Ratliff parts with Sampson, team

The IU men’s basketball team has only eight games remaining in its regular season schedule. Senior A.J. Ratliff will not play in any of them. \nThe IU Athletics Department announced Tuesday that the guard has left the team. Ratliff and IU coach Kelvin Sampson decided it would be best for Ratliff to leave the Hoosiers so he could deal with “personal issues,” according to a news release. \n“Both of us agreed that it was in his best interests to focus on himself and to work through his personal issues,” Sampson said in the news release. “We wish him the best.” \nIU Athletics spokesman J.D. Campbell said Tuesday afternoon the decision was in Ratliff’s and the team’s best interests. \nRatliff, who is not eligible to redshirt this year, has used all of his eligibility and cannot transfer to another school to play. Campbell said despite his departure, Ratliff is still on scholarship.\nRatliff missed the past two games – road wins at Illinois and Ohio State – while dealing with personal issues. \nSampson said after Sunday’s win at Ohio State that he hoped to meet with Ratliff to discuss his future with the program – a future he said might be better for all parties if Ratliff didn’t rejoin the team. \nDuring a press conference with reporters on Friday, Sampson lamented Ratliff’s situation. \n“A kid gets to his senior year,” Sampson said, “and if the kid didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck.”\nAcademically ineligible for the first nine games of the season, Ratliff missed the next three games with an ankle injury. He played in only nine games this season, averaging 1.7 points in 11.3 minutes per game. \nTeam co-captain Lance Stemler said Ratliff’s departure is “unfortunate.”\n“He’s definitely a loss,” Stemler said. “His senior leadership; he’s been around here forever (and) he knows the ins and outs of the league. ... We’ve just got to find a way to overcome that.”\nRatliff was a member of former IU coach Mike Davis’ highly-touted 2004 five-man recruiting class. Following Ratliff’s departure, Big Ten Player of the Year candidate D.J. White is the only team member left on IU’s roster from that class – James Hardy quit basketball to focus on football, Robert Vaden followed Davis to University of Alabama at Birmingham and Josh Smith never played a minute of college ball and instead was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks. \nWhite is the only player left on IU’s roster to have both signed with and played for Davis. \nA North Central High School graduate, Ratliff won Indiana’s Mr. Basketball award in 2004, beating out Butler’s A.J. Graves and Hardy in voting. \nBut his collegiate career was plagued by inconsistency. Ratliff dropped a career-high 21 points in a win against rival Kentucky in 2005, and scored 20 when the Hoosiers upset second-ranked Wisconsin last season. He played in 93 career games, averaging 5.8 points per contest, but the longer he stayed at IU, the fewer games he started – 14 his freshman year, 13 his sophomore year, 12 his junior year and 0 this season. \nHe shot 18.5 percent from the field this season.