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In evaluating the possible Steve Alford-bolts-to-Indiana scenario, let's begin with a three-part hypothesis:

1. Indiana President Michael McRobbie will pick integrity over wins, and send Kelvin Sampson and his cell phone packing.

2. The Hoosiers will be wise enough to go after Alford with open arms and open wallets.

3. Alford will be homesick enough to drop the Lobos like a hot rock and go home like Ulysses returning to Ithaca.

You can't help but look at an Alford/Indiana match and see sweet things. This is Lucy and Ricky, Hope and Crosby, Doris Day and Rock Hudson.

It's a marriage with the potential of Krzyzewski/Duke or Rupp/Kentucky.

If you are Indiana, here is what you are looking at:

A young, flashy coach with charm, sophistication, media savvy and poise, who knows how to recruit the heck out of the country and coach the heck out of a basketball team.

He also is Indiana - to the roots, to the core, to the heartland. He is kin. Hoosier All-American. NCAA champ. Indiana All-American boy all grown up.

This probably is a truth, too: Alford is a better basketball coach today than Indiana legend Bobby Knight. Alford is not restricted by old-fashioned idealisms about man-to-man defense. He relates to kids better. He is more flexible.

And Alford manages a game like chef Emeril Lagasse manages an omelet over a low flame.

Alford is 21st century and Italian suits. Knight is rocking chair and old sweaters.

If the Gods watching over Indiana basketball could mold a perfect Hoosier coach, it would be Alford with maybe a dash less snobbery. Let Alford keep the ego. The Hoosiers won't mind. He's one of them. And swagger really isn't such a bad thing for a coach to have.

If you are Alford, this is what you are looking at:

Going home.

Returning to Ithaca.

Watching your kids grow up around Indiana basketball instead of New Mexico basketball. There is a difference.

Living close to parents, relatives and friends on soil you found between your toes as a kid.

Alford grew up smelling Indiana corn and Indiana locker rooms. He had a nose for the basket, too. He was Indiana's Mr. Basketball as a senior at New Castle Chrysler High (1983).

Alford is a combination of Rick Pitino and Knight. It's a good mix. He has the slick and the flash to wow boosters and fans. He believes fundamental basketball combined with honest effort will win games. He works hard. He coaches hard. He has nice hair.

Alford is too savvy to talk about his possible return because he is currently a Lobo and the Indiana job isn't open yet. President McRobbie has yet to push integrity into the W column at Indiana. He might not have the guts to do it.

The Hoosiers sold their basketball soul by bringing in the arrogant Sampson, who had already been slapped down by the NCAA at Oklahoma.

You would think Sampson would be smart enough not to repeat his cheating ways at Indiana, simply because there is no need to cheat.

At Indiana, you don't have to reach into the cookie jar. You just open the doors to the gym. Arrogance and hypocrisy, thy latest victim is Sampson.

Alford's record with the NCAA is clean. He cut his D-I teeth in eight seasons at Iowa. He has taken an average University of New Mexico team and made it into something special, something better than what it really is.

Indiana should be taking note and drooling over the opportunity dumped into its Midwestern lap.

More to the point, the Hoosiers should realize there is no basketball coach in America more suited for this job, no coach more capable of becoming an instant symbol of Indiana basketball and Hoosier values.

It's possible Alford might have a loyalty to his Lobos and to Paul Krebs, UNM's visionary director of athletics, that exceeds the pull to go home. But probably not. There is kin in Indiana. There are national championships in Indiana.

UNM will be just fine in the hands of Alford's assistant Craig Neal, the logical replacement for Alford. Neal might even talk a few Alford recruits into staying at UNM.

If Alford dumped UNM after one season for any other school, there would be good and fair reason to resent the desertion and the man. But Indiana is different for Alford.

It's like Lassie, E.T. or Dorothy going home. It's natural. It's what it should be.

You can almost envision Alford in his Lobos office clicking his heels and hoping for a little magic that will transport him past Kansas, over Iowa and deep into the Indiana heartland.

It might happen. It should happen. It's Alford's birthright. It's his destiny. For Indiana, it's time to bring E.T. home.