When Bob Knight’s career at Indiana ended, he told his assistants they shouldn’t stick with the program, but Mike Davis did. Hired by then IU president Miles Brand (the man who had the anti-Knight vendetta), Davis gradually gained the respect of the players and in his first full season took his team to the national championship game.

So it was a fairy tale for Indiana. They had a winning coach, and, foremost for school officials, he didn’t have Knight’s temper. That’s the way that it looked early this year before the long and seemingly never-ending train wreck that is the Indiana basketball season.

At the heart of this wreck is a giant man roaming the sideline that suddenly has less of a grip on his temper than his legendary predecessor did. He might not be strangling anyone yet, but give him a few years, because things are developing quickly.

Indiana was ranked No. 6 in the country Dec. 21 and had reeled off eight-straight victories. That was all before visiting a rising Kentucky team. In the late stages of the game, IU trailed by 1 point when freshman guard Bracey Wright drove to the basket, missing a lay-up. An enraged Mike Davis ran across the court waving his arms wildly, yelling at a referee. As a result, Davis was slapped with two technical fouls and ejected from the game. The game went from a 1-point Kentucky lead to a 5-point lead after the free-throw shooting was done.

In that game, Davis was as out of control as a coach could be, and, more importantly, he cost his team a chance to win a basketball game. Knight was no saint, but he did have enough poise not to cost his team games. Knight got technicals, but he didn’t get them when the game was on the line.

The Davis outburst was the beginning of a slide that would grow to gross proportions in weeks to come.

Once 8-0, Indiana now sits at just 15-9 and is sub .500 in conference play. Losers of five of their last six, the Hoosiers visited Wisconsin last weekend, where Davis’ sideline antics were on display for UW fans to see firsthand. It wasn’t pretty.

Davis painted himself as a man that could never let a single call go without protest. He truly believed that his team didn’t commit a foul and was fouled every time they missed a shot or even made one, for that matter.

A coach needs to pick his battles rather than picking a fight after each and every call. Davis’ antics excite the opposition crowds, irritate the referees and undoubtedly distract his players.

After the late-game Kentucky debacle, Davis acknowledged that he had cost his team the game and that his behavior was out of hand.

“There’s no way I should’ve acted like that. I can’t explain it. I’ve done something to embarrass my team. … I cost us the game. I was so emotional. I need to learn and grow from this.”

Two months later, has Davis learned? It surely didn’t look like it to anyone that was in attendance last Saturday.

Once again, his team was close in the waning minutes of a basketball game. Once again, Davis disputed each and every call the referees made. With 42 seconds remaining, a Hoosier victory was improbable, but not impossible. College basketball is a crazy sport, and any coach will tell you that a lot can happen in the last minute of a game. Well, Davis made sure the Badgers would walk away with a 10-point victory, rather than hanging on in a nail biter, by finally pushing the referees over the edge and being hit with a technical.

What has Davis learned? Apparently he hasn’t learned much.

Twice this season, he has cost his team an opportunity to at least compete for a victory. The Hoosiers are much better than 15-9. They have some good wins, but with so much of the bench’s focus invested in negatives like yelling at referees, it shouldn’t be any wonder that the Hoosiers are sliding. Slide much further, and they might even be playing in the NIT.

Mike Davis needs to get himself focused on coaching and the players and stop acting like the collegiate version of Pat Riley.

What does Davis really expect to get out of the constant harassment of the officials? He is coaching his third year in the Big Ten, a league where the veteran coaches are given leeway on the sidelines and young guys who have not earned their stripes yet are given technicals.

Davis isn’t Gene Keady; he needs to realize the officials really don’t care much about his opinion and that if he doesn’t get his sideline circus act under control, his players won’t care much about his opinion either.