Kelvin Sampson was fired after two years at Indiana for making impermissible phone calls to recruits, an infraction that has since been ruled permissible by the NCAA rules committee.

Sampson continued his coaching career with the Spurs, Bucks, and Rockets of the NBA and has come to appreciate the attention to detail required to coach at the professional level.

“NBA coaches make more decisions in a week than I would in a month” at the college level, Sampson said.

“I felt like I knew the college game,” Sampson added. “I always felt like I was pretty good at managing the college game. But I was blown away that first month I was in San Antonio with Pop and those guys.”

Sampson cited the difficulty of adjusting to an 82 game schedule.

“As soon as the game is over tonight, you have to let it go,” Sampson said. “I was never good at that in college. Here, you have to let it go. You've got a game tomorrow night, fly out to Los Angeles. Gotta prepare your team.”