Kelvin Sampson is 52. But the Indiana men’s basketball coach dated himself and a percentage of his listening audience Monday on the Big Ten teleconference. Addressing the impact that material things, like new practice facilities, can have on Generation X prospects, Sampson pointed out, “Every kid we’re recruiting today was born in 1990. A lot of the things that we appreciate about tradition and history, for these kids” — pause and sigh — “for a lot of these kids, tradition is an Xbox, or 100-inch flat screen.”
Each of the league’s coaches had his own spin on this particular theme question, from Purdue’s Matt Painter (“When recruits come in, that’s one of the first questions: ‘Where’s your practice facility?’ “) to the University of Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan (“With their AAU teams, when they’re 13, 14 and 15 years old, they’re being told that they can get better uniforms, more shoes, travel better … so these young men are not making decisions in college for the first time.”) to Michigan State’s Tom Izzo (“If you’re picking up a nice date in college and you come in a Chevette or a Corvette, who’s she going to want to go with?”).