March 24 - Spare Me The Knight-Time Stories

Its been more then a decade since Bobby Knight won two games in a single NCAA tourney, but to hear the national media tell it, the old fox hasn’t missed a step. That is this week’s story from a bunch of lazy and tired pundits who are all too eager to rekindle the legend of Bobby Knight. Let’s be honest folks, Knight and his Red Raiders won two games last weekend over unexceptional teams. First, he beat a UCLA team with a center on loan from the March of Dimes and then he beats a Gonzaga team that wins a tourney game as a favorite about as often as Mt. Saint Helen’s explodes. Is this anything to get excited about? Did Knight somehow shock the world? I don’t think so but to hear Knight’s enablers tell it, Bob’s Red Raiders pulled off something truly amazing last weekend. According to this camp, Knight just took a bunch of cripples and molded them into a group of giant killers. If I didn't know any better, I would think an after-school television special was in development starring Gary Coleman as Texas Tech guard Ron Ross, Tim Meadows as Jarius Jackson, and Ken "White Shadow" Howard playing Coach Knight.

Kidding aside, Bobby Knight’s star is shining brighter right now than it has in a dozen years and this is just how CBS and the rest of the media want it. Come tourney time every year, the media has little to market other than big name coaches, and in this case, Knight fits the bill. Make no mistake about it, Knight has accomplished very little in this tourney so far, but he is a name and as such, CBS and company will do everything in their power to put him front and center. That is why you aren’t hearing too much this week about the past ten years of Knight's life. After all, this is a guy who couldn’t drag a decent player to Indiana once Calbert Cheney and Alan Henderson left Bloomington in 1993. From that point until his ouster, Knight ran a barebones program that was devoid of any urban talent. He coached his ass off during that time and it is probably to Knight's credit that he took a few of those teams to the tourney. But that doesn’t erase the fact that Knight just couldn’t get players to play for him. As a result, he got fired for cause and ended up in some godforsaken town in west Texas. And that begs the question of why we are celebrating this guy as if he is a god? HE HASNT DONE ANYTHING SINCE A DEMOCRAT WAS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE! (Either has Joe Gibbs, but at least he has some Winston Cup victories under his belt since his last Super Bowl.) Despite this drought, the story on Knight is he is now a magician for taking a decrepit program to another level. Easy folks, you may hurt yourself dishing out all this bullshit. True, Texas Tech is a backwater program, but it has been to this point before. In fact, Texas Tech has been to this same spot more recently than Knight. If you don't believe me - look it up!

I am not here to bash Knight. I think he is an entertaining and intelligent guy who can certainly coach the game of basketball. But I could do without all the warm and fuzzy Knight stories. I could do without ESPN's Mike Greenburg telling me what a wonderful story it would be if Knight could get back to the Final Four. I can do without Knight being given an unchallenged platform to revise history and defend his performance over the past dozen years. And most importantly, I can do without Knight telling me what a great job he has done with this group of over-achievers. Such talk is nothing more than Knight masturbating his own ego. Knight is a Hall of Famer – there is no question about it. But let’s leave it at that. This isn’t a “great” story. In fact, it’s not even a story at all. The guy has won two games. That is it! Now he has a good shot at making it three in a row tonight against WVU, and at that point, I will concede that something is afoot. But until that time, lets tone it down a bit.

While Knight is getting a ton of adoration for turning around a dormant program, his adversary in tonight’s regional semifinal is getting almost none. Of course I am talking about West Virginia’s John Beilein who took over the Mountaineers following their dismal 2002 campaign. Lest you forget, West Virginia basketball was teetering on the brink of extinction three years ago. They had finished 1-15 in the Big East in 2002 and there was no hope in sight. In fact, it got so bad that West Virginian Bobby Huggins took a pass at the opportunity to take the helm after he visited Morgantown and saw the mess under the hood. Since no high-profile coaches would take the job, WVU turned to Beilein who was coaching just over the ridge at Richmond. Beilein came in to find the program as stripped as a 19th century Appalachian mine. He was left with nothing, but even without any talent, he managed to get his guys to play hard. In his first year at WVU, Beilein somehow managed to squeak out five conference wins and last year he won a deuce in the NIT. This year, his team came out of nowhere to make the NCAAs and last week, they pulled off the upset of the tournament by beating Wake Forest. This guy has truly accomplished a miracle at a place that was about as moribund as it gets. The media can laugh about a place like Lubbock all it wants, but Morgantown is no prize. This is of no concern to Beilein who has his team playing very good basketball right now. I am picking him to win tonight and give either Washington or Louisville a tough time on Saturday afternoon. If this guy can somehow make it to St. Louis, it will be a story worth printing.

The most absurd comment I heard this morning comes to us courtesy of ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla who was on the radio previewing tonight’s games. When asked about the Illinois game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Fran mentioned that he thought WM could hang tough especially since they had already played well against Big-10 teams this year His evidence was a WM win over Purdue, and based on this, Fran claimed he thought WM would have finished somewhere in the middle of the Big-10. This may be the case, but a win over Purdue is not a relevant piece of evidence and I would have declared it inadmissable. Purdue was simply atrocious this year and Fran should not have used this game as a barometer of anything. If anything, Fran should have pointed to the fact that WM lost to in-state rival Wisconsin by 29. I do not see WM giving Illinois too much trouble tonight. They will try to press Illinois, but the Illini’s great backcourt should be able to dice ‘em up. I don't see Deron Williams or Dee Brown strugglig agaisnt pressure and its possible that early success will force WM coach Bruce Pearl to back off. WM has made a lot of threes in their two wins so far and if they keep hitting long-balls, they could keep it close, but I don’t see Illinois losing this game.

Regardless of who wins, I am tired of hearing any more stories aboout how Illinois fans are pissed off at what WM coach Bruce Pearl did to Illinois when he was an assistant at Iowa. For those in need of a history lesson, Pearl turned Illinois in during the late 80's for illegally recruiting a Chicago phenom named Deon Thomas. Pearl is referred to as a "rat" down in Champaigne and the nickname is probably well deserved. But I don't want to hear how tonight's game is payback. That incident happened a long time ago and well before any "twenty somethings" were fans of the Illini. What Pearl did was wrong, but it is not as if Illinois didn't cheat. Lou Henson's staff improperly recruited Thomas and they got busted - end of story.

The other two games tonight will be delicious, and in particular, I am really looking forward to the Louisville-Washington matchup. I know I picked Louisville to go to the Final Four, but I am switching picks for tonight’s game. I really like this Washington team. They have a ton of interchangeable guys and they can be real hard to stop when they attack the offensive glass. This is particularly true with their guards who are relentless. This can lead to some easy transition baskets for their opponents, but it can also cause havoc, especially for those who have trouble cleaning their own glass. I like Louisville plenty, but I think Washington gets this done in a game played in the 80s. As for Ok State and Arizona, I am staying with the Cowboys, but this is a close call. The Cowboys were very mediocre last week and star forward Joey Graham has been awful of late. They need him tonight or it will be good night for the team I picked to win it all. Although concerned, I still think the cowboys have enough to move on although I do like Lute Olsen in these kinds of situations. Olsen is a lot like Jim Boeheim in this regard – they both are real dangerous as the underdog.