Eric Gordon Says Drugs Caused Problems at IU Under Kelvin Sampson

My first instinct when I saw this story was to not post anything because I am so sick and tired of talking about the Kelvin Sampson era at IU. It was short, but man was it destructive. And now former IU standout and current Los Angeles Clippers guard Eric Gordon has given us a little more insight as to why — and confirmed what many of us already suspected.

According to an article published tonight on IndyStar.com entired “Gordon: Drug Use Wrecked IU Season”, Eric Gordon said that a faction of players on Indiana’s 2007-08 team used drugs and created a separation among the team. The comments came during Gordon’s first visit back to the Hoosier State as an NBA player.

Gordon explained that he was not a member of the clique of players who were into drugs, and neither was D.J. White nor the players still at IU, which includes only Kyle Taber and Brett Finkelmeier. He said that former head coach Kelvin Sampson tried to stop the drug use, but “was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything.”

IU fans will remember a number of suspensions that were handed down by Kelvin Sampson last season. The reasons for the suspension, if I remember correctly, were never confirmed; and the rumor mill was ablaze with rumors that it was either grades, or more likely, drug use that caused the suspensions.

In a quote that could not be more indicative of what many IU fans saw on the court last year, Gordon said:

“Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even a real basketball team because of all the turmoil that went on. I was just thinking about that the other day. It was so crazy that all that stuff threw off a good season and made it a waste, basically. It was really tough for us to be around each other all the time off the court because we were so separate.”

In another sad and telling quote, the IndyStar article quotes Indianapolis North Central High School basketball coach Doug Mitchell, who had three players on IU’s team last year including Eric Gordon. Mitchell said, “”I’m extremely disappointed in what appears to have been the lack of monitoring and supervision of the players’ behaviors.”

So apparently Kelvin Sampson tried to stop it, but, at least according to Mitchell, did not exercise enough oversight of the activities of his players. Hmm, sounds familiar. I think lack of oversight was basically an epidemic that plagued Indiana’s entire basketball program and athletic department last year.

I don’t want to get into quoting rumors and trying to name names in terms of who might have been involved in the drug use on last year’s team. All I will say is that a number of players who had eligibility remaining all left the program in the wake of Kelvin Sampson being fired. Those players include Jordan Crawford, Jamarcus Ellis, DeAndre Thomas, Eli Holman, and Armon Bassett. All transferred to new schools before the start of this season.

Armon Bassett transfered to UAB to play for the coach who recruited him to Indiana Mike Davis. Recently, Bassett left UAB among a swirl of controversy. The “official” stated reason for his departure, according to another IndyStar article I read, was to tend a family matter. However, members of a popular UAB basketball forum certainly are convinced, as you can read here. Bassett is one of four players who will not be eligible to play for Mike Davis at UAB in the second semester of this season. I mention this only because many IU fans are convinced that the seeds for the 2007 debacle in Bloomington were planted by Mike Davis, Kelvin Sampson’s predecessor.

I got to know Mike Davis a little bit personally during my time at IU, and found him to be a wonderfully nice and engaging man, so I don’t want to get into drudging up the past and blaming him for IU’s failures. But discipline in the IU basketball program has certainly been on the decline since the departure of Bob Knight (as has the consistency of the play on the floor), and Mike Davis has done nothing at UAB to assuage the concerns of many IU and UAB fans that he runs something less than a tight ship.

I appreciate the remarks of Eric Gordon, if for no other reason than it provides a little bit more closure to the horror of last season. Never before has a team I love and root for pulled the rug out from under me like last year’s IU team. From 17-1 and a top-10 ranking to first round exits in the Big Ten and NCAA Tourney, and then a cloud of controversy all off-season. And Gordon was not really breaking any news — all IU fans “knew” that drug use was a problem on last year’s team. But in a way, it is nice to have some confirmation and something a little more concrete as to why the team fell apart so quickly.

And the memories of last season, and of the end of the Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson eras, only make me more excited about what we have going on now in Bloomington — despite the team’s 5-5 record this year and underwhelming collection of talent. What we do have is a fantastic, capable, and passionate coach in Tom Crean who is getting every ounce of potential out of an undermanned team filled with guys who are displaying oversized hearts every time out. I don’t know how many games we will win this year, but we are finally building a foundation that can lead to long term success at IU again. And that is something that has been missing for a while, really since the 1993 season — which was my favorite sports team of all time, and featured an immensely talented group of players who played together, with heart, and exhibited discipline in every aspect.

I continue to feel bad for Eric Gordon, in that he took so much heat for his decision to spurn his original commitment to Illinois and play for a snake like Kelvin Sampson. So much of the blame for last season got heaped on Gordon during the season, despite the fact that he was just a freshman, playing with a bum wrist, and embroiled in a tumultuous team situation with a coach who could not control it, or who did not really want to. I do think that as more stuff like his admission of the drug use on last year’s team comes to the surface, IU fans will retroactively adjust their impression of Eric Gordon and remember him more for the immense talent he displayed and the great individual season he gave us.

I feel bad for D.J. White too, one of my all-time favorite Hoosiers. He stuck it out in Bloomington through thick and thin and became a dominant player as a senior. He deserved to go out better than he did.

But most of all, I just feel a tremendous level of anger towards Kelvin Sampson and the players who did not appreciate the privilege of wearing the Cream and Crimson. I would have given anything to wear the candy-stripe warm up pants and play at Assembly Hall, and I would have done everything possible to honor the players, coaches, and fans who built the amazing tradition that IU basketball has. Unfortunately, Kelvin Sampson enabled a group of players who had no business joining the IU family, and will forever be Public Enemy #1 in Bloomington. It is a title that is well deserved and that he will never relinquish.

Kudos to Eric Gordon for being strong enough to be honest about his experience at IU last year. Sure, it’s old news; but it’s one more layer of closure on the darkest era in the history of IU, one of the brightest stars
in the grand tradition of college basketball.

And thankfully, the current steward of that great IU tradition, Tom Crean and Crimson, appears to hold it in the proper esteem; and, most importantly, appears to have the integrity, coaching acumen, and leadership ability to return IU to prominence.