The Star on Dakich, McCallum, and Greenspan.

The Indianapolis Star devoted some major space to the IU basketball program today. First, an interview by Terry Hutchens of Dan Dakich. Here's the most interesting part:

Q: When you were chosen interim coach, did you sense players wanted Ray McCallum instead of you?
A: I never felt it, but then I really didn't pay attention to it, either. All of our coaches worked hard, and as for the players, I never got that sense that, 'Hey, we're not going to do this because you're the head coach.' . . . The only thing I wonder about, looking back, is just exactly what was being said to (the players) and who was saying it to them.

That seems to be a thinly veiled shot at McCallum, maybe, and is mighty interesting when placed beside Tom Crean's recent columns about the alleged "orchestration" of Eli Holman's transfer to Detroit, where McCallum now is head coach. Ray seems to have done quite a bit of damage to his reputation during his last few weeks in his home state. Perhaps some media outlet, say, the state's largest newspaper or its intrepid IU beat writer, could do some investigative journalism on this issue. Nah.

That brings me to the next article, a Bob Kravitz column entitled "Somehow Greenspan still has job at IU." It's a typical Kravitz column: a few decent points buried in smarminess and cheap shots. Still, he says this, just in passing:

Now, were former school president Adam Herbert and trustee Jeff Cohen the people who most strongly supported Sampson's hiring? Sure.

Jeff Cohen? Don't know him. Frankly, I've been waiting for weeks for the Star or some other media outlet to really dig in and shed some light on the disastrous decision to hire Kelvin Sampson. I've done an archive search of the Indianapolis Star and can't seem to find any reporting on Cohen's advocacy for Sampson. Certainly, the Star has mentioned in passing the 2006 press conference statement that Cohen and Steve Ferguson (who disputes intimate involvement in the decision) spent hours on the process. But it's interesting that Kravitz mentions in passing what has not been reported by Terry "guided tour" Hutchens.