There’s a revival afoot in Bloomington, Indiana and it’s swelling the church on East 17th Street with a hungry and increasingly fervent faithful. Leading the ecstasy is a charismatic newcomer with a forked tongue who promises redemption, rectitude, and above all, life after February for his flock.
Miracles For The Blind
To win them over he’s performed several miracles. His first came in August when he used a loophole in the recruiting sanctions that followed him to his new jurisdiction to get Eric Gordon to recant on the Illini. Said loophole was authored in part by the program’s seldom mentioned former deacon and current silent partner, Myles Brand. When you count the sweetheart Big Ten Tournament deal he engineered for his beloved state capital, Brand’s done pretty well by the Hoosiers of late.
The toothlessness of the sanctions and the shameless manner in which they were subverted were mostly ignored by the program’s moon-eyed fandom and wholly ignored by its head steward, Rick Greenspan. This, after all, after months of bush beating and meditation, was the man deemed most worthy by Greenspan to restore the Hoosiers to glory. Glory at any costs apparently, but as long as the miracles continued, more blind eyes could be found.
And continue they have. An Indiana team of underdeveloped talent and zero cohesion from the season prior sits pretty at 7-3, 17-6 overall for sole possession of third place in conference. Barring a major derailment, a strongly seeded NCAA bid is assured. That’s this year. With Gordon as its centerpiece, one of the nation’s deeper recruiting classes is heading to Bloomington next year. Even absorbing the graduation of Earl Calloway and Roderick Wilmont, if D.J. White keeps his senses and returns for another campaign, there’s no reason the results can’t be commensurate or better.
The Martyr Davis
What is Kelvinism? By what wicked alchemy has it turned Mike Davis’ grab bag of languid underachievers into top tier conference performers and then some? Well, for one, Mike Davis’ set a low hurdle. Davis had his goofy, paranoid charms (his press conferences were required viewing), but his coaching was the least of them. He routinely struggled to get consistent effort and execution out of his rosters. His offenses seldom appeared tight or confident and often made unsound decisions, especially in the latter halves of games when they mattered most. Defense was equally mercurial.
In short, Davis’ Indiana teams, especially as the Knight recruits filtered out, lacked an identity. They had considerable talent but no fulcrum on which to swing and develop sustained, positive momentum. In some ways this is an easier mantle to assume than a team where the outgoing coach was highly successful and/or had a very specific, entrenched system that would require deprogramming. Sampson inherited a team that was essentially a tabula rasa waiting to be defined.
New Commandments
Sampson has replaced the Davis era’s soft focus with an unambiguous emphasis on conditioning, effort, perimeter defense, three point shooting, and a guard heavy rotation plus D.J. White. In the first categories, it is readily apparent Sampson has instilled discipline, work ethic, and unselfish chemistry into a corps that was too often allowed to glide and dither under Davis.
Earl Calloway, describing the transition to Sampson practices: “Hard. No. It was cool. It helped us. He wants you to get better. He wants you to improve every aspect of your game. When you think you’re being pushed to a certain level, there’s still always room for improvement. That’s what he did. He made us improve.”
D.J. White: “Everything that we do is at a high level. Conditioning, individual workouts. We’re going at a fast pace all the time. It’s good for us. It was tough at the beginning (with the 6 a.m. workouts), but once your body gets used to it, you’re fine. Working hard as a team has pulled us closer together.”
While many of the Hoosiers probably have oxygen debted moments in practice when they wish they were with Robert Vaden and Mike Davis Jr. in Birmingham, the team has responded well to the culture change under Sampson. Even in losses, the road effort in Iowa City last week for example, the Hoosiers are playing with consistent effort and intensity that forces opponents to earn their victories. In a conference where a lion’s share of teams have blowout road blemishes, the Hoosiers have yet to lose by double figures away from Bloomington. This despite playing in tough environments like Durham, Lexington, and in Columbus against a Buckeye team where games can quickly get out of hand.
While it is hard to overpraise a coach for expecting and coaxing hard work and regular effort from his charges, it is worth indicting those coaches who fail to do so. Amazingly, there are a few of them left in Division I basketball, but with the exit of Sampson’s predecessor and the precarious situation in Ann Arbor, the Big Ten is proving to be a conference where such failures aren’t rewarded. So, indeed, Sampson corrected the effort related problems in the program and did so in short order. And when you combine that with the high level athleticism of his inherited roster, it is not hard to understand the upswing of the Hoosiers from last season to today.
Above all, Kelvinism is providing ample evidence of the power of motivation in carrying teams with good talent significant distances. But, beyond it’s ability to instill belief and labor, what are the other tenets of Kelvinism and are they the stuff of continued miracles? An obvious corollary of the improved effort is found on the defensive side of the ball where the Hoosiers are playing forty, committed minutes. After his gift for persuasion, defense is often the next thing mentioned about Sampson teams. Watching his fleet of quick, strong bodied guards ball hawk the perimeter this season has been more fun to watch than last year’s bullfighter defense. A thin frontcourt often finds D.J. White alone to defend the hoop and vulnerable to fouls. But, when guards are denying penetration and passing lanes as the Hoosiers have this season, it can hide a multitude of deficiencies.
The Hoosiers ability to choke offenses out on the perimeter where they originate is a potent weapon. They are the conference leader at defending the three and near the top in turnover margin. Opponents with guards who can handle the heat and get inside to the undermanned part of the Hoosier defense are dangerous. But even Mike Conley, Jr. had to put in a hard day’s work against them and it kept the game close. The perimeter defense will continue to make Sampson’s team a tough out and it is a strength that may prove to be a huge asset in the postseason against teams with shaky guard play.
On the other side of the ball, Kelvinism, at least this year’s version, relies heavily on perimeter point production from the revolving backcourt. Seniors Roderick Wilmont and Earl Calloway, juniors A.J. Ratliff and Lance Stemler, and frosh Armon Bassett, Xavier Keeling, and Joey Shaw are all getting significant minutes and scoring by committee. Given Ben Allen’s preference for the perimeter and Mike White’s role as a defense first small forward, D.J. White forms the entirety of the paint production.
Coming off an injury redshirt year last season, White has turned in a solid, if unspectacular campaign. While he leads the team’s balanced scoring attack and is the third best Big Ten rebounder, he has yet to exceed the promise of his inaugural season in which he arrived with McDonald’s All-American luster and finished as the 2004-05 Big Ten Freshman of the Year. He has a smooth, athletic skill set that includes a silky midrange touch, but still has a tendency to disappear and may or may not have the competitive mettle to become more than a modest Hoosier.
Tests Of Faith
Or maybe Kelvin is too smitten with drive and kick, guard centric offense and doesn’t know how to best employ a more conventional, back to the basket big man. Hoopraker doesn’t remember watching Kelvin’s Sooner offenses with much admiration for either their structure or execution. The ugly truth beneath his constant, banal rhetoric about effort, defense, and playing the “right way” could be that Kelvinism is only as deep as its sound bytes. Time, of course, will tell.
Another telling litmus test for Kelvinism will be how it develops players with the blue chip hue of White and Gordon. Great coaches turn these caliber of players into All-Americans. Gordon may not stick around long enough to see this test enacted, but unless White is listening to a lot of bad advice, he should be around next year. And Kelvin’s other catches from the class of 2007 are of the four star and above stripe. Expectations of his ability to maximize talent should and will be higher.
Admittedly, White has a substantial burden as the lone man on the low block this season. When he succombs to early fouls, Indiana’s already perimeter centric attack becomes even more so. This is a major vulnerability that even Kelvin-style evangelism can’t turn into wine. Indeed, the ridiculously lopsided roster is another sad legacy of Mike Davis and bears mentioning. This is a team with only one Big Ten caliber post player.
Noting that the two players who followed Davis to UAB were also guards, it suggests that not only had he lost, or worse, conceded the battle for Indiana schoolboys, but his entire recruiting strategy was bankrupt. The basketball program at the state university of Indiana couldn’t find and attract a few solid, fundamentally sound post players? Consider this fact and try to refute its impugning power. Mike Davis had not only allowed the wheels to fall off one of the proudest and most accomplished programs in the country, he had it up on blocks and was selling off the parts.
The New Moonies
Judging from the sound and fury of the Assembly Hall last Saturday, Rick Greenspan is not the only one who thinks he has found the program’s savior. The fans gleeful heckling of Bruce Weber and guiltless gloating over the Gordon recruitment proves just how many have pledged their souls to Kelvin. Even some Hoosier legends of the Knight era are genuflecting.
Landon Turner: “There were a lot of times when I played that we were playing hard, but it wasn’t real fun. It was very businesslike. But these guys are having fun, working hard and winning at the same time. I see a championship coming soon.”
Brian Evans: “He’s really engaging as a speaker. I just feel like he brings a lot of enthusiasm and that has really been evident by the way the crowd has responded to him.”
Kent Benson: “I feel like coach Sampson has instilled the discipline in this team that we hadn’t seen for the last five or six years. There’s no doubt in my mind that he has been accepted at IU. I just think he’s a good person who is instilling good values in these kids.”
Fun, engaging, enthusiastic, disciplined, good values, championships. It all sounds like perfect echoes of Kelvin’s talking points since his arrival in Bloomington. If Kelvin says it enough, it becomes true. Not only to Kelvin but to his new flock.
Too Good To Be True
Or too good to be true. What isn’t being mentioned by Kelvin or his new Moonies in Bloomington is a barely removed shadowy past that left his former pulpit bedgraggled, scandalized and sanctioned and had Kelvin doing a reverse Tom Joad the hell out of Norman.
What isn’t being mentioned are the dwindling results on the court he got in his final three seasons there (two early NCAA bow outs and an NIT) despite the cheating. What isn’t being mentioned is the fact that he is still incorrigibly defying the unspoken, but sacrosanct rule among coaches to not approach kids verballed to another school. What aren’t being mentioned are his 800 phone calls and the hypocrisy of his simultaneous membership and presidency of the NABC. What isn’t being mentioned is that this is a coach with a well documented track record of paying lip service to ideals, integrity, rectitude while subverting all of the same in his pursuit of wins.
No, some of the memories are short in Bloomington. As long as Kelvinism keeps delivering miracles, the memories will likely remain short. And if one believes in redemption, perhaps it’s possible to imagine Kelvin having a long, productive, scandal free, legend building tenure at Indiana. It’s possible. But the contrary may be more likely.
And the mere fact of his assumption of a program that has, despite it’s most recent history, stood for so much better, is a sad commentary on how its current stewards have failed it. For their sake and for those who care about the legacy of one of the finest basketball traditions in the country, let’s hope Kelvin’s forked tongue and cheating heart have been humbled into the straight and narrow.
For an earlier perspective on Sampson and Indiana, read here and here.
