I think it was the gals at the great 1980s show "The Facts Of Life" that said "You take the good...you take the bad....you take them both...and there you have".....Bobby Knight.
Bobby Knight is back in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1994...and with a less talented team than he’s had in years. Quite an interesting contrast as Indiana, the team he was ousted from, didn’t make the tournament at all.
But, with the nostalgia and good feelings...Knight took it upon himself to open up old wounds about his time in Indiana.
"I stayed at Indiana six years too long because of the administration. The administration handled a lot of things poorly. I was working for an athletic director [former IU AD Clarence Doninger] that didn't know his [expletive] from third base. I ended up staying because of the kids that I liked and the people I did like rather than focusing on the real negatives there."
"They created that for themselves. The guy that's coaching there [Mike Davis] is a guy that I told Pat [Knight, his son and assistant coach] we were going to replace at the end of the season. There's no way that I would have kept the guy any longer than that. [But] That's their [Indiana] problem."
Let's see....you are in the Sweet 16 again so you feel like it is a good time to bash Indiana who isn't in the tournament. Not to mention you bash Mike Davis who may lose his job in the coming days. Classy, Bobby. Classy.
Let it go, Coach Knight. It has been, what, four years?? You even said you left 6 years too late. It just didn't work out. Now, you are building a nice program in Texas Tech which, by the way, is about on par to what you were doing in those "6 years" you had at Indiana. Getting in the tournament with a less talented team on a 19-9 record and getting ousted in the first weekend. I mean, if I look at it right, those "6 years" you overstayed your welcome go back to that 1994 Sweet 16, right??
This just looks like a situation of kicking a dead horse. Indiana played a devil of a schedule this year. North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Michigan State were on Indiana's plate and they are all in the Sweet 16. They also had to play tourny teams Minnesota, Charlotte, Iowa and UConn. And they still were on the NCAA bubble heading into Championship Week. No one in the AD or new Coach Davis kissed your butt so you are a little bent. I guess that is what happens to a meglo-maniac!
Bobby Knight is a great coach...and in 2007 he will probably pass Dean Smith on the all time wins column. When I think of that...it makes me realize that there are more than one way to skin a cat. Smith was the nicest possible coach while Knight is more of a dictator. Fine...both ways apparantly worked. The only difference is that Smith has what Knight wants....a clean legacy with the love and butt-kissing he craves. I mean, no one will say a bad thing about Dean Smith on the Carolina campus. In fact, Guthridge, Doherty and Williams go/went to Coach Smith for advice all of the time...and his fingerprints remain on the program. Knight will retire with broken ties to Indiana and could very well burn the bridges in Texas before he is thru.
Either way....good luck against West Virginia.
1 comment:
Bobby Knight is a great recruiter and one of the best when it comes to coaching. He runs a clean program. His kids have some of the highest graduation rates in college basketball and they usually go on to have productive careers after basketball. The media mention how long it has been since he was in the final 16, but fail to mention the Indiana team that played in the championship game in 2002. Who do think recruited those kids and would they have been champions if he had been there?
Bobby is a tough, demanding task master--often as hard on himself as those around him. There is no question that he can be arrogant, intimidating and belligerent. He reminds me of some of my college professors whose courses were the best even though you dispised them at the time. He does not suffer fools lightly. Too often he held up for ridicule by media buffoons who are half the man he is. The irony is the media feeds on the color and intensity thet Bobby Knight brings to the game--they should send him a check. The media in this politcally correct age would rather sing the praises of a Temple or Cincinnati coach-- ethically challenged and using players that rarely graduate.
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