No Reason to Lose to Anyone
Kansas State was next. This was a game that truly scared Knight. His team had played two emotionally draining games and now faced an opponent that everyone—including the players—would expect to beat without much trouble. Kansas State had talent. Not great talent, but good talent, certainly good enough to beat Indiana if the Hoosiers were flat. And there was good reason to believe they would be flat.
Knight began hammering on this theme Sunday morning. “This team will be better than Kentucky,” he said. “I mean that. They are good athletes and they aren’t spoiled assholes like Kentucky. To them, this will be a monumentally big game. You’re going to spend the next two days getting patted on the ass, being told how well you played at Kentucky, all that crap.
“Let me tell you something, boys. If you expect to be any kind of basketball team this year, you have to win this game. This game is the most important one we’ll play this month. I know you’ll be up to play Notre Dame and Kentucky and Louisville. But you have to get up to play these people, too. If you don’t, I guarantee you’ll get knocked right on your ass.”
Knight wasn’t exaggerating. The problem was that the players, the experienced ones anyway, had heard this speech before. For a coach, deciding what to tell your players about an opponent is never easy. If you play Kent State and say, “Hey, we should beat these guys easily,” then you take a chance on overconfidence. But if time and again you tell your team that the Kent States of the world are great teams, then when you tell your team that Kansas State is good—and it is good—you run the risk that the players will nod and think, “Yeah sure, Coach, they’re better than Kentucky. Right.”
Kansas State was not better than Kentucky. But in basketball, timing always plays a role in the outcome of a game. To Kansas State, this game was as emotional as Notre Dame and Kentucky had been to Indiana. Knight understood that. He worked the players twice on Sunday, emphasizing fundamentals.
“We gave away twenty points last night because we didn’t help on defense,” he said repeatedly. “Twenty points. If we follow the rules, we’re ahead 65-52 with five minutes left and we win easily. Boys, no one plays this game well. If you follow our rules, we’re going to beat all these teams. You people just don’t understand that you have to sweat blood out here to play. We haven’t had anyone here since Wittman, Kitchel, and those kids played who was willing to do that.”
Knight and his rules. One former player once said whimsically of Knight, “He’s not a man, he’s a set of rules.”
Written on a blackboard, the rules for playing basketball Knight-style are easy. Executing them is not. “Help-side defense” is a perfect example of this. The rule is simple: If you see an opponent on the other side of the court beat his man going to the basket, you must leave your man and help. The “help side” is the side opposite where the ball is, because that’s where one can get to the basket in time to help if someone is beaten.
To play good help-side defense, the move must become instinctive. A player can’t see a teammate lose his man and think, “Should I help?” He must react automatically, or he will be too late. Some players have this instinct, some acquire it from hours and hours of practice, but others never acquire it. Harris was having particular trouble with this because he was still thinking rather than reacting. By the time he was through thinking, he would arrive just in time to commit a foul. Eyl had done the same thing against Kentucky. This kind of mistake drove Knight insane, especially when he saw it on tape. To him, it was as fundamental as boxing out on a rebound. But players are taught to box out from the very first day they play basketball. Unless they play in a Knight-type system, they aren’t taught about help-side defense.
For a smart player, Knight’s system isn’t difficult to learn. But it requires thinking, and it requires reacting differently on almost every possession at both ends of the floor. On offense, all five players have to read the defense, not just the point guard. If one player makes the wrong cut, or sets the wrong screen, or fails to screen, the whole play breaks down. The same is true on defense: if one player fails to help, or fails to make a switch, or fails to get in a passing lane, the whole defense collapses.
Knight now found himself coaching a team that was very willing, but often not able, to execute what he wanted. If he had never coached a team that was willing and able, this might not have bothered him so much. But he had been spoiled. He kept thinking back to the mid-1970s. But this was the mid ’80s. Quinn Buckner and Scott May were nowhere in sight, and Kansas State would be a very tough game.
What was most surprising about the two days following the Kentucky game—other than the fact that the sun came out on Monday—was that Knight never once berated Alford. Knight not carrying a grudge is a little bit like George Burns not carrying a cigar. It is inevitable, just as inevitable, as Knight might put it, “as the sun coming up in the east.”
In fact, even though Knight repeatedly told the players on Sunday and Monday how tough this game would be, he was almost loose—by his standards. As the team walked to the field house on Monday night for its final walk-through—Kansas State was using Assembly Hall—Knight noticed Calloway and Felling walking together.
“Hey, Ricky,” Knight shouted, “you ever see a white guy with an Afro before?”
Calloway elbowed Felling. “He got you with that one, Coach.”
As Knight went through the Kansas State personnel one final time, he looked at the players and said, “What kind of a team do you want to be? That’s the question. You’ve got to come up with the answer.”
In the locker room, after the players had gone home, Knight worried once more. “I wonder,” he said, “how Alford will play.”
Knight knew that Alford had been the subject of nationwide sympathy the last three days. Almost no one agreed with the NCAA’s decision to suspend Alford; Knight was glad of that, and he agreed with the sentiment. He was furious with the NCAA. But he was also angry with Alford, and he was afraid Alford might end up feeling like a martyr. That may have been the reason for his tirade the next afternoon. Or maybe he had just been holding back for seventy-two hours and could do so no longer.
The players arrived at three for their final walk-through. Before they could get started, Knight took off on Alford.
“Alford, you really cost us that game on Saturday and I want you to know that I really resent it. I can’t forget it. I’m just out of patience with you. What you did was stupid. It wasn’t a mistake, it was just plain stupid. You’ve been told and f—— told and f—— retold, and you screwed up and cost us a game. I really have trouble forgetting that. This is a habit with you. You don’t listen, whether it’s defense or playing hard or this. I don’t know about anyone else in here but I resent it and it pisses me off. Because of you we lost to a chickenshit f—— operation. I won’t forget that.”
Knight never forgets. The message to Alford was clear: you owe us one. The message to the others was just as clear: forget what I said Saturday, Alford did have lots to do with the loss. The others had been granted absolution for the sin of losing to Kentucky. Alford still had some time left in purgatory.
Shortly after Knight’s diatribe, Henry Iba walked into the gym. He was in town for the week to visit Knight and spend some time with the team that he had gotten to know as Knight’s guest on their summer world tour. At eighty-one, Iba was still alert, could still tell a good story, and still liked to put down a Kahlua or two late at night.
Knight sat with Iba in the locker room before the game, recounting the previous week in rich detail from the Notre Dame victory through the calendar fiasco to the Rucker call on Robinson. He stood up to demonstrate how Harden had turned into Robinson.
“I saw it on television,” Iba said. “I thought it was too bad.”
No one argued. Knight went off to take his steam. “He’s a good boy,” Iba said. “I just wish losing didn’t hurt him so darn much.” He left to go talk to the players. When Iba was gone, Knight sent for Chuck Crabb, who did the public address announcements. He wanted Iba introduced to the crowd, and he wanted him introduced in a specific way. “The most legendary figure in the history of basketball,” Knight told Crabb. Knight wrote most of Crabb’s introductions when his friends came to town.
Kreigh Smith would start. The coaches had decided this on Sunday, but Smith didn’t find out until just before pregame meal. This was a prime example of how quickly things can change at Indiana: Smith had been a redshirt candidate before the Kent State game ten days earlier, and now he was a starter.
But as he warmed up before the game, Smith felt something pop in his knee. Bomba took a look at it. Could be nothing, he told Garl. Or it could be a serious injury. Garl reported to Knight inside the locker room. Knight rolled his eyes in disgust. “Can he play?”
“I don’t know.”
When the team came back inside, Knight took Smith into the hall. “Are you okay? Are you certain?” Smith would have answered yes if his leg had been broken. He wanted desperately to play. As it turned out, it didn’t matter whether he played or not. X-rays would later show a tear in the cartilage, Smith would need an operation, and he would end up as a redshirt anyway—a medical redshirt because of an injury. He played that night. He felt pain, but not unbearable pain, so he kept playing.
Unfortunately, Smith’s teammates all played as if they had bad knees. Knight’s fears had been legitimate. Indiana was flat, Kansas State wasn’t. The Wildcats had a twenty-four-year-old Army veteran named Norris Coleman on their team. Late in the season, Coleman, who is 6-8, would be ruled ineligible by the NCAA because of poor grades in high school, but on December 10 he was eligible and Andre Harris couldn’t guard him. By half time he had seventeen points, and Morgan had escaped the bench to try to guard him. He wasn’t doing much better than Harris, and Kansas State led 39-32.
The sound the players heard in the locker room was the roof, about to cave in on them. Knight was raging one moment, resigned the next. “It’s your team,” he said. “Your goddamn team. You wanna be horseshit, that’s fine with me. I won’t fight it. There’s no communication out there, no enthusiasm, nothing. You did exactly what I told you you would do. You went around and got patted on the back and everyone told you that you were great at Kentucky. Everyone felt sorry for Alford. Alford f—— up.
“I might as well have stood in here the last three days and talked to empty lockers because I would have gotten as much response. Andre, you are afraid of Coleman. You can’t play like that for us. You people sit in here and figure out what to do the second half.”
He walked into the hall, turned, and came right back in. “When are you people going to get this crap out of your system? I really believe that we’re gonna be terrible until we get rid of all you people. This just defies my ability to comprehend anything.”
In the hallway, Knight looked at the coaches and said, “I’d have bet the goddamn farm that this would happen tonight. Now, what should we do?”
They talked about benching Harris. No, give him another chance. Morgan would have to start for Smith. They needed his defense. They had been outrebounded 18–13. Calloway had finally played like a freshman. He had been awful. “Ricky doesn’t have it tonight,” Knight said. “Maybe we should try Brooks or Robinson.”
“I think Ricky will come around,” Felling said. Knight said nothing. But he stuck with Calloway.
Knight had little more to say before they went back out except this: “If you don’t get yourselves together and understand that this team can kick your ass, you’ll be down twenty in no time. And if that happens, we’re all gonna be in big trouble.”
They were down ten quickly. But Alford, who had only gotten off three shots, began to take over. He hit from twenty feet, then he set Thomas up inside for a three-point play. A moment later he pulled down a rebound and went the length of the court to cut the margin to 50-47. The dead crowd suddenly revived. Calloway cut it to one with 12:49 still remaining on a soft jumper from the corner. But Coleman hit twice, both times over Jadlow, who had come in for Harris early in the half.
Indiana got back to within one, Kansas State built the lead back to five. Three times, the Wildcats scored on the very cut Knight had warned about constantly before the game. But Thomas was coming on inside. He hit another three-point play, then got fouled and made two free throws. They hung close. Finally, Calloway pulled down a missed Morgan free throw, seemingly jumping over everyone in the building, and put the shot back. Indiana led 70-69 with 4:01 left. A moment later, Coleman proved human when he missed the front end of a one-and-one. Calloway drove the lane, got fouled, and made both foul shots. The lead was three. Kansas State never got any closer. The bullet had been dodged.
The heroes were Alford, Thomas, Calloway, and Felling—Felling had probably kept Calloway in the game, and he had responded with sixteen points, most of them in the crunch. Knight was still angry about the first half, but relieved about the result, and delighted with the comeback.
“You got in a hole because you had a terrible mental attitude,” he said. “That should never happen. But last year you would have quit and lost the game. You did a hell of a job coming back. Daryl, you really did a great job, and Todd Jadlow, you came off the bench and did the job when we had to have it on Coleman. You hung in and scrapped. That’s good. But remember, this was a lucky escape.”
The players knew. As the coaches went through the tapes late into the night, the players went to the nearby Big Wheel Restaurant for their late dinner. Pat Knight, as always, went along. And, as always, Pat Knight was loose, joking, having a good time. Harris, knowing he was in the doghouse now, finally snapped.
“What are you laughing about so much?” he yelled at Pat Knight.
“The way you play,” Pat Knight answered.
Winston Morgan almost gagged. No one else said a word. The team was now four and twenty-four.
In truth, they had come through the first tough stretch of the season in excellent shape. The wins over Notre Dame and Kansas State were gratifying, the loss to Kentucky frustrating but understandable. Most important, everyone could see that this team had potential. It could be what Knight wanted most from one of his teams: “Hard to beat.”
The weekend would bring to town the annual Indiana Classic, better known to the players as two absolute lock victories. Indiana never lost in the Classic. The Hoosiers had won every game they had played in it for thirteen years, and with Louisiana Tech, Texas Tech, and Alcorn State making up the field, that wasn’t likely to change this year.
Naturally, Knight was worried.
There was no reason to be. Indiana would win both games easily, beating Louisiana Tech Friday and Texas Tech in the final on Saturday. The weekend was hectic for Knight more because he was playing host to two dozen people than for any other reason. The Classic was more a social event than a basketball event. Friends of Knight’s came from far and wide each year for this weekend, figuring they would have much more fun coming to see two easy wins than coming to see a possible loss.
Iba had arrived Tuesday. By Friday afternoon about ten of Knight’s friends from Orrville were in town, including Dr. Donald Boop, Knight’s boyhood neighbor and one of his many older-brother figures. Eddie Gottlieb, an old friend, had flown in from Florida. Mickey Corcoran, one of Knight’s coaching gurus, had come in from New Jersey. And Tim Knight was home for Christmas vacation.
Knight’s problems that weekend had little to do with his team. It performed well in both games. But he did have problems.
On Friday, he and Corcoran were driving a brand-new car Knight had just acquired when they came across a road that had been flooded by two days of downpours. Knight tried to slog on through. No luck. The car stalled. For a moment, Knight thought he was stuck and would have to swim out. Finally, the car limped through the water, but then died. The computer system had been drowned. Knight had to knock on a stranger’s door to call for help. Needless to say, everyone who had gathered for the weekend had a field day with that story.
Friday night, after the easy victory over Louisiana Tech, Knight walked onto the floor at halftime of the second game to do a radio show. Three Big Ten officials were working that game. One of them was Tom Rucker. When Knight had finished the interview, he found himself seated fifteen feet behind where the officials were standing, waiting for the second half to begin.
“Hey, Rucker,” Knight yelled, “Have you figured out the difference between a block and a charge yet?”
All three officials smiled at Knight’s reference to the Kentucky game. “You think I’m kidding, don’t you,” Knight continued, now standing and walking towards Rucker. “Why don’t you do everybody a favor and just quit? You make everyone in the game look bad.”
The gym was almost empty, most of the fans having gone home after the Indiana game, and Knight’s words seemed to echo. He was past Rucker now, but looked back to get in a few more swipes. “It’s not funny, Rucker, the only thing funny about it is that you’re a goddamn joke.”
Back in his locker room, Knight smiled. “I really nailed him.” The last word—again. Knight and Rucker would meet again before the season was over. Knight knew that. But . . .
Indiana annihilated Texas Tech in the final, breaking the game open after a sloppy first half that nonetheless produced a nine-point lead. But before the game could end, Knight’s sense of honor got him into trouble.
Knight had been unhappy with the officials throughout the tournament. They were Mid-American Conference officials, and he hadn’t been pleased with them from the start. During most of the Texas Tech game, he practically begged for a technical foul. The officials, clearly intimidated, never gave him one. But with 4:06 left in the game and Indiana leading 69-47, the officials gave one to poor Gerald Meyers, the Texas Tech coach.
Knight was distressed and embarrassed. Meyers had not said or done half the things Knight had done and now, trailing by twenty-two points, he was given a technical—in Indiana’s tournament. First, Knight ordered Alford, who had automatically gone up to shoot the technical fouls, to back off. Instead, he had Steve Eyl, far and away Indiana’s worst foul shooter, take the shots. He missed both.
One minute later, Jadlow was called for a routine foul. Knight stormed onto the court, running to the opposite foul line, acting berserk. He was going to get a technical if it was the last thing he ever did. For his efforts, he received two technicals. The crowd hooted. To them, Knight was going berserk with a twenty-point lead in a game that was already over.
Knight was doing what he thought was right. He felt obligated to get a technical and he knew that as long as he stayed in the coaching box—the area right in front of the bench—he wasn’t going to get one. He had already called one official “a chickenshit mother—” and not received one. By charging onto the court, Knight gave the officials no choice. He had done this before in a similar situation. It was the right thing to do in his mind. He wanted everyone to know that the officials were awful.
Knight also knew that most people would not see the incident this way. They would see it as another example of Knight going over the edge. In this case, they would be completely wrong. Knight knew just what he was doing. Even so, he hated behaving this way in front of Iba. When he walked into the coaches’ locker room after the game, Iba was waiting. “Coach, I just feel so bad about what happened, . . .” Knight began.
“Don’t say another word,” Iba said, holding a hand up to brake Knight. “I know what you were doing, Bob. You did just fine.”
Knight sighed and sat down heavily. When he is depressed about something he looks about 100 years old. That was the way he looked now. “I really don’t want these things to happen,” he said, thinking out loud again. ’I keep telling myself not to let them get to me and then they do. I mean it’s our tournament, the game is over, and the gutless sonofabitch calls a technical on Gerald. It just isn’t right.”
Knight was still bothered by the incident when he walked into the post-tournament party. All his buddies from Orrville were there along with the coaches from Indiana and the other three schools. This was an annual event. One person who had looked forward to the party was Murry Bartow—until he had mentioned to Knight how much his wife was looking forward to the party. That was when Bartow learned that his wife shouldn’t be looking forward to the party, since no women need apply. Men only.
“I’m taking her a doggy bag,” Bartow said glumly, shoving some barbequed ribs onto a plate.
Knight’s sexism is no secret. In fact, he often wears it like a badge of honor. The women in his life have very defined roles: Nancy Knight has been a wife in the most traditional sense—mother, cook, housekeeper, fan of the husband’s basketball team. Knight has two secretaries whom he treats with great respect at all times. As secretaries. Buzz Kurpius, the academic counselor for the players, is someone Knight feels comfortable with and often tells jokes to.
One day in practice Knight used the word “piece.” “You know what a piece is, don’t you, Buzz?” Knight said. “All women do.”
This was Knight’s way of treating Kurpius as a near equal. But most women didn’t merit such treatment. Knight was always polite to them, curbed his language around them, and had little use for them in a social setting. When he wanted to relax, he wanted to be around men. He didn’t feel he could be himself with women around.
Mike Krzyzewski, who had three daughters, often thought it would have been very healthy for Knight to have had a daughter. His sons were not so sure. “I think if I had come out a girl he would have shoved me back inside,” Pat Knight often said.
An exaggeration. Maybe.
Knight didn’t stay at the party that long. The team was now 5-1. But Louisville was next. The game would be tough enough—especially at Louisville—under ideal circumstances. But the players were beginning their one-week exam period on Monday. This meant shortened practices, players arriving late and leaving early, and a generally distracted atmosphere. Knight blamed himself for this. “I never should schedule a game like this, especially on the road, during exams,” he said on his radio show Monday night, a rare public admission of a mistake. “We’ll just go down there and do the best we can.”
Louisville, as it was to prove in March by winning the national championship, had as much talent as anyone in the country. No one, including Knight, quite understood how Denny Crum managed to amass so much talent year in and year out. But he and Crum had always had a good relationship if not a close one. They even ate dinner together the night before the game.
The road atmosphere in Louisville could not have been more different than Kentucky. Before the game, Knight and Alford were presented with plaques from the school as a tribute to their Olympic involvement. Knight received a standing ovation, a marked contrast to the ugliness of Lexington.
Coaching a game in old Freedom Hall took Knight back a lot of years. As a sophomore at Ohio State he had played one of his best games in the NCAA regional semifinals against Western Kentucky. “I still remember [Coach] Fred Taylor putting his arm around me after we beat Kentucky in the final and saying, ’Bobby, we wouldn’t be here right now if not for you,’ ” Knight said. That was 1960. Five years later, as a rookie coach at Army, he brought his team to Freedom Hall to play Louisville. “Got hammered 84-56,” Knight said, remembering the exact score as he almost always did.
On the morning of the game Knight and Hammel walked from the hotel into the arena for the game-day shootaround. The walk was only about half a mile, but the temperature was about zero and the winds made it feel even colder. Knight never blinked. He is an inveterate walker, regardless of temperature on the road. And when Knight walks, Hammel walks. It isn’t a matter of choice. Knight says, “Come on, Hamso, let’s go,” and they are off.
Knight and Hammel spend so much time together on road trips that the players over the years have taken to calling Hammel “the shadow.” What the players don’t know is that this is more Knight’s idea than Hammel’s. Knight doesn’t like spending time alone, and over the years he has become extremely comfortable with Hammel. He trusts him, and Hammel knows his moods well enough that if Knight doesn’t say a word during an hour-long walk, Hammel knows to stay silent. When Knight feels like talking, he will talk.
On this frigid morning, Knight was in a nostalgic mood. “Hamso, do you realize I made this exact same walk on a game morning twenty years ago?” he said. “I haven’t come very far since then, have I?”
Because Knight calls Hammel “Hamso,” everyone else in the Indiana party calls him that, too. Everyone else in the world calls him Bob, but on the Indiana basketball team there is only one Bob—the one everybody calls Coach.
When Knight coached at Army, he was known to one and all in the East as Bobby. His mother calls him Bobby. Most of the people in Orrville still call him Bobby, and Fred Taylor calls him Bobby. But Knight has always signed his name Bob and identified himself as Bob. When he first arrived at Indiana, Hammel asked him which he preferred in print. Knight said it didn’t matter to him. “Well, then, let’s go with Bob,” Hammel said, “because I hated being called Bobby as a kid.” That was fine with Knight. That is what he is called throughout the Midwest—Bob. But he answers to Bobby just as easily. The only person who ever refers to him as Robert is his wife.
The game that night was markedly different from the one Knight had coached in twenty years earlier. Once again, Indiana proved that it could compete with very good teams. The game was much like the Kentucky game, close all the way. Neither team led by more than four points during the first half. Harris was a different player—hanging in with the Louisville leapers on the boards, playing with intelligence. But Daryl Thomas, who had scored twenty-nine points against Texas Tech and really looked to be coming into his own, was having trouble. At halftime he had four points, zero rebounds, and three fouls. Harris also had three fouls, but when he came out with 1:38 left, Knight walked down the bench and put his arm around him. “Keep your head up, you’re doing a hell of a job.”
It was the first time that Harris had earned praise since the Czech game. At halftime it was 34-32, Indiana, after Alford shocked everyone by missing a free throw with four seconds left. Still, Knight was pleased. Standing in the shower room that he and the coaches used for their meeting, he said firmly, “There’s no doubt in my mind that we can play with anybody.”
They played with Louisville until the final seconds. In the end, the foul trouble that plagued Harris and Thomas did them in. And at the finish Louisville guard Milt Wagner, a fifth-year player who had been out the entire 1985 season with a broken foot, found his missing shooting touch. He finished the game with twenty-two points—five less than Alford—but made seven of eight free throws down the stretch. The last two came with Louisville leading 62-61 and ten seconds left.
Knight called time to try to rattle Wagner and to set up a play in case he missed. “I think he’s going to miss,” he told the players, “and we’re going to hit a shot and win the game.”
Wagner didn’t miss. Louisville won 65-63. But the point had been made. Playing an excellent team on the road, the chance had been there. Knight was encouraged. There was no crying, no gnashing of teeth. They had played well and so had Louisville. Games like this were excellent preparation for the Big Ten. “We’ve got Iowa State in three days,” Knight said. “Let’s not have a repeat of Kansas State.”
When Klingelhoffer came to get Knight for the press conference, the players were almost dressed. Crum had taken a long time. “I can’t go,” Knight said. “I’ve got to get these kids home. Some of them have exams in the morning. Explain that to them.” Klingelhoffer asked Knight for a couple of comments about the game he could take back. Knight gave them to him.
While Klingelhoffer went to type these quotes, he sent his assistant, Eric Ruden, to tell Louisville SID Kenny Klein that Knight wouldn’t be coming to the press conference because the players had to get home for exams in the morning. Klein then announced only that Knight would not be coming to the press conference.
Knight had done himself in again. His reason for skipping the press conference was legitimate. But even so, if he had taken ten minutes to go in and answer a few questions, it would have made little difference to the players and would have avoided any problems. Even if his explanation had been properly relayed through channels, the fact remained that because of his past, Knight was always going to be guilty until proved innocent in the eyes of most reporters. Was this fair? No. But it was the same way Knight viewed most reporters.
The newspaper reports the next day said that Knight had refused to attend the postgame press conference. Technically, this was accurate, though incomplete. When Knight saw this reference in a game story in The Indianapolis Star, he exploded. He called Klingelhoffer down to the locker room. Klingelhoffer explained what had happened. Knight was, to put it mildly, unhappy with Klingelhoffer. “I get enough crap from those people without this kind of thing happening,” he said. “Jesus Christ, is that fair, Kit?”
Klingelhoffer escaped. Knight walked into the bathroom. For a moment there was silence. Then he began kicking the bathroom stall. He stormed back into the room, kicked the phone sitting on the floor and the garbage can in the corner. “I just can’t take it anymore,” he yelled.
To Knight, this was a classic case of being unfairly made out as a villain. This is an image Knight has appeared to court for years but, in fact, he hates it. He hadn’t been upset after the game; he had been pleased with the way the team had played. But now, it looked to the public like old Bobby was sulking over a loss again. He blamed Klingelhoffer, and he blamed the Star reporter, Bill Benner. But Benner hadn’t reported the incident any differently than other writers, Knight had seen only his story.
Once, Knight probably would have stayed angry over such an incident for several days. But he has come a long way in letting go of incidents that involve the media. Losses he cannot let go of, but he has consciously worked at caring less about what is said and written about him. He still gets angry, as the Louisville incident illustrates, and will brood at times about what he sees as mistreatment, but on a scale of one to ten he has improved from a solid one to perhaps a five over the years.
That is progress. Because of that progress, the two days of practice between Louisville and Iowa State were brisk, sharp, and almost temper-free. The players were still in exams on Thursday and Friday, and Knight didn’t want to add any pressure. Because of the exam schedule, he worried that they might be flat for Iowa State, a good team that had already beaten Iowa and Michigan State earlier in the month. Iowa State was coached by Johnny Orr, a longtime Knight buddy. Knight had respected Orr when he coached at Michigan, and he thought Orr had his most talented team in six years at Iowa State.
Knight was correct, as Iowa State would prove by reaching the NCAA round of sixteen, but if truth be told he had absolutely no reason to worry about this game. With exams over Friday, the players were scheduled to go home to see their families after the game on Saturday—unless they played poorly and put Knight in such a bad mood that he decided not to send them home. Or, he might decide to bring them back on Christmas Eve—that had happened in the past. The players wanted none of this. They wanted to win and go home. When they walked into pregame meal on Saturday morning, a message was waiting on their plates: “You have to earn this Christmas present.” Knight knew how to appeal to basic desires.
The score was 17–4 before Iowa State knew what had happened. By halftime it was 44–26. Knight started Robinson on Iowa State’s star guard Jeff Hornacek, ordering him to stay with Hornacek all over the floor, not to switch, not to look for help. He wanted Robinson to use his quickness to deny Hornacek the basketball. This was an ideal assignment for Robinson because he only had to concentrate on one thing: Hornacek.
Hornacek was one for six at halftime, and not a factor. Nothing changed in the second half. Iowa State crept briefly to within fourteen, but Thomas (thirty-one points) and Alford (twenty-four) pounded away, and the lead grew to 74–49 with 7:54 to play. Indiana was making a good team look helpless. Even with Calloway and Harris shooting a combined five for fifteen, Iowa State had no chance. The only hitches in the whole act came late. Jadlow got careless with a couple of rebounds, allowing Iowa State to get to within seventeen. Knight called time to berate Jadlow for careless play. And in the final minute, someone in the stands noticed that Harris had his uniform shirt hanging out. “Tuck your shirt in, Andre,” he yelled. Harris reached for the shirt as everyone laughed. Knight did not. He sent Brooks over to tell Harris to get the damn shirt in. He did.
The final was 86-65. Merry Christmas.
As the players charged into the locker room, Royce Waltman looked at the other coaches and said, “Now that’s the way to strike a blow for liberty.” That’s exactly what they had done. They had four days of liberty. Normally, Knight would have asked them to be back Christmas morning because they had a game on December 27. But he was so pleased he gave them the morning off, meaning most of them could spend it with their families.
“Come back ready to go, though,” he warned. “When we get back, Michigan will only be a week away.” Michigan. The Big Ten. The players knew they had better enjoy Christmas while they could.
Knight was almost obsessed with Michigan. The Wolverines had won the Big Ten championship in a runaway the year before, winning their last fifteen league games. One of their losses had been in the opener, at Ann Arbor, when Indiana destroyed them by twenty-five points. That had been before the collapse at Indiana. Now, Michigan had everyone back from that team and was a heavy favorite to win the league again.
But Michigan was more than just the league favorite. The Wolverines were coached by Bill Frieder, a longtime Orr assistant coach who had been given the job in 1980 when Orr left for Iowa State. Once, Knight and Frieder had been friends. Frieder was one of those young coaches who looked up to Knight, asked him for advice, and treated him like one of the game’s statesmen.
In 1981, just prior to the start of the national championship game, Frieder had gone to the locker room to wish Knight luck. A photographer had taken a picture of them standing together in the hallway outside the locker room. For Frieder’s fortieth birthday, Knight had the picture laminated and signed it, “To Bill, who no doubt will be on the other side of this picture (playing for the national championship) some day soon.” Frieder was so proud of the picture he hung it right next to the desk in his office.
In January 1983, when Indiana blew Michigan out in Bloomington, Knight went into the Michigan locker room to tell the players that if they stuck to what they were doing and listened to Coach Frieder, they would be a fine team someday. That freshman group was now the senior nucleus of the current team.
It all changed between Frieder and Knight in 1984. The day before an Indiana-Michigan game in Ann Arbor, Frieder came to see Knight at practice. He had a problem. The local writer in Ann Arbor was really on his case about changing lineups. The writer maintained that Frieder was indecisive and this was proof. Would Knight talk to him?
This was quite a favor to ask, especially the day before a game. But Knight almost never says no to a friend, and Frieder was a friend. When the writer came to see Knight after practice, Knight said to him, “Tell me, do you think I’m a good coach?”
“I think you’re the best.”
“Well, let me tell you something. There probably isn’t a coach in America who changes lineups more than me. It doesn’t mean you’re indecisive. It means you’re still looking for a combination that works. That’s what Bill is doing here.”
The next day, the writer’s column was, more or less, an apology to Frieder for questioning him. If Bob Knight said it was right, then it was right.
That day during the game, Knight got entangled in a messy argument with the officials near the end of the first half. He was given a technical. He continued screaming. As he did, he heard Frieder a few feet away yelling, “Give him another technical!” When the half ended, Knight went after Frieder in the runway leading to the locker rooms. He was enraged. Knight doesn’t think any coach should get involved in another coach’s argument. But for Frieder to do this one day after he had asked for—and received—the kind of favor Knight had done for him was inexcusable. In no uncertain terms, Knight told Frieder just that.
Frieder maintains that he didn’t realize Knight had been given a technical and he was trying to tell the officials that what Knight was saying merited one. Either way, he was involved when Knight thought he had no right to be involved. As far as Knight was concerned, that was the end of the friendship. Apologies were a waste of time. Frieder took down the picture next to his desk. “I didn’t think Bob would want me to have it there,” he said.
Two years later, Frieder regretted the incident and still hoped that someday Knight would forgive him. It would, at the very least, take a while.
Before Michigan came to town there was the little matter of playing the post-Christmas Hoosier Classic. This was a four-year-old Indianapolis version of the Indiana Classic. Because I.U. is so popular that it can sell 15,000 seats in Indianapolis regardless of the opponent, this tournament had been invented. It meant Indiana never had to play away at Christmas, and all the revenues from the two tournaments were profit because expenses in Bloomington were zero and in Indianapolis near zero.
The opposition in this tournament would be Idaho, Mississippi State, and San Jose State. Even Knight had to concede that Indiana would be hard-pressed to lose to any of these teams. Because of this, Knight did something that no one could ever remember him doing in the past: he looked beyond an opponent. The Christmas day practice and the two the following day were spiced with constant talk about Michigan.
“I am not interested in beating Idaho or San Jose State or Mississippi State,” Knight said during practice. “I’m interested in beating Michigan.”
Hammel, hearing this, was shocked. So was Tim Knight. Neither could ever remember hearing Knight talk to his team about a game before it was the next game on the schedule. “I worry,” Hammel said, “about putting so much into one game.”
They didn’t put much into the Idaho game. Perhaps the first half of this game was proof of the Knight theory that you have to build up every opponent. Indiana was sloppy, sleepy, not into the game. A 5–9 guard for Idaho named Chris Carey hit his first five shots. Idaho actually led, 25–23, with 4:49 left in the half before Indiana came back to lead 37–33 at the break.
“I am so depressed I don’t even want to talk,” Knight told the players. “I’m through fighting you kids. I can’t do it anymore.” Then he cleared the locker room: assistant coaches, doctors, trainers, managers. For four minutes it was just Knight and the players. He said nothing he hadn’t said before but the message was clear—and loud.
Knight stalked onto the floor still angry. He called Crabb over to the bench. One of Crabb’s jobs is to supervise Indiana’s cheerleaders. “This crowd is dead, absolutely dead,” Knight told Crabb. “I don’t want these people [the cheerleaders] out here just to be seen. I want them doing something. I want them to get these people in the damn game. If they don’t do it, they won’t be here tomorrow night.”
Crabb understood. He also understood that the world’s greatest cheerleaders would have had trouble getting a response to the first half that had just been played. But he wasn’t about to point that out to Knight.
Fortunately for Crabb, the cheerleaders, and everyone else inside the city limits, the players responded to their halftime whipping. After six more minutes of struggle they scored ten straight points to turn a 47–41 lead into a 57-41 lead in a two-minute stretch. The lead just kept building from there and the final was 87–57.
Calloway, who had struggled before Christmas, had twenty-six points, and Alford had twenty-four. But the real hero was Delray Brooks, who came off the bench to spark everyone. Brooks had only four points, but he had seven assists and outhustled everyone on the floor. He earned himself a start with his play and got a standing ovation at the end of the game. The second-half margin was 50–24. Everyone breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The opponent in the final would be Mississippi State. Knight worried about their quickness, but there was no need. It was 46–22 by half time, and the final was 74–43. Brooks and Jadlow both got starts. Jadlow finished with ten points and eight rebounds and had Knight raving about his toughness.
The whole day was a high for Knight. That afternoon, he and Kohn Smith walked across the street from the hotel to a Bob Evans restaurant. Knight loves to eat in Bob Evans. Whenever Indiana stays in a hotel near a Bob Evans, Knight is apt to eat there three times a day, the last time usually at two or three in the morning. Many a Knight diet has gone aglimmering at Bob Evans over apple pie and ice cream in the wee hours on the morning of a game.
Knight was sipping an iced tea when a boy of about twelve gingerly approached him. Behind him were two older men; one appeared to be his older brother, the other his father. Knight is eminently approachable in these situations, patient and polite. He always signs an autograph when asked politely.
The young man’s name was Garland Loper. Shyly, he explained that his father and older brother were deaf-mutes and would like to meet Coach Knight. Garland was the family spokesman. When the other two wanted to say something they signed it to him and he spoke it to the world. Knight was completely charmed by Garland Loper. He talked for several minutes to the three Lopers, gave them his autograph, and asked Garland for his address. When Knight returned to school, he had Indiana shirts, brochures, and an autographed team picture sent to the Lopers. Then he called and invited the whole family to come to a game.
“Sometimes,” he said softly, leaving the restaurant, “you see what it really means to have guts.”
Several hours later, Landon Turner wheeled himself into the Indiana locker room. Turner had graduated the previous spring, and Knight had helped get him a job working in minority counseling at the Indiana-Indianapolis campus. Turner said hello all around the room. When Knight walked in, he looked at the gaudy sneakers Turner was wearing. They were Air-Jordans, the Michael Jordan-sponsored shoe that had become the rage among kids.
“Where did you get those?”
“Mike Jordan sent them to me . . . . Airmail.”
“Yeah, well they make you look like a fag.”
A moment later, after the team had gone out to warm up and the locker room was virtually empty, Knight walked over to shake hands with Turner. “Your grip, Landon, it’s really getting stronger.” Turner beamed. The two men talked for several minutes, Knight’s arm around Turner the whole time. As they left the locker room, Knight asked Turner if he was coming to Bloomington for the Michigan game. “I’m going to try, Coach,” Turner said.
They had reached the door now. People were milling around outside, finding their way to seats. Knight changed his tone as soon as they were outside. “You better get your fat ass down there or you’re going to be in trouble. You got it?”
Turner grinned. “I got it, Coach.”
He wheeled off to find his seat. Knight went off to watch his team rout Mississippi State. When it was over, there wasn’t much he could say. “I don’t think we can play much better than that,” he told the coaches. “They’ve done just about everything we’ve asked of them so far.”
So far. One year ago the record had been 8–2 going into Big Ten play. Now, it was 8–2. There had been hope then. There was hope now. But there was also a hint of fear. No one could even bear the thought of déjà vu. In three days, 1985 would be over. If 1986 was anything like 1985 had been, there might not be a 1987.