IU Basketball In Shambles

As I was watching the Iowa-Texas Tech game tonight I had a couple of thoughts. Impossible some you might say! But I really did.

First of all, let me say how glad I am that Steve Alford is not the coach at Indiana. I don't think Mike Davis is the right guy, but I am pretty sure Alford isn't either. He has done nothing since coming to Iowa and it looks like his isn't good enough for the big time. I like Steve and admired him greatly for his accomplishments on the court at IU and his philosophy on life, I just think he is in over his head. On the other hand I am also glad Bob Knight is not still the coach. Well just who the hell DO I want? Good question, because to be perfectly honest I don't know.

Here's the deal folks. Bob Knight was a great coach at IU for 23 years. He was a bad coach for 6 years after that. Knight's feud with the school's management drove him to take the program down. Knight would have completed the job had he been allowed to stay. Not that Myles Brand acted properly, but he had to let Knight go. Knight knew it too. He pushed so hard for that firing it was almost like watching a spoiled little kid and a parent. He has been quoted as saying he should have left in 1994. My question is why didn't he? Why did he continue on and tear the program down? Knight is an idiot now in my book. For the first 23 years I, like most Hoosier fans laughed when he got out of hand with his words and actions. But he was winning and he was happy and that made the fans happy.

Starting in 94 he just became surly. You should have left Bob. You were the steward of the program and you let a lot of people down. But I figure you don't care. Your massive ego drove you to it and you never admit mistakes.
Speaking of mistakes, Mike Davis. Davis is a good guy, a guy who cares about the kids, about his kids, about the program, about the school and about the tradition. He seems to be an excellent recruiter, but his bench skills are bad news.

Mike's problem is caring too much. He just can't escape the pressure. He puts it on himself and has no release. This job is killing him. There is no way he will last. He knows the tradition of Indiana basketball and he knows how close he is to turning this team into DePaul or Georgetown.

Teams that were once proud and mighty and now are also rans. Indiana is different. There is a tradition. 5 National Titles, countless Big Ten titles, the mystique. Kentucky, UCLA, North Carolina, Kansas and Indiana. Those are the schools who are synonymous with basketball. (Yes I know about Duke, but they have only done it with one coach). Indiana is dangerously close to being out of that group and something has to be done to stop this slide.