Where are all the brave Indiana ethicists who called for Bobby Knight's head?

"Deliberate noncompliance"? Ol' Big Melon Sampson is getting off easy.

From AP (via ESPN.com): Sampson faces 1-year recruiting restriction for NCAA violations

Indiana University expected some NCAA penalties when it hired Kelvin Sampson.

The harshly worded final decision came as a surprise.

Sampson was banned Thursday from calling recruits and participating in off-campus recruiting activities for one year when the infractions committee ruled he deliberately violated NCAA rules by making 577 impermissible phone calls from 2000 to 2004. He will also be prohibited from receiving performance bonuses next season.

Indiana athletic director Rick Greenspan said Sampson's job is not in jeopardy and the Hoosiers avoided the most severe sanction - a loss of scholarships. Indiana does not plan to appeal.

"I think this is like when the IRS finds a high-profile person or the Securities & Exchange Commission finds a high profile company in violation," said Stephen Ferguson, president of IU's Board of Trustees. "These organizations want to, one, show that they don't give anyone special privileges, and, two, set an example to show others they better not do it."

The NCAA also took matters a step further.

Infractions committee chairman Thomas Yeager repeatedly used terms such as "calculated," "deliberate noncompliance" and "willful actions" - stronger phrases than usual - to describe the violations.

According to the infractions report, Oklahoma coaches had a series of Sunday night meetings to discuss calls and fill out unofficial logs. The documents were then filed in a basketball office cabinet, never turned in and school compliance officials did not cross-check the listed calls with university phone records.

Yeager sharply rebuked the actions.

"Over a four-year period, they deliberately disregarded NCAA rules," Yeager said. "The coaching staff rationalized the infractions as not important, and while they may not be as notorious as some the committee has dealt with in the past, they are important."

Some of the calls were placed when coaches were not allowed any contact with recruits; others exceeded NCAA limits and Sampson made nearly half of the calls - 233 - himself.

Despite the investigation, Indiana still hired Sampson in March after he spent the previous 12 seasons at Oklahoma. Included in his seven-year contract was a clause that allowed Indiana to fire Sampson if the NCAA sanctions proved more severe than Oklahoma's self-imposed penalties.

The infractions committee did just that by issuing more severe penalties than Oklahoma recommended. The Sooners restricted Sampson's off-campus recruiting last July and reduced his number of days on the road to 19 last season.

Now, Sampson will be off the recruiting trail until May 24, 2007.

Greenspan and IU President Adam Herbert, however, backed their new coach.

"We knew that there could be further sanctions and we accept them," Greenspan said. "While these sanctions do present an immediate challenge, we are excited about the future with coach Sampson."

But the punishment wasn't as harsh as it could have been.

Oklahoma cut two scholarships last season and one for next season - sanctions that will not be imposed at Indiana. Sampson also can contact recruits with text messages, letters and e-mail, and his assistant coaches face no restrictions.

"I have learned an invaluable lesson, and I hope that this reinforces to other coaches the importance of every aspect of NCAA compliance," Sampson, who is traveling in Kuwait, said in a statement.

As troubling as Yeager found the pattern of violations, the committee chairman was nearly as upset by Sampson's push for an ethics summit in 2003 when he was the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

"We hope that this summit will provide a basis for our coaches and our association to proactively move forward toward greater integrity in our sport," Sampson said then.

Yeager said the committee was concerned by that.

But Indiana officials offered a different perspective. While Herbert and Greenspan offered testimonials to Sampson's character, Ferguson suggested that Sampson was a good fit in Bloomington. Patrick Shoulders of Evansville, the trustees' vice president, downplayed Sampson's actions.

"Obviously, we anticipated some type of sanction, and this one seems to fit these minor infractions," he said.

Yeager said that gave Oklahoma a significant recruiting advantage since six of the 17 recruits announced their intention to attend the school. Five actually did.

Oklahoma froze Sampson's salary at $1.01 million last year and prohibited from him receiving performance bonuses. At Indiana, Sampson will make $1.1 million next season and $1.6 million each of the following six years. The contract explicitly states Sampson is not eligible for bonuses next season.