Certainly seems RMK took Bender over Sichting in ‘75. I recall when Kyle Macy (who was also in same class as Sichting at PU) played for Knight in the ‘79 Pan Am Games, coach saying something like “if i hadn’t been such a dumb SOB, you would’ve played all your home games in here.” Or, something like that. Sichting would’ve probably been the easier target though being from Martinsville.
Had a very good source of info in the mid-late 70’s in PU athletics. Said Macy’s old man was a real pain to Coach Fred Schaus on how his son should be used. Macy started on a veteran PU team most of that season after either Bruce Parkinson, or Eugene Parker got hurt, and that wasn’t good enough for dad, who wanted his kid to get more shots. UK and Joe Hall swept in the following summer to
bring him to Lexington. Was told there was not a lot of disappointment from the PU coaches knowing they had Sichting on hand too.
Back to Bender, in John Feinstein’s book “Forever’s Team” about the ‘78 Duke team that lost in the championship game to UK in St Louis (on IU’s floor), he had good some things to say about his experience at IU and with Coach Knight, who helped him land at Duke by calling Bill Foster for him. Admittedly, he said he played too uptight at IU for RMK, worried too much about mistakes. And that Duke and Foster were a good fit for him. While he never played for Coach K at Duke, he had met him in HS when RMK brought him with on a recruiting trip as a grad assistant. Bender did have some good years coaching at U of Washington in the 90’s. I recall a Sweet 16 when his team in ‘98 lost on a buzzer beater by a UConn team that struggled to beat IU the game before. Bender’s dad coached at Crown Point in the late-70’s.
