Bobby Knight’s very presence engenders volatility. There is no surprise, then, that in a year without Knight, college basketball experienced an uncharacteristic explosion of harmony when, for the first time in years, the team most everyone expected, Duke, rose to the national title.
Now, Knight is back, and the subsequent rain of bombastic havoc has yet to follow.
One area of rupture for which Knight observers can reasonably award him responsibility is the transformations of fortunes for Texas Tech basketball. Knight took control of the team, his first job since coaching Indiana for 29 years, and instantly turned it from a 3-13 Big 12 pantywaist into a contender in one of America’s most vicious conferences.
“I’ve never seen a change like what’s gone on at Texas Tech,” said ESPN’s Tom Penders, a former coach at University of Texas. “It’s gone from like a funeral parlor to Mardi gras.”
The fans have reason to be excited. At 15-3 overall, the Red Raiders are guaranteed their first winning season since 1997 and leapt into the top 25 this week by drubbing No. 6 Oklahoma in Lubbock.
Knight has infused the town and the team with a kind of energy missing from the last few years of James Dickey’s tenure. Historically, the infamous coach stalked the sidelines with a kind of violent verve, erupting at officials and his own players in a wild exertion of manipulative will. Critics said he had lost control, however, and his outbursts became theatrics instead of calculated tactics.
Now, it appears his energy is concentrated on teaching from the bench; instructing, directing, coaching. The General is leading again.
“Coach does a great job in games to get out during a timeout or dead ball and reinforce a lot of the thought that it comes in practice,” Tech assistant Bob Beyer said. “He teaches, and he really has them looking at a play and seeing how a play develops, what their responsibilities are and what their acts should be.”
Knight has made an effect in other ways than just his presence. His unique motion offense that led the Hoosiers to three NCAA titles is at work once more, hitting opponents with screens and forcing teams to play more fundamental defense. Beyer says the Tech players have been extraordinarily quick to pick up the new coaching staff’s philosophies.
But the team has been recast in Knight’s image more than metaphorically. Of 11 players on the roster, only four are holdovers from the squad that went 9-19 in 2001.
Knight and his assistants scoured junior colleges, finding talent that perhaps may not have been drawn to Lubbock before the coaching change, but also in an effort to get players who would contribute immediately.
Kasib Powell and Nick Valdez display remarkable diversity, going inside and out and most importantly possessing the motion, screen and passing skills Knight wants. Powell is averaging over 15 points per game and, along with another transfer Pawel Storozynski, contributed greatly in the win over Oklahoma Saturday.
Still, the team’s top scorers and rebounders are holdovers Andre Emmett and Andy Chavis, demonstrating that Knight was able to develop underachieving players as well. Both add over 18 points and seven boards, but the 6-foot-4 Emmett has become a terrific presence baseline and inside among bigger players, in addition to facing the basket.
After Emmett put up 26 against the Sooners, a reporter asked if Knight could expect any better out of his players.
“If I had a guard that could shoot like Jerry West and one that could defend like Havlicek, and if I had Willis Reed setting screens for Magic Johnson and had Bird just kind of doing whatever the hell he wanted to, we’d be better.”
And the Red Raiders’ debut in the Top 25?
“Who cares,” Knight said. “I didn’t care when we were ranked No. 1 for two years in a row [at Indiana].”
It is the sort of ambivalence and cockiness toward outside observers that has made Knight such a successful and also such a disliked figure. But as long as he keeps to teaching kids and Texas Tech keeps winning, the fans in Lubbock are happy to be throwing beads and necklaces again.
