When You Lie Down With Dogs...

Coach Kelvin Sampson arrived at Indiana University with a cloud of NCAA violations hanging over him for making illegal phone calls to recruits.

He was hit with similar accusations earlier this year, but escaped punishment when one of his assistant coaches fell on his sword.

With this as background, the news that Sampson and the Hoosiers have been cited for five major NCAA violations related to recruiting and associated cover-ups. You can read the official notice from the NCAA here, in all its legalese glory.

Indiana has 90 days to respond to the allegations, which means any punishment from the NCAA won't take effect this season. The university may decide to punish itself in the meantime, as a means of showing the NCAA that it is serious about cleaning up its act. Several other schools have used this tactic in the past -- most notably, the University of Michigan -- with varying degrees of success. Major violations carry potential penalties such as bans on post-season participation, loss of scholarships and recruiting restrictions.

It remains to be seen what these new allegations will mean for Kelvin Sampson's career at Indiana and beyond, but it certainly doesn't look promising.

Maybe IU would be interested in contacting a certain big-name coach that just became available? He's a bit controversial... but he runs a clean program.