Sampson says "DJ will play"

On tonight's radio show, Sampson says "D.J. will play".* *Note: Sampson is known to be a liar. I wish I was only referring to Sampson's truthfulness about whether or not injured players will play, but this little NCAA thing is also evidence of his truth-stretching tendencies. So, I will only believe that DJ is going to play once I see him out there. Perhaps DJ gets a $10,000 bonus if he plays in every game this year. Ok, now I am trying (unsuccessfully) to make light of a situation that cleary is not humorous. Really, what's funnier -- your coach landing you in hot water with the NCAA or your best player with a knee injury heading into the biggest game of the year? Moving on to a couple comments that actually were funny in Sampson's radio show:

• Sampson says Taber has an "Evansville vertical, which means he can't jump over the Evansville phone book."
• Continuing on Taber -- whenever Taber gets an offensive rebound outside the paint, he is intructed to dribble the ball right to Eric Gordon and he did exactly that against Michigan State.
• Sampson received a standing ovation at the radio show and he said that the Michigan State game must have been pretty good for him to get a standing ovation.

In other news, prized recruit Devin Ebanks told a NY newspaper that he will likely want out of his commitment if Sampson is fired. You just hope that the recruits and current players wait until a new coach is hired and the new coach has a chance to talk/re-recruit them (much like Sampson did with DJ when he arrived).

In that same article, a sophomore recruiting target for IU said that he will still consider IU as long as there are not any postseason bans.

That comment from the sophomore recruit tells the story. If IU can avoid postseason bans and other major sanctions from the NCAA, this won't be as disasterous as it could be. But if this leads to a postseason ban, even if its just one year, that will set the program back big-time.

Go Hoosiers!