Eric Gordon had one of the best individual seasons by a freshman in IU basketball history.
While he was in Bloomington for less than a calendar year, his ties to the school, from his recruitment, his performance for IU, and the drama surrounding the 2007-08 team, made it all unforgettable.
Gordon joined fellow Indiana natives last week on the Club 520 Podcast, including host and former Pike H.S., Wake Forest and NBA star Jeff Teague.
During the interview (language, not suitable for children) Gordon talked about his recruitment to Indiana and his lone season in Bloomington.
Gordon first verbally committed to Illinois in November of 2005 before having a change of heart and signing on with Indiana in October of 2006. In the intervening months, IU hired new head coach Kelvin Sampson, and he proceeded to recruit Gordon, much to the ire of Illini head coach Bruce Weber. That whole turn of events led to one of the more memorable regular season basketball games in IU history when the Hoosiers visited Illinois in February of 2008.
Gordon’s freshman year at IU was fully as advertised. The Indianapolis native averaged 20.9 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game and earned first team All-Big Ten honors. As a team Indiana started the season 24-4 and they were ranked in the top 10 — before the wheels came off in connection with the Sampson recruiting scandal and accusations of rampant drug abuse by other members of the team.
It came as no surprise that Gordon entered the NBA draft after his freshmen season at IU. The 6-foot-4 shooting guard was taken seventh overall by the Los Angeles Clippers.
Gordon added color to much of this in the interview:
ON INDIANA TRYING TO LAND HIM AND DERRICK ROSE AS A PACKAGE DEAL
“Me and D-Rose, we were supposed to go to the same college,” Gordon said. “It was either Illinois, maybe IU, maybe Memphis and we heard a lot of things in Illinois, what was going on there. But my heart was always in Indiana. I always wanted to play at IU. It all worked out in the end. I went to IU, he went to Memphis but I thought we were both going to go to IU at one point.”
“I always loved IU growing up. And I always knew I wasn’t going to go far. I wanted my parents and family to go to every game. So that was the main thing.”
JEFF TEAGUE SAYS KELVIN SAMPSON WANTED HIM, GORDON AND ROSE
“They (Indiana, Sampson) tried to put us in a three-guard lineup,” Teague said. “I remember Coach (Kelvin) Sampson called me and he was like ‘I’m getting you, I’m getting Derrick Rose, I’m getting Eric Gordon.’ I said why the f**k you think I’m going there. You can hang up this call. Yeah alright, Wake Forest here I come. I was like no way.
“He (Sampson) called me and I was like Eric’s going to Illinois, he was like ‘not on my f**ing watch,’ he literally said that. ‘I promise you that, y’all are not getting out of Indiana.’”
GORDON ON THE 2007-08 SEASON
“We had it rocking. We just went through so much adversity throughout that whole freshman year, because we were talented,” Gordon said. “We had D.J. White, Jordan Crawford coming off the bench. Armon Bassett, Jamarcus Ellis, Lance Stemler, we just had a lot of guys, I could name the whole team easily. But we did have a squad. I just hate it. I would have loved to have seen how far we could have went if they didn’t fire Sampson.
“It was a lot mentally, because as soon as Sampson got fired, the next day I see just four guys in the gym. And it was just weird, because I wanted to win but everybody was distraught because that team was so talented and we were so in with Sampson, it just kind of broke us apart.”
Gordon said he was diagnosed with a fractured wrist during the season but decided to keep playing.