Just like old times (almost) for IU-Purdue rivalry

Today’s game between IU and Purdue was supposed to feel just like old times.\nToday’s game was supposed to evoke memories of the epic hard-court confrontations between Gene Keady’s thick-legged Boilermakers and Bob Knight’s clean-cut Hoosiers – games that transcended sport to become part of Indiana lore. \nToday’s game was supposed to be the kind of game you go into knowing you will want to remember every minute detail, every random occurrence, every unforeseeable twist. And maybe it still is, but for all the wrong reasons. \nAs Kelvin Sampson’s judgment day looms like a cloaked specter outside a locker room door, today is most likely Sampson’s swan song as head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers. If Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan hasn’t already found the loose thread to unravel Sampson’s contract, he will have by Friday, when President Michael McRobbie will await Greenspan’s recommendation with pink slip at the ready. IU’s second internal investigation of the basketball program in less than a year isn’t so much a search for the truth as it is time to make sure all the legal loop holes have been plugged before the axe finally falls.\nSampson sees the writing on the wall. In IU’s most complete game of the season last weekend, a 19-point throttling of Michigan State, he wore his emotions on his thick, blue sleeve, squeezing players like tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed (and it isn’t), savoring each Branch-McCracken-court second.\n“I try to be a father to them,” Sampson said afterward of his relationship to his players. “I’m stern with them, I comfort them, I care about them and I coach them.”\nSampson’s players might be the only true supporters left in his corner. Since the NCAA’s findings went public, administrators and fans alike have gone out of their way to distance themselves from the embattled coach and voice their displeasure. Sure, the “Kel-vin Samp-son” chant unveiled itself late during the Michigan State game, but if you count that as support, you should hear the other cheers that have picked up steam at Assembly Hall recently.\nMaybe it would be easier to sympathize with Sampson if he would take some responsibility in this debacle, if he wouldn’t hide behind press statements and “no comments,” if he would resign like former assistant coach Rob Senderoff did last October. Maybe he would actually deserve to hear his name bounce off the Assembly Hall ceiling if he would apologize to those who believed that he was the man to restore Indiana basketball to its former glory. Maybe then his time at IU would deserve to be remembered for something more than scandal and self-sabotage.\nHe has conceded nothing, however. Soon, he will lose the job that supposedly meant everything to him.\nDespite Sampson’s troubles, this is still IU-Purdue, and because this is the only meeting between the two schools this season, the stakes have rarely been higher. \nThe baby Boilers have grown up in a hurry this season. Though the team lacks a dominant post presence, Purdue’s versatility on the perimeter and its physicality on defense has put it in a position it hasn’t been in since Keady stomped on the sidelines. With D.J. White’s availability in question, the Hoosiers might be the team scrambling \nto adapt.\nThese in-state clashes usually exist in a bubble, however. No matter what the circumstances or obstacles, the players seem to realize more than just another conference win is on the line. There is a pride factor, or as Keady told me last October, “It was all on the table and no silly game.”\nIf not for the spectacle of a coach awaiting his sentence, it would feel just like old times.