Indiana denies decision made to fire Sampson

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana could have a new head coach when the 15th-ranked Hoosiers travel to Northwestern on Saturday.

School officials met Thursday to consider the future of embattled coach Kelvin Sampson, who has been accused by the NCAA of five major recruiting violations over improper telephone calls to high school players. The university was reviewing the allegations and had set a deadline for today to make a report and recommendation on action.

University spokesman Larry MacIntyre and members of the board of trustees denied reports Indiana had decided Sampson's fate and would make assistant coach Dan Dakich the interim head coach.

"I don't believe the athletic director has even given the recommendation to the president yet," trustee Patrick Shoulders said Thursday afternoon.

Antoher trustee, Philip Eskew Jr., told The Associated Press he had been notified by e-mail that Indiana would have an announcement on Sampson's status today, but did not have details. MacIntyre said late Thursday afternoon nothing had been scheduled, but called an announcement likely.

"We have some plans, but we don't have a definite time and we don't have the OK to go ahead yet," MacIntyre said.

The team met with athletic director Rick Greenspan on Thursday night. Almost the entire team left en masse after the meeting about 7:45 p.m. and declined comment as they got into their cars and left the parking lot.

The second-year coach came under scrutiny for his newest round of NCAA infractions in October when an internal investigation found Sampson made more than 100 impermissible recruiting calls, most of them by assistant coach Rob Senderoff, who has since resigned. At least 10 of them were three-way calls that Sampson had been patched into, a violation of NCAA restrictions imposed on Sampson for previous telephone improprieties while he was coach at Oklahoma.

The university called those secondary violations. The NCAA, however, used the term major when it accused Sampson of lying.

If Sampson isn't coaching Saturday, the likely successor would be Dakich, 45, a former Indiana player and assistant coach and former head coach at Bowling Green. He took Senderoff's spot on the coaching staff in early November, before any of the alleged rules infractions.