You should have seen 74-75, and 75-76 teams; I was a lad but they were so incredibly dominant I think they only lost once in two years and it was because Scott May broke his arm – Quinn Buckner and the starting two gaurd, Bobby Wilkerson (who also jumped center)mercilessly pressured the ball all over the court and they did not have the assistance of a shot clock on D. Scott may was 6′7″ about 225 and a feathery touch from about 20 ft in – could not be gaurded. Benson was so good because no other teams would dare double down for fear of the kick out to May or in 75 Laskowski. Of course Tom Abernathy only turned the ball over 3 or 4 times a season and was the perfect roll player, D-up rebounder opposite May.

And don’t even get me started on the ‘81 team, sheeesh

Greg Graham had an article in the Indy Star the other day when we trying to figure out where he was from.

He is now the coach at Warren Central in Indianpolis (East side). He also went to school there. I was wrong…wrong as hell…when I said I think he went to one of the Lawrence schools. But, at least I was on the right side of town.

I think Kelvin Sampson was very smart in doing whatever was necessary to get Eric Gordon. A lot of IU fans had questions about Sampson because of the sanctions, and were upset about his hiring. But when he got Eric Gordon to go back on his commitment to Illinois, a lot of IU fans (me included) chose to forget about the negatives and focus on the positives. This was an error on all of our parts.

So when all of the crap came down last year, I can’t say I was that surprised. Anyone would have to be a fool to be surprised, because Sampson was just doing what he had shown a propensity to do before. What did surprise me was the complete lack of discipline and the drug issues. I did not expect that and it just another reason to despise Kelvin Sampson for allowing IU basketball to erode to the point that we became a laughingstock and a symbol for lack of institutional control.

And I do respect Painter — a lot. he’s done a great deal at Purdue, which is why we needed someone like Tom Crean to come in and allow us to compete again for the top prospects in Indiana…without making extra phone calls, of course.

You know what else is great about that ‘93 team? They were all great team Basketball players. Perfect for the college game.

I mean Damon Bailey had basically no pro career to speak of, Calbert Cheaney was a journey man and so as Alan Henderson. But, they were all perfect college players. I wish Bob Knight never aged and just stayed the way he was from 1987-1994 for the rest of time.

I know you hate Purdue Jerod. But, you gotta respect what Painter has done with that program.

Also, I can’t wait for those recruiting battles to begin. It’s only going to make high school basketball in Indiana all that much better as well.

Don’t forget that Butler and Notre Dame are to shabby at recruiting either as of late.

You could make an argument that Butler has had as good a decade as any college team from Indiana this decade.

Calbert Cheaney from Evansville
Alan Henderson from Brebuf
Greg Graham from Terre Haute (?)
Pat Graham from Floyds Knobbs
Brian Evans from Terre Haute
Todd Leary from Indy
Matt Nover from (? – I think he was from Indiana)
Damon Bailey from Heltonville
Pat Knight from Bloomington

It was just a fantastic team. No IU team in my IU-watching lifetime has ever even come close to comparing that squad. Hopefully we’ll see something close to it at some point during Tom Crean’s tenure.

And I’m afraid you are right about Purdue. But give TC a few years to make inroads in the Indiana high schools and there should be some great recruiting battles between he and Matt Painter.

I’m not sure what kind of drug use was going on with IU. Somehow I hadn’t really heard anything about this alleged drug use.

But, I will say that it is a disgrace that these players would do this while playing for such a respected and storied basketball program like IU. What a waste.

I’m not an IU fan per se, but, I definitely want them to be good every year. It’s just how it should be.

P.S.- That ‘93 team was insane. Calbert Cheaney and Alan Henderson…I still can’t believe they didn’t win it all. The coolest thing is that they did it with a lot of in state players…and still do.

But, it looks like Purdue is going to be the top program in Indiana for a while (they also recruit in state a lot)