Now? Indiana wants Sampson as coach now?

Kelvin Sampson would have been a good hire for Indiana 10 years ago, after he had taken Billy Tubbs' stuck-in-sand program and led it to NCAA Tournament appearances in each of his first two seasons in Norman.

More than 500 impermissible phone calls put some heat on Kelvin Sampson at OU. (AP)

Sampson would have been a good hire for Indiana five years ago, when the Sooners were in the middle of the most glorious four-year stretch in program history, a stretch that saw Oklahoma win at least 27 games every year with three Big 12 titles, two Elite Eights and one Final Four.

Sampson would have been a good hire for Indiana three years ago, two years ago, even one year ago when he led Oklahoma to 25 wins.

But now?

Indiana looked around college basketball, studied its options, and went for Kelvin Sampson now?

Forget Oklahoma's underachievement this season, which will go down as one of the worst coaching jobs of Sampson's career. It's worse than that -- much worse.

Sampson isn't just coming off an NCAA investigation. He's in the middle of it. The NCAA has summoned Oklahoma to Utah on April 21 for a hearing before the Committee on Infractions. Will Sampson attend that hearing? And will he be wearing an Indiana sweat suit?

Apologists for Sampson and Oklahoma -- and for Indiana, because Sampson is one of you now -- will point out that the NCAA has found the Sooners guilty of little more than impermissible phone calls. And that impermissible phone calls, in the grand scheme of things, are nothing.

But it was more than 500 impermissible phone calls, and those calls were made not just at the wrong time of year, or more than once in a week, but to players too young to receive any calls at all. Sampson and his staff didn't break the world's biggest rule, true -- but they broke a rule nonetheless, and they broke it wantonly.

And while the apologists won't take those "violations" seriously, even stooping so low as to put quote marks around the word, this is how serious Oklahoma took it: School officials had an emergency meeting last year to consider firing Sampson, but (obviously) chose not to do so.

What the school did, though, was give Sampson's (former) program two years of probation, reduce scholarships, enact restrictions that will eliminate more than 1,000 potential recruiting calls and even freeze Sampson's salary. Also, Sampson had his off-campus recruiting limited.

Sampson's reward? The Indiana job. Life's funny.

You think Indiana will limit Sampson's off-campus recruiting opportunities and phone calls? Hell, no. Sampson cheated ... but he didn't cheat for Indiana!