Indiana Kicks Off ANOTHER Player (5/22)

[77ncaachamps]

Indiana dismisses McGee from team
Updated: May 22, 2008
4:14 PM EST

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - Indiana coach Tom Crean dismissed forward Brandon McGee from the team on Thursday, leaving the Hoosiers with only three returning players for next season.

McGee was kicked off the team because of academic and team guideline violations.

"Our coaching and support staff tried to make this work out, but we felt that there were some basic standard operating procedures that were not being met," Crean said in a statement.

The 6-foot-7 McGee played in 17 games during his freshman season, averaging 1.5 points and 1 rebound.

McGee's dismissal comes days after Crean signed 7-foot, 255-pound center Tijan Jobe from Olney Central junior college in Illinois. Jobe, who averaged 4.0 points and 4.0 rebounds last season, will be able to play for the Hoosiers this year.

Jobe is from Gambia and chose Indiana over UAB, Auburn and Nebraska.

He is the sixth player Crean has signed to scholarship offers to play for the Hoosiers next season since becoming coach last month. Others are forward Tom Pritchard and guards Verdell Jones III, Matt Roth, Devan Dumes and Nick Williams.

The only returning players remaining on the IU roster are guard Jordan Crawford, forward Kyle Taber and walk-on guard Brett Finkelmeier.

http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/8167518?MSNHPHMA

[ZiggysFryBoy]

are the plants okay?  does anyone know if the plants are okay? 

[4everwarriors]

No doubt, a leopard doesn't change his spots. Didn't take the departed one long to decide to rip a scholie out of a kid's hands to recruit over him. Sound familiar? It may be Indiana, but sure smells like Marquette.

[ChicosBailBonds]

No doubt, a leopard doesn't change his spots. Didn't take the departed one long to decide to rip a scholie out of a kid's hands to recruit over him. Sound familiar? It may be Indiana, but sure smells like Marquette.

More likely he's taking out the trash that Sampson recruited.....team GPA under Sampson was a complete joke.

[chapman]

No doubt, a leopard doesn't change his spots. Didn't take the departed one long to decide to rip a scholie out of a kid's hands to recruit over him. Sound familiar? It may be Indiana, but sure smells like Marquette.

I still find it an amazing coincidence that two players were dismissed by the interim coach the morning of his hiring and the dismissal was still seen as completely normal and valid, and as if he had nothing to do with it.

[Schoolyard]

More likely he's taking out the trash that Sampson recruited.....team GPA under Sampson was a complete joke.

Chicos, why did IU let it get so bad under Sampson?

[Pakuni]

More likely he's taking out the trash that Sampson recruited.....team GPA under Sampson was a complete joke.

Agreed.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of Crean, he's doing to right thing by blowing things up, sweeping out all remnants of the Kelvin Sampson era and starting over from scratch. It may make for an ugly 2008-09 campaign (much to he glee of many here, I imagine), but long term it's the best way for him to go.

[AlumKCof93]

The Indiana situation is interesting as I think you can tell the character of a new coach by how he handles the players he inherits.  Its not unusual for a coach to come in and clean house by 'encouraging' players to leave to open new scholies for players they want.
To Crean's credit, he didn't do that when he first arrived at MU.  But as his power at MU increased, he fell in love with handing out scholarships and why so many of us have been skeptical about why some of our players transferred.  But I can't necessarily blame Crean for all the players leaving Indiana as it was just a terrible situation (how again is that AD still employed).  What will be interesting is how many of the players Crean is handing out the scholarships too will still be at IU in the next 3-4 years.  My guess, not many.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Chicos, why did IU let it get so bad under Sampson?

I don't know 100%, just what I've heard.  From what I understand one promient member of the IU community pushed Sampson very hard and that won the day, despite what many others wanted.

I've also been told that there was some concern after Davis that they needed to hire another African American coach because of the heat they were taking for the Davis firing.  Thus Sampson fit that criteria.

Sampson is a strange bird.  I met him a few times going all the way back to the mid 1990's.  Nice guy for the most part, certainly knew his x's and o's, but obviously didn't take to running a tight ship.  What was going on at IU is shocking for that school.  There are many embarrassed folks over there and they keep turning up more and more stuff.  The lack of oversight is incredible.

[Coach Norman Dale]

I also believe that after what happened at OU, Indiana did the opposite of what everyone now sees should have been done.  That is, with a veteran coach under the NCAA microscope who would have imagined that he would violate/re-violate rules, especially the ones about phone calls?  It had to be assumed, and such assumption should have been a safe bet, that Sampson learned from his errors and would not repeat them.  In addition, you can be certain that he made repeated assurances that he was sorry for what happened at OU and nothing would go wrong in Bloomington.

The error of that assumption by Indiana and violation of the trust by Sampson will impact Indiana for the next couple of years, while Crean cleans up the mess and gets the program back on track.

[Coach Norman Dale]

No doubt, a leopard doesn't change his spots. Didn't take the departed one long to decide to rip a scholie out of a kid's hands to recruit over him. Sound familiar? It may be Indiana, but sure smells like Marquette.

I understand you would not want to miss an opportunity to rip Crean even if you have to invent facts, but I see no reason to believe Crean ripped a scholarship out of McGee's hands.  It sounds more like McGee did not take care of it (by not doing what was needed to retain it) and, in effect threw it away.