NCAA punishes Sampson

INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA banned new Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson from calling recruits and visiting them off-campus for one year Thursday, ruling he deliberately broke its rules by making extra calls to potential players while coaching Oklahoma.

“This case is a result of the former head coach’s complete disregard for NCAA guidelines for proper telephone contacts with recruits,” NCAA infractions committee chairman Thomas Yeager said in a statement. “The former head coach created and encouraged an atmosphere among his staff of deliberate noncompliance …”

Indiana will not fire Sampson.

“We knew there could be further sanctions and we accept them,” athletic director Rick Greenspan said in a statement. “While these sanctions do present an immediate challenge, we are excited about the future with Coach Sampson.”

Sampson was in Kuwait through Monday as part of Operation Hardwood, a basketball tournament featuring soldiers and prominent U.S. coaches.

“I have learned an invaluable lesson,” he said in a statement.

Indiana hired Sampson in March amid an investigation into 577 extra phone calls Sampson and Sooners assistant coaches made to 17 recruits from 2000 and 2004. The calls violated NCAA restrictions, and the infractions committee determined Sampson made 233 of them.

The NCAA extended Oklahoma’s self-imposed probation for an additional 11 months but otherwise accepted the university’s self-imposed sanctions, which included reductions in scholarships, recruiting calls and trips and visits to the school by prospective recruits.

Sampson was head coach at Washington State for seven seasons in the late 1980s and early 1990s.