were saying X or Y candidate was being interviewed when we never talked to them."\nThe names started pouring in as soon as former IU coach Mike Davis announced his resignation. \nFrom the north came buzz of Marquette's Tom Crean, while Florida coach Billy Donovan's name floated up from the south. West Virginia coach John Beilein represented the east coast, and Gonzaga's Mark Few the west. The NBA fueled the fires with Atlanta Hawks coach Mike Woodson and Warriors coach Mike Montgomery, and analysts even entered the ring in the form of ESPN's Rick Majerus. The IU alumni pool leaked Steve Alford, Randy Wittman, Keith Smart and Dane Fife into the rumor mill.\nNot one report cited a named source from within IU, but that didn't stop fans from taking them to heart.\n"That was the reality," Herbert said. "I don't make value judgements about it, but I think that it said something about some members of the press that they would speak authoritatively about something that never happened."\nIU Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan wouldn't divulge exactly how many candidates existed for the job, saying there were "more than two, and less than 20." And though he said the rumors didn't effect his personal approach to the search, he said they added two unfortunate elements to the process -- distrust and paranoia.\n"I have, I guess, old fashioned thoughts that an athletic director and a president, or an athletic director and a trustee president, sit with a coach," he said. "There are so many people that, I think, get in the middle of this. And either they have minimal knowledge or they have bad knowledge, and that creates a distrust with those people that you are legitimately talking to and legitimately have interest in, because they don't know if they can trust you or not."\nWhen asked if rumors inserted distrust into this particular search, Greenspan responded "absolutely."\n"The lack of candor, the lack of honesty, the lack of fair and equal representation of those people, in terms of the coaches, I think is hideous," he said. "And I hope it stops."\nIn reality, Greenspan and the search committee did contact several former players, a slew of former and current NCAA coaches and even a handful of NBA colleagues. But Herbert said those conversations revolved around what reputations, styles and abilities would fit for IU.\nEventually, as the search whittled down, IU Trustees Stephen Ferguson and Jeffrey Cohen joined Greenspan and Herbert in the lone, formal interview of the entire process. \nSix hours later, at 2 a.m. Wednesday, IU's four representatives struck an agreement with Kelvin Sampson -- a name hardly rumored at all. Reality had finally set in.\n"It's one of the first times that I've seen his eyes kind of light up," said Kellen Sampson, Kelvin's son. "This is the mecca of college basketball"