A.J. Ratliff

I just want to mention that I wish him the best.

I will always love this:



enjoy!

Time For Sampson and Greenspan To Go

By now I am sure all of you have read and seen the reports on the latest round of recruiting violations by Coach Sampson and his staff. You can look back on this blog (just search "Sampson" ) and you will see me singing this man's praises. It's true that I didn't want to see Mike Davis go, but I welcomed Sampson with open arms, despite the violations he had at Oklahoma, and the repercussions they meant for Indiana basketball.

I do not believe Coach Sampson is a stupid man, and that just means that he is arrogant and foolhardy. I can't imagine why a coach at a Big Ten school, with such a rich basketball tradition as IU would go back to his illicit recruiting methods that he used at his prior job after already being caught.

As for Greenspan, he was responsible for brining in a coach that he knew violated league rules once before, so one would figure he would keep Sampson on an extra short leash, making sure he didn't repeat his previous violations and cause further harm to the Indiana basketball program. Greenspan is doing typical PR spin right now, trying to make it sound as if he, and the rest of his staff had no idea what was going on, there are two ways to take this. If true it means he wasn't doing his job of keeping an eye on Sampson to ensure the continued excellence and honesty of the program. If false, it means he was complicit in violations of league rules. I think we know which one is worse, but both are pretty damn bad.

I just feel bad for the players, it's not their fault that their coach violated the rules to recruit them or their teammates. Sure, these guys know they're not supposed to accept a car, but I have to imagine they don't read every press release and every line of the league recruiting rule book to see if they can take a call.

Coach Sampson has done an excellent job on the court while here at Indiana, but it seems increasingly evident that off the court, his job has not just been lackluster, to contrary to the image than Indiana would like to project. Greenspan has done an admirable job of bringing in coaches, attention, and funding to our various athletic programs, but if he is unable (or unwilling) to go that next step and properly oversee his subordinates (especially such a high profile, and high risk one such as Sampson) in order to make sure they are following league rules, he has no place at this institution.

I am not well enough versed in how the contracts for these two gentlemen are set up, so I do not know what the most pragmatic method of terminating their contracts is, all I know is that it is my fundamental belief that it would be best for Indiana Athletics, and Indiana fans nationwide if these two men did not return to their posts in Bloomington next year.

In no way am I going to turn away from Indiana basketball, or any other Indiana sport over this latest ordeal, but it's leaving a pretty awful taste in my mouth and regretfully, at this point I have to assume it will only get worse before it gets better.

I am sure my fellow Defend The Rockers will have plenty to say on this topic, so stay tuned.

A.J Ratliff Is No Longer An IU Basketball Player or A.J. Ratliff Was Still An IU Basketball Player?

As reported by the Indiana Daily Student, A.J. Ratliff is as of now, no longer on the IU Basketball roster. As IU fans have probably noticed, Ratliff has been noticeably absent from the team this year. Between injuries (which have nagged him his entire IU career), academic ineligiblity, and "personal issues," Ratliff has been deprived of playing time this year.

Ratliff had an impact in his Freshmen year, leading the team in 3-Point Percentage, and playing in 26 of the team's games, but never seemed to explode like it seemed like he was always set to do. His best year was last year, when he averaged 9.3 points a game, and scored himself an Adam Ahlfeld Team Player Award due to his strong performance against Purdue.

As with any Hooiser who carries a good attitude and plays hard, I'm sorry to see him go. Luckily this team has plenty of guards, and his performance, or lack thereof this year, will not be sorely missed.

Football is making headlines again!

Not even a week after our #11 in the Big Ten Recruiting Class was announced, 5 IU Football Players have been arrested.

James Bailey and Demetrius McCray were both arrested for disorderly conduct after failing to turn down their music on Sunday. They were both taken to Monroe County Jail that evening after the police verified they had been issued warnings previously.

The others arrested were Jarrell Drane (Illegal Consumption), Ian Reeves (Illegal Consumption), Darius Johnson (resisting law enforcement, illegal consumption, public intoxication).

This is disappointing news. Especially that of Ja Bailey to me. I know we have seen him sit out a game for an unspecified violation of a team rule, but I hoped as he came into his senior year that he would start acting like the leader that he needs to be. He has to be our BMOC this year. He can be a fan favorite like J-Hard was, and I would love to see that happen. I would hate to see him keep getting caught up in all of this off the field bullshit. Come on Ja!

I assume we will be hearing about this via IUhoosiers.com soon. In regards to a punishment for the players, what do you think is a decent punishment for the above arrests? Should there be any punishment? Are/Should football players be held with a certain level of accountability higher than that of an average student? What do you think Bailey and McCray were listening to? Honestly, were the freshman simply being freshman?

Let us know!

Q&A

We here at Defend The Rock use multiple SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in order say atop the search engine rankings. Naturally the best "tool" is good, and constant writing, and I'd like to think that for the most part, we do a good job of it. One of my favorite features of one of our SEO tools is a "latest questions" section of a visitor tracking service. It lists the questions visitors of our site have typed into various search engines, that resulted in them visiting Defend The Rock. Sometimes we have the answers already up on the blog, sometimes we don't. For the times that we don't I would like to announce Defend The Rock: Q&A.

So here are a few questions from the past week, with their respective answers (we do not insert the question marks, questions listed exactly as shown to us by our SEO tool):

Q: "i missed last nights indiana vs illinois game?"
A: I guess so? I mean, you are asking if you did, which seems to suggest that you're not certain that you saw it. Seeing as it was quite the memorable game, I'd wager that you missed it.

Q: "will josiah sears get drafted?"
A: Short answer: no Long answer: Definitely not (And that's too bad as we are big JS fans here)

Q: "what year did indiana rocks form in"
A: Instead of going into tons of detail I will direct you to two excellent resources:
1. The Indiana Geological Survey
2. Indiana Geology Facts

Q: "how much money do college athletics make for the university"
A: Seeing as you don't specify a university, this question is a bit difficult to answer. It is a fact that Universities make a great deal of money from the athletic programs. On the flip side though we are seeing an increasing trend towards profit sharing within conferences. For example, even if Team X from Conference Y made it to a bowl and received $10 million for its appearance, that $10 million would be spread amongst all of the Conference Y schools.

In Defense of My Fellow Bloggers or Wow, We Actually Had At Least One Reader!

Upon hearing the news of Bobby Knight stepping down, one of my friends and fellow bloggers here at Defend The Rock made a post which both reflected how many IU fans felt, and also reflected the exact opposite way many IU fans felt. I arrived at IU, from another state, after Knight had already left. I really have no emotional connection with him and what he did while at IU, so I cannot really get fired up about this issue.

What I do have to say is this: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and I would like to hear them all, preferably through comments on the specific blog posts in order to foster some form of community, or at least start a conversation on here.

A very passionate IU fan (who failed to properly grammar check his subject line) sent in an email in response to the post cited above. Below is the email we received (I have not included his name or email address, although sir, I suggest in the future you use an anonymous email address to send vitriolic emails as a simple google search resulted in your home town, job information, your non-work activities, and photos, I don't need to know all that!)):

Subject: Your are an idiot

Terrible language and an idiot is all I can say about you.

You are probably one of the people embarrassing the rest of us in Assembly Hall by chanting B__ S__.

Mike Davis will never ever come close to being the Coach that Robert M. Knight was.

And walking out on something – hardly. He is setting them up to be a better group by getting started now instead of next fall.

I will not look at your useless blog anymore.

First things first, we had a reader! At least now I know that we haven't been completely wasting our time! Secondly, I am sorry to see him go, as I would much rather have such an engaged reader remain and make his thoughts known in public on here than through email where I only get to see them. Lastly, as I said earlier, everyone is welcome to express their here, and while I would prefer that opinions be expressed in civil, non-juvenile ways (both by bloggers and readers), I have no intention of censoring this blog (although I do reserve the right to do so).

James Hardy NFL Draft Prediction or The One Where I Pretend To Have Knowledge About The NFL

This year's NFL draft kicks off on my Birthday (April 26th) and will lead well into the 27th where I will be passed out on a couple or floor, surely having been unable to make it to my bed from the night before. The Hoosier's very own WR James Hardy will be looking to be drafted over the course of those two days, and now I'm going to tell him where his going to end up.

I have no inside information, and I haven't been reading any draft previews. These predictions (I am choosing the 3 most likely teams) have manifested themselves through trusting my gut, poor logic/reasoning, and a and a random non-story about the Steelers I heard months ago. Without further ado, here is where you're likely to end up James:

1. Pittsburgh Steelers: This offseason Ben Roethlisberger expressed his desire for a tall receiver. Well, guess who just happens to be a 6'7 tall receiver? James Hardy. Throw in the fact that James Hardy played for the Coach who made Big Ben into who is today, and you've got a perfect match. BAM!

2. Tennessee Titans: Vince Young needs some solid receiving weapons in order for this team to go anywhere. Hardy has played his last few years with a running QB in Kellen Lewis and can bring a new element to a team desperately trying to figure out who to run its offense.

3. Miami Dolphins: Why not?

Now, once I really look at that, those three teams seem far fetched, as I can't imagine Hardy going either 23/24 to the Steelers or Titans, and their next picks are in the mid 50s where I imagine he'd be gone. Maybe the Dolphins at 32 do make sense...