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Sure Kelvin Sampson may be heading to the NBA and Milwaukee as an assistant coach, but you know he wants to be head coach. Maybe in the pros or more likely back in the college ranks where he has excelled. Of course, to do that, he has to withstand the NCAA scrutiny for his second go-round of NCAA phone violations.

Well, it appears that he hired plenty of lawyers to write his response to the NCAA allegations and cover letter (Word documents) ahead of the June hearing. The response by Sampson -- probably not surprisingly -- is that it's not his fault.
He's not exactly a victim, merely an unfortunate fool.

The response stated Sampson fielded roughly 1,500 incoming phone calls during an NCAA-imposed one-year ban on recruiting calls and that it would be "not beyond reason" for him not to remember all details of the few phone calls being scrutinized.

Reacting to questions about why he did not check caller ID to ascertain that calls from prospects were not being forwarded to him by an assistant coach -- creating the three-way call that could violate his sanctions -- Sampson's response stated it was because calls were so precious during his one-year ban and because he was unable to return any missed recruiting calls he would generally answer on the first ring without concern for who might be on the line.

So, he got too many calls to remember particular ones, but the calls were so precious that he just answered with desperation? Not even sparing the quarter second needed to glance at the screen of the cell phone as he was answering?

It's no wonder Sampson tries to blame the compliance department at Indiana for not doing a good enough job of controlling him.

Sampson, who is reportedly close to becoming an assistant coach with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, also questioned why IU's compliance staff didn't alert him sooner to the violations. He said his confidence in that staff helped prompt him to give Greenspan the high-five.

"With the recruiting call monitoring system we believed was being operated by the compliance staff, neither of us had any reason to think there might be issues," Sampson wrote.

It's also no wonder Sampson is trying to argue that the NCAA is predisposed to not believe him (much like everybody else with half of a brain).

In his response to the charges, Sampson raised questions of fairness from the NCAA, saying a date for the infractions committee hearing was set before one of his interviews with the NCAA enforcement staff and before the enforcement staff made its allegations.

"These pre-determined results are of grave concern to me," Sampson wrote. "It is my hope that the scheduled June hearing will allay my fears that final judgments have already been made."

The problem for Sampson is that no one believes him. Not even those that say he's a friend.

[Former Purdue Coach, Gene] Keady is bothered by the fact that Sampson recently said Indiana should have done more to monitor him and his staff.

"He's blaming IU for not helping him with it," Keady said of Sampson. "He said the compliance people should have helped him. He knows the rules. We have to take a test every spring over the NCAA rulebook, especially the recruiting chapter. Even (former Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote) said he didn't know what happened with Kelvin, and he was Jud's assistant for a while. It's been a mystery, that's for sure."

Not really that much of a mystery. The best way to deal with the NCAA when accused of serial wrongdoing is to deny and force them to prove everything. Jerry Tarkanian was able to succeed for extended periods because of that. Tark won lawsuits against the NCAA with that battling mentality. Sampson is just taking the same approach.