It’s been a bizarre past couple weeks in sports, what with the steroid hearings, the NFL’s reputation getting knocked around and a huge batch of 19-0 T-shirts going to needy children in Nicaragua instead of smarmy New England fans. Nothing, though, has been as surreal as watching the two faces of Kelvin Sampson: the coach who is leading a talented team with realistic aspirations of a deep tournament run, and the coach who is leading himself straight out of town with an inability to play by the rules. The whole “impermissible calls” thing seems pretty cut and dried. Sampson did it before, and he appears to have done it again. You can argue about the muddling clarity of NCAA rules (delve into these 453 pages at your own risk), but when you break the same rule twice, there is no margin for error. This will be no Clem Haskins-like delayed fall from grace. Writing from Bloomington, where Indiana had notched its second impressive Big Ten victory in the past week (this time snapping Purdue’s 11-game winning streak), ESPN’s Pat Forde reported last night that, indeed, Sampson appears headed for the opposite of a Glengarry Glen Ross situation. In this case, third prize isn’t, “you’re fired.” First prize is.

A source close to the unsettled coaching situation at Indiana University told ESPN.com on Tuesday that the school is looking at three options for handling Kelvin Sampson’s future at the school. The first and “by far the most likely,” according to the source, is that Sampson will be suspended this week for the purpose of future termination. The second is that the school and Sampson will reach an agreement in which the coach would accept a settlement and resign this week. The third is that the school will not take action against Sampson yet and might extend its ongoing investigation past the stated one-week period. That is a long shot, the source said.

It leads us to three questions:

1) Who looks worse here — Sampson for messing up again, or Indiana for bringing in a guy who was running from John Q. NCAA at Oklahoma?

2) What percentage of Division I men’s basketball and football programs do you think knowingly cheat when it comes to recruiting?

3) Is there any way Bob Knight winds up back at Indiana?

Fasola-link! The 10 smartest TV shows of all-time. If the b-ball doesn’t get the discussion going, this should. Um, where’s “The Simpsons?” Oh, right. Couldn’t beat out “Mad About You.”

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