Todd’s Take: When It Comes To Kelvin Sampson’s Success? I Am Unemotional About It

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – In a pique of cynical petulance that I am prone too, I took to social media on Saturday night and declared that the 2025 NCAA Tournament “might be the most boring of my life.”

With typical impeccable timing, this was probably right around the time Duke had its peak lead of 14 against Houston in the second of the national semifinals in the Final Four. (That post also came with me having barely watched the Florida-Auburn game, which by all accounts, was good entertainment.)

Right on cue after my missive, Houston made a stirring comeback and defeated Duke 70-67 in a game that was equal parts Duke meltdown and Exhibit A in why Houston is so tough. The Cougars’ refusal to give in and will to keep grinding was impressive, whether they got help from the Blue Devils or not.

That toughness has been a hallmark of Kelvin Sampson’s teams at Houston. He’s taken a once-proud Cougars program – one that had appeared in five Final Fours, but none since 1984 before Sampon did it 2021 – from rot to rebirth.

Sampson has been wildly successful since he arrived in 2014. He’s 299-83 at Houston, hasn’t had a 10-loss season since 2017 and has had four straight 30-win seasons.

In many ways, Sampson is exactly what Indiana has been looking for since Bob Knight was let go in 2000. He made a once-proud program puff out its chest again.

Of course, I’m talking around the obvious. Indiana did have Sampson.

I wonder how Indiana fans feel about Sampson’s career pinnacle? I’m being coy. I’ve seen social media reactions, and it’s mixed.

Some Indiana fans wonder what Sampson would have done for the Hoosiers had he stayed out of NCAA trouble. Maybe they feel a twinge of what might have been? Some Indiana fans wonder why it has to be their school that adheres to a standard of following the rules.

On the other side, some Indiana fans are still angry about the smoking crater that Sampson’s NCAA problems left the Indiana program in 2008. Other Indiana fans do not forgive or forget some of the character issues that Sampson’s players supposedly had.

Fans on both sides of the coin apply today’s standard to the past and wonder what the big deal was all about in the first place, when much of what got Sampson into trouble would be permitted in today’s landscape.

Me? I don’t really feel anything, to be honest.

It was a long time ago. Sampson’s Indiana coaching stint – which lasted from 2006-08 – feels like ancient history. If they buried a time capsule from the Sampson era, the vast majority of the mass would be taken up by the baggy pants worn at the time, which seem like a relic of a bygone era now. Relevant to 2025 in no meaningful way.

I was around the periphery of Indiana basketball in those days. I worked at the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, and Indiana State was my focus.

I attended Kelvin Sampson’s introductory press conference at Assembly Hall. I’m pretty sure I asked a question, but I have no recollection of what I asked.

I do recall Sampson later ribbing me good-naturedly as I sat in Assembly Hall to file my story, because I had the temerity to wear a gold shirt. Sampson joined a select group of coaches I covered who didn’t want the color of the rival worn in their presence.

Early in Sampson’s first season, Indiana State finished off a two-for-one series initiated by previous coach Mike Davis as the Hoosiers prevailed 73-66 at Assembly Hall.

From my point of view covering the Sycamores, Indiana State had beaten Indiana three times in the previous five meetings, so a big storyline for my readers was whether Sampson would continue the series – everyone suspected he wouldn’t, and those suspicions turned out to be well-founded. Indiana State has only played Indiana once since – Archie Miller’s notorious beatdown at the hands of the Sycamores in his first game in 2017.

Still, I wanted it on the record so I asked him about it during the postgame press conference. He gave the non-answer answer most coaches give to questions like that, and that was that.

Apart from Terre Haute native Armon Bassett’s playing for Sampson at Indiana, that was about it as far as my own connections with Sampson at Indiana are concerned. His NCAA troubles occurred with me watching from a safe distance.

Maybe that makes it easier for me to not really feel emotional one way or another about Sampson. I wasn’t really embroiled in the worst of it.

As far as his NCAA wrongdoing? I’ve never been a big fan of revisionist relativism. What he did then may be permissible now, but what he did was very much against the rules at the time and Sampson was a two-time offender having committed similar violations at Oklahoma.

He knew it was against the rules and did it anyway. Actions have consequences.

Having said that, do I have some burning sense of anger about it? Not at all. He did the crime and did the NCAA show cause time. No need to have lingering resentment about it.

As far as the condition he left Indiana in? Some might say the Hoosiers have never recovered, but I disagree. It took time, but Tom Crean got Indiana back to No. 1 in the country and won a pair of Big Ten championships.

That the revival didn’t last under Crean has nothing to do with Sampson. This column space would triple in length to name the culprits who have kept Indiana mediocre since the peak of the Crean era.

Even if Indiana had never recovered from the Sampson era, it’s been 17 years. At some point, the statute of limitations runs out on the blame game.

I don’t feel any sense of pride in what Sampson has done at Houston, nor aim any schadenfreude his way because of what he did here. Frankly, when I looked up to see if any other Indiana coach had gone to a championship game after leaving Indiana? I was more interested in Everett Dean’s roots than I was Sampson’s more recent travails or successes.

I wish Sampson luck in the national championship game as I would any other coach, including my less-handsome namesake Todd Golden on the Florida sideline. (Your mileage on that last bit will almost certainly vary.) I admire the way Sampson’s Cougars play.

But I don’t feel anything about it as far as Indiana is concerned. As the years pass by, his time at Indiana becomes a footnote instead of anything that generates any emotion.

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