Y'all chuckled (and I bristled :roll: ) at Purdue fans complaining about Gordon going to IU... Here's an article from the South Bend Tribune, no less...talking about this issue and the opinions of other Big Ten coaches.
Interesting that Painter said he would have called Weber, but what would be the conversation? Would he not recruit Gordon if Weber didn't approve? Would it just be a heads up that Weber needed to shore up his relationship with Gordon? It seems like the gentlemanly thing to do, not sure it would change anything. Weber would probably still be pissed that Gordon didn't honor his verbal, maybe not so much at Painter (or Sampson) though.
Three points: 1) I am not a Kelvin Sampson apologist. I don't know any more about him than what I've read the past few months. 2) I read somewhere else that this does not hurt Weber's recruiting as much as it's being portrayed....that the opening left by Gordon's defection allows him to recruit a highly ranked HS guard out of Chicago for the same incoming class. 3) Based on the quote below from another article, it's probably best to wait until all the facts are in before throwing stones at the coach.
I quite agree, Sid... I think that maybe if it hadn't been Sampson, brand new to the B10 with some, uh, questions about his past recruiting, that it would not have been an issue. I didn't mean to make a big thing of it...only brought the whole thing up on that last thread because I had heard that there was some contraversy. Having said that, I think that Tom Izzo, Bruce Weber, and Matt Painter are pretty class guys, and they are going to mute any criticism that they might have.