Man what he did that first season @ Tech will always go down (IMHO) as one of his better coaching jobs. 3-13 in conference, Telling a handful of rotation players to leave, keeping Ellis, getting lucky with a couple of Jucos late... Was a very good start at Tech. If only he would have beaten SIU, he would have most likely beaten Georgia in rd 2 to make the Sweet 16 in 2002.
Watching an IU game from 1997-1998 and what could have been on paper.
- Thread starter GeorgeStrait IU
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Was it John Feinstein who predicted the IU fan base would turn on Knight when his highly winning ways waned? It came to pass. It started rather innocuously before mounting into a steady pile on. Zero Tolerance put the onus of responsibility on Knight, planned by a man who knew it was an impossible mandate for a man of Knight’s personality.
IU wasn’t a clean program before Knight. The boosters were paying some players. Knight cut all of that out and some of those booster hated him for it. Knight won too much for them to get rid of him. He had just enough subpar seasons in the late 90s for them to pounce, and they did.
I was referencing his "break them down, and build them up" philosophy of developing players and teams. Whether one thinks RMK was right or wrong to stick with his convictions and style...it really can't be debated that it stopped working for him in the mid 90s. He had plenty of talent from 94 on... The first couple Davis teams were no more talented than some of Knights later 90s teams. No clue how RMK would have used, coached, motivated that group...but to just assume they'd have won a natty is a pretty big reach. That's the central point by many, after all. Because Davis had them about 10 minutes of decent play away from hanging banner number 6.
Darlings could be a bit much...but he did have numerous top 50 offenses and defenses, efficiency ratings wise.
One of his problems, is he rarely had good offenses and defenses in the same season.
But he employed a version of the pack line defense, which obviously was very popular when he got hired at IU. His last 3 defenses at Dayton were very good, and probably the reason why he was one of the hottest candidates during IU's search.
It was a solid start there, for sure. He elevated their program, without question.
But "if only he would have beaten SIU"... his overall coaching style and temperament, one would have to believe, wore down his later teams mentally. And I'm sure that while TT had some big wins, and got better as a program, they weren't a factor in the tournament under RMK.
Also...are you referring to Emmitt when you say Ellis?
No. Andy Ellis, the big man he was able to keep off the old roster.
Can agree with that. He would never have had several seasons to develop top talent anymore and teach them how to play his way.
I do still think that team in terms of talent was head and shoulders over anything he had since the early 90's.
As far as winning the natty - that's just speculation and kind of pointless IMO. I think they team would have been better overall with him coaching, but there's a good chance they wouldn't have had a run at all in the tournament. IU beating Duke set them up for a favorable run the rest of the tourney, and they nearly blew that game at the end. After that they matched up well with the teams they had to play. Fun year!
So if 6th seed TT would have only beaten 11th seed SIU and then won the next game they would have been a sweet 16 team? I get the overall point you are making but that’s kind of funny.
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Yeah its funny, but Georgia as a 3 seed in 1997 & 2002 were the biggest jokes around that time. 🤣
I think your last paragraph isn't entirely accurate. They didn't have NCAA tournament success, but they were still the winningest Big Ten program in the 1990s. IU was at minimum a good team capable of beating anyone every year Knight was coaching.
Had he cracked the code to keep guys like Recker and Collier around, they would have been very good circa 1997-2000.
Those two guys were really good at their next stops - I don't see how adding them to those Guyton/Lewis teams wouldn't have made them exponentially better.
Yep. 1998-1999 was only missing a true big guy. Collier probably have been that guy. I always think about how 99-2000 woulda looked with Collier, Haston complimenting each other well on offense with Recker Guyton & Lewis with all the young guys down low developing. Then again in 00-01, Haston, Jeffries & Recker could have been dangerous. I really feel Coach Knight could have had top 10-15 teams those * last three seasons. Hell he had a top 15 team before the wheels fell off the last 2 weeks of his final season. That team went from a solid 4 seed to limping into the 6th seed and getting owned amongst all of the chaos going on.