A Season on the Brink

by John Feinstein

  When it was over, Knight, exhausted, retreated to the cave. The coaches were left to go through tape with the players. Knight has a habit when he is pensive—which is often—of looking at friends in mid-conversation and saying very seriously, “Do you think we’ll ever win another game?” All his friends repeat this to one another at times. But from that day forth, the question changed to, “Do you think we’ll ever catch another fish?”

  The next fish was Northwestern. Hardly Moby-Dick, but this team had to start somewhere.

  That afternoon, Knight decided it was time for a new point guard to play, one who could show the players how to pass the basketball. The point guard’s name was Bob Knight.

  This is a tactic Knight tries about six times a year. He is an excellent passer because he sees the floor so clearly. Almost always, he will make several good passes, and almost always he will keep playing until he is breathing very hard and has to take himself out.

  One of Knight’s first passes was stolen by Jadlow. The rest he converted. Finished, he walked over to where Hammel was sitting and said with a huge smile, “Hamso, am I or am I not the world’s best forty-five-year-old passer?”

  What the world’s best forty-five-year-old passer didn’t know was that most of the players were not about to intercept his passes. In fact, Jadlow received a stern talking-to after practice for his lone interception. To make their point to a wayward player in this area, older players always invoked the Dakich story.

  It was 1982. Dakich was an eager freshman who was getting a pretty good chunk of playing time. The team was practicing at Minnesota the day before a game there and Knight was angry with the offense, so he inserted himself. Dakich, all intensity playing on the white team, figured that his coach would want nothing less than all-out play from him, even if the man he was guarding was his coach.

  On Knight’s first play, Dakich stole the ball from him—clean. “Sonofabitch,” Knight said, and he threw the ball at Dakich, catching him square on the nose. Dakich shook that off and went back into his stance. Knight made another move, and Dakich went for the ball again. He got it again—only this time he fouled Knight, slapping his wrist. Wham. Dakich’s face collided with the basketball again. “Don’t you ever f—— foul me!” the coach screamed. Dakich was dizzy by now, half wanting to fight Knight, half wanting to cry. Instead, he kept playing. And learned his lesson—the hard way. Jadlow had been lucky.

  They flew to Evanston after practice and Knight, the coaches, Garl, and Hammel went to dinner. Everything with Knight is ritual. Every road trip is the same: leave after practice, check into the hotel, send the players to dinner, go out to dinner, meet with the players, look at tape with the coaches, go to sleep.

  Knight was in a reflective mood that night at dinner, feeling almost relaxed after a week full of tension. He talked at length about Brooks, wondering aloud if leaving was the best thing for him—hoping it was. Earlier, before sending the team to dinner, Knight spoke to the team about Brooks for the first time since he had left. “I think we all feel badly that he’s gone,” Knight said. “But do any of you think he ever would have become a really good player here?”

  No one answered. “He was just absolutely the wrong kind of player for us,” Knight said at dinner. “He’s not a ballhandler, and Alford needs someone to handle the ball. I told him not to leave just because his parents wanted him to, but that’s what I think he did. I told him that he should only leave if he felt he had to go somewhere that he knew he would play a lot. I really don’t know where that is.”

  Knight rambled. He questioned his handling of the Michigan game, wondering if it had been his fault that London Bradley had not only given him a technical but had made the horrid goal-tending call against Harris. “I did everything but call the guy a nigger,” Knight said. “People are human. If I were a referee I would tell a guy, ‘I’m not gonna call a technical, I’m just gonna throw your ass out.’”

  Finally, he returned to his favorite subject: the team. “I enjoyed December with this team as much as I ever have. I thought we were playing as well as we possibly could have. I just can’t stand not being competitive. In 1983, if Kitchel hadn’t been hurt, we could have made the Final Four. In ’84, we weren’t that good, but we almost sneaked in anyway. That makes it all worthwhile. Last year, though, we had no chance. Now, it’s the same thing this year. That’s discouraging.”

  Practice the next morning was not encouraging. Jadlow, fighting the flu, had a rotten practice. Knight decided to start Eyl in his place. Daryl Thomas was at home, having his ankle worked on in the hope that he could play next week. Knight was concerned about this game. He had tried every trick he knew to get the team out of its doldrums, but without Thomas, he just wasn’t sure what would happen. Northwestern, as it turned out, would have a horrid season, one in which the players stopped playing hard because they sensed—correctly—that their coach, Rich Falk, was a lame duck. But early in January, Knight knew none of this.

  Just before pregame meal that afternoon, he got some news that picked up his spirits immensely. The Big Ten and the NCAA had ruled that Pelkowski was eligible to redshirt, that the courses he had taken in Colombia didn’t count against his five-year clock. “Goddamn, that’s the first big win we’ve had in two years,” Knight said. “That’s just great. Really great. I think with that extra year he can really be a good player. Don’t you, guys?”

  The coaches nodded eagerly. Pelkowski, they knew, was a project. He had potential, but whether he could overcome his lack of natural instincts was a question. Knight often talked about how hard it was for foreign players to learn the game because they weren’t weaned on it like American kids. That was why, he believed, Uwe Blab had never become a great player. But he seemed to block that sentiment from his mind when talking about Pelkowski.

  “You know, he might be our second-best shooter,” Knight rambled on. Nobody stopped him. They were just glad to see him happy.

  Knight stayed happy that evening. Whether it was the long talk on Monday night, the brutal practice on Tuesday, or the fishing lesson on Wednesday, something worked. Indiana led 8–2 after four minutes, 28–14 after twelve, 48–26 at halftime, and never let Northwestern into the game at all. The final was 102–65, an extraordinary margin against anyone, especially on the road, especially without Thomas. The Hoosiers shot 64 percent. Calloway had twenty points, Alford nineteen, Harris fifteen, and Robinson fourteen. Everyone played well. Everyone contributed.

  The Northwestern students, who showed up with signs that said “Give Bobby Knight the chair” and “Extradite Bobby Knight,” had little to say after halftime. The only not-so-great moment came with seven minutes left, when Northwestern “cut” a 7042 lead to 76–53. Knight called time and screamed for a solid minute. “You’ve outscored them by one goddamn point since halftime. That’s just the same shit we’ve been doing for two years. Now goddamn it, let’s play.”

  They played. They outscored Northwestern 26–12 the rest of the way and Knight, fighting the flu like everyone else, walked off the floor coughing but happy. The postgame celebration lasted until the team was on the bus. “You did a hell of a job tonight,” he told the players. “But start thinking about Wisconsin right now. If we don’t get that game, we’re right back where we started. It just makes me sick to think about that Michigan State game when I see how we played tonight.”

  Back up front, he shook his head and said softly, “I wonder if there was anything we could have done different against Michigan State.”

  Wisconsin would not be a walkover. Knight knew that. The Badgers were not very good, but they weren’t awful, and, historically, they played well at home against Indiana. Knight always felt a little bit strange going to Madison because he had almost become Wisconsin’s coach in 1969. He had interviewed, been offered the job, and had virtually accepted it. He had gone home on a Wednesday to discuss it with his wife and with friends, and had told Wisconsin he would fly out Friday to finalize the deal.

  But in t
he forty-eight-hour interim, two things happened: first, the story leaked in the Madison paper that Knight was the coach. Then, on Friday morning, Knight woke up at 6 A.M. and called Bo Schembechler. Once, Schembechler had interviewed for the football job at Wisconsin. “Don’t take it,” Schembechler counseled. “It’s not the job for you. It will try your patience too much.” Knight never got on the plane to go back to Madison.

  Madison is the prettiest town in the Big Ten. The only trouble with it is that it’s usually buried under several feet of snow in the winter. Indiana got lucky this time. After a week of snow and subzero temperatures, Madison was in the midst of a heat wave, with temperatures climbing toward forty. Friday was bright and sunny, and Knight and Hammel went for a long walk through town. Knight even did his good deed for the week, stopping to give a young woman whose car was stuck in a snowdrift a push free.

  Good weather or not, Knight shouldn’t have been out. He was coughing and having trouble breathing, and he wasn’t the only one. Alford was now sick, and most of the team was fighting the flu in one form or another. With only nine players available, stamina was a major concern. “We gotta win this game and get the hell home and get some rest,” Knight said late Friday night. Then he insisted on going looking for some ice cream.

  Saturday dawned bright and cold. The game was at 1 P.M., so pregame was at 9 A.M. Spaghetti at 9 A.M. is a sickening sight. Everyone was still a little bleary-eyed as the bus rolled towards the ancient Wisconsin field house. When the bus reached the back parking lot, the driver found his pathway into it blocked. On one side of the entrance sat a car. On the other was a roadblock. There was a man in the car. “Can’t park here,” the man told the bus driver.

  “This is the Indiana team,” the driver told him.

  “Doesn’t matter, can’t park here.”

  Knight, who had been half listening to the conversation, jumped up at this remark. “Listen, do you want to have a game here today or not?” he said.

  The security man, who clearly had no clue, simply repeated his line about the bus not being able to park. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Knight said, beginning to get angry. “Don’t you understand, we’re playing in this goddamn game.”

  “I don’t care. I can’t move the barrier.”

  By now everyone was half standing in his seat. Was Madison about to become San Juan II? Knight was off the bus. “Well, if you can’t move the barrier, I sure can.” He picked up the barrier and threw it out of the way. The security guard glared at him. But there still was not enough room for the bus to pass. The bus driver got off the bus. Mr. Security was on his car radio, asking for either instructions or reinforcements. “Look, pal,” the driver said, “you better move your car before he moves it for you.”

  The guard glanced at Knight. “Okay, I’ll move, but this isn’t supposed to happen.”

  Everyone got back on the bus. The players, relieved first, then giggling, sat down. The bus pulled up to the players’ entrance without further incident.

  There was, naturally, an aftermath. Several Wisconsin players had been walking by on their way to the field house when the incident took place. By the time Indiana got into the building, the word being spread was that Knight had thrown the barrier at the security guard. Fortunately, Knight didn’t know this. The gross exaggeration would have made him crazy.

  The game almost took care of that. As at Northwestern, Indiana came out blazing. Alford was unstoppable. Harris was superb inside. Todd Meier, starting at center, played solid defense and rebounded well. After fifteen minutes, it was 38–18. Another blowaway. Perfect.

  But the Hoosiers were tired. Harris was having trouble breathing. It was 40–20 with 3:24 to go. During a TV time-out Knight implored the players to hang in until halftime. “Suck it up for three minutes and we’ll be okay,” he said.

  But they couldn’t. Alford turned the ball over. Harris missed. Robinson, who was playing with a pulled hamstring, turned it over. Wisconsin began to hit. Finally, with twenty-five seconds left, Mike Heineman, a hard-nosed kid from Connersville, Indiana, whom Knight truly regretted not recruiting, got past Eyl for a bucket that cut the margin to 42–28. Alford missed at the buzzer.

  Knight was wild at halftime. He trashed Eyl first, then Morgan. “The game was over boys, over. We have a twenty-two point lead [actually twenty] and then you guys just collapse and let them get back in the game. Jesus Christ. Morgan, you’ve been here five years and you are still giving us nothing but terrible, terrible basketball. We cannot play you. Eyl, if one of my assistants ever recruits a player like you again, I’ll fire him. How can you let Heineman beat you on that play? How?”

  Knight was hysterical because he honestly believed his team had little left physically for the second half. He wanted to lead by twenty because he thought with a twenty-point lead, Indiana might win by about five. Now, it was just a fourteen-point lead.

  Quickly, though, the Hoosiers upped the margin to 46–28. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But Wisconsin chipped back. Time after time the Badgers punched the ball inside. Harris was tired. Meier’s knees hurt. Jadlow was struggling. They got to within 52–42 with almost fourteen minutes to play. The lead stayed right there for the next eight minutes. Every time Wisconsin looked ready to make a run, Alford would answer.

  If anyone had ever questioned Alford’s grit, this game was definitive proof of just how truly tough he is. Alford’s throat hurt so much he could barely swallow. He was running a fever and he was having trouble breathing just sitting still, much less running up and down the court. But time after time, when the Wisconsin crowd started to rock the old building, Alford would quiet them. He swished a twenty-footer with 6:05 left to make it 70–59. That was his thirty-sixth point.

  But ninety seconds later, Wisconsin had the lead down to 70–63. They were dogging Alford’s every step now. Robinson was open. He missed. The rebound rolled loose. Heineman flew out of bounds and tried to throw the ball back in off of Morgan’s leg. But Morgan saw the play coming and he jumped high in the air. The ball went right between his legs and on one bounce to Harris, who was wide open for a layup since everyone had been watching Heineman and Morgan. That made it 72–63 with 3:45 to go. If Morgan had not been so alert, Wisconsin would have had a chance to cut the lead to five. Instead, Rick Olson missed a shot, Calloway hit a jumper from the baseline to up the lead back to eleven, and it was over. Indiana had survived.

  “I can’t ever remember a game being so hard,” Knight said when it was over. His sweater was soaked, but he was relieved and happy. “Andre, you made a great play when they had it down to seven,” he said. In truth, the great play had been made by Morgan. But nobody cared. They were 2–2 in the Big Ten. They had caught two fish—not big ones, but at this stage, no one was about to throw them back.

  12.

  “If We Can Just Get into Position to Get

  into Position”

  For the next two weeks, the players heard over and over again about positioning. But not positioning on defense or under the boards.

  “We are now 2–2 in the Big Ten,” Knight told them Sunday, writing it on the board in the locker room. “We have three home games coming up—Ohio State, Purdue, Illinois. We have now put ourselves into a position where, if we can win these three games, we’ll be in position to be a factor in the Big Ten race.”

  Getting into position to get into position. But to get into position to get into position, Knight continued, they would have to beat Ohio State. “We just cannot lose any more games at home, boys. We cannot lose to these people.”

  Beating these people would not be easy. To begin with, a quirk in the schedule had turned what would ordinarily be a Thursday game into a Wednesday game. The previous summer, Ohio State had been offered the chance to play a game that Saturday on national TV. They asked if Indiana would mind playing a day earlier. In August, that had seemed just fine, but now, with Daryl Thomas’s ankle literally a day-to-day proposition, that extra twenty-four hours could be the diff
erence between his being a factor and not even being able to play.

  Thomas had responded well to the injury. He knew that Knight thought he had a low threshold of pain, and he knew Knight didn’t think he was very tough. He wanted to prove to Knight that he was wrong. The initial pain had been so excruciating that Thomas was convinced he had broken the ankle. He was relieved when it turned out to be a bad sprain, but knew that meant Knight would expect him to come back quickly. Garl’s prognosis had been ten days to two weeks. Ohio State would be exactly ten days after the injury.

  The only person under as much pressure as Thomas was Garl. Knight put a lot of faith in Garl, especially when it came to trusting his judgment on whether someone could play or not. Garl was much more than the team trainer. He was the team’s travel agent; he was in charge of setting up training meals and pregame meals; he was in charge of expense accounts and giving expense advances to the coaches. He was probably the one person on the team who was genuinely plugged in to both the coaches and the players.

  Garl was a little guy, only slightly more than 5-6. On a basketball team, that fact was going to be pointed out to him more than just occasionally. This was especially true on the road, where Knight left Garl essentially in charge of everything but game preparation. When Garl started barking orders, as he often did, players, coaches, and managers would respond by calling him “Little Napoleon” or “Der Führer.” Garl took the ribbing well, although occasionally he admitted that being short “really pisses me off.” About the only time he reacted badly to kidding about his height was when it came from Waltman, who was perhaps an inch taller than he was.

  This week, no one was kidding Garl about his height. He was too busy working on Thomas’s ankle until all hours of the night trying to get the swelling down. By Monday, Thomas was able to shoot the ball at a separate basket while the team practiced. “I don’t think he’s going to be able to move laterally by Wednesday very well,” Garl told Knight.