A Season on the Brink

by John Feinstein

  15.

  Twenty Minutes to the Promised Land

  There were now four games left in the season. Indiana and Michigan were again tied for first place in the Big Ten at 10–4. Michigan State, Purdue, and Illinois were all 9–5.

  Minnesota would come to Assembly Hall on Thursday. The Gophers had come apart in the four weeks since Indiana had played there. They were not only losing, they were losing big. It would take an unreal collapse for Indiana to lose that game. Three days later would come Iowa, and Knight was worried about that game because his team had fared so poorly against the Iowa press in Iowa City.

  That concern became apparent on Tuesday when a good deal of practice was devoted to working against the Iowa press. This was another first. Knight never worked on one opponent when another one was upcoming. But he felt that his team had not been ready for Iowa the first time and needed that extra work.

  Naturally, having conceded to his team that he was concerned about Iowa, he had to prove that he was worried about Minnesota, too. So, on Wednesday, he put on a little display of “BK Theater.” He screamed at Morgan and Robinson for poor passing. “Don’t be throwing the ball like you’re throwing it to an eighty-five-year-old woman,” he yelled. He kicked the scorer’s table when the defense broke down. “Shoot free throws,” he said, throwing his arms up in disgust. “Maybe you can win tomorrow night shooting free throws. You sure as hell aren’t going to win it with this defense.”

  They tried again. Calloway lost Kreigh Smith. “Ricky, you play that horseshit defense and I guarantee you that you won’t play one goddamn minute next year.”

  Everyone knew what was coming next. Daryl Thomas bobbled a rebound. “That’s it, I’ve seen enough of this shit. Take a goddamn shower. You don’t want to win this f—— game, then neither do I.”

  Everyone understood. Knight had to be certain that the players thought he was worried about beating Minnesota. His only real worry was that they make sure to worry.

  When the team came back later to walk through Minnesota, Knight sat on the sidelines acting as if he couldn’t care less what was going on. When Felling asked him if he thought they had done enough, Knight shrugged. “Ask them,” he said, gesturing towards the players. “They have all the answers.”

  Actually, Knight was right, they did have the answers. The best one came the next night when Minnesota was never in the game. It was 15–12 after seven minutes, but then the Hoosiers got on a roll. Alford was back to normal, bombing from outside. Morgan was dealing from the outside, and Harris was playing his best game of the season, controlling the inside. By halftime, the game was over, Indiana leading 49–25.

  The only negative note was a Calloway dunk attempt that ended with Calloway landing hard on his butt. Calloway was very sore and Bomba recommended that he not play in the second half. That made sense. He was hardly needed. But Knight was nervous at halftime. He knew his team wasn’t going to blow a twenty-four-point lead, but he worried that a flat second half would send them into their Iowa preparations on a flat note.

  Iowa was very much on his mind when he called Alford and Robinson into the hallway. “I want you guys to make sure these other guys keep after it in the second half. I don’t want any sleepwalking in the second half.”

  Ask and ye shall receive. Minnesota had no chance to play with Indiana. It was 72–38 when Knight began to clear the bench with eleven minutes still left. Even as he did, Knight summoned Murry Bartow, the designated message-writer. “Check with Hammel and find out the scores of our two losses to Iowa last year. Then go inside and write all three scores on the board.”

  Dutifully, Bartow walked up to Hammel’s seat to find out the scores. Just as dutifully, Hammel looked them up. The three scores were there in bright red numbers waiting for the players when they walked through the door into the locker room.

  There was one light moment before the 95–63 romp finally ended. With four minutes left and the lead at thirty-three, Knight called the wounded Calloway over. Calloway limped to his coach, wondering what words of wisdom he would receive. “Ricky,” Knight said, “be sure to pick up all the warmup jackets for the players.”

  The bench broke up. It was that easy an evening. They had now won nineteen games—Knight’s goal. They were in the NCAA tournament for sure—even if Knight didn’t want to admit it. How did they celebrate? By looking at tape of Iowa. The only break came when Knight went to his press conference. Phil Richards of The Indianapolis Star, a writer Knight liked, asked about the up-tempo that Indiana had played. How come?

  “Well, Phil, that’s an interesting question. Let me tell you what happened. This is an interesting story.” Some poised their pens. Others leaned back, waiting for the put-on. “See, we were sitting in the locker room, and Todd Jadlow said, ‘Hey coach, how about we play an up-tempo tonight so we can entertain Phil Richards?’ And I thought that was really a hell of an idea.”

  With that Knight rejoined his players and his tape machine. After the players had been sent home, Knight went to tape his TV show, doing it on Thursday since there was no game until Sunday. That left the coaches to begin going through the tape.

  There was also another tale in the continuing Damon Bailey saga. Before the game, the principal of Shawswicke had given Kohn Smith a thick book of the Shawswicke season highlights. The front cover read, “Have Farmer Pride, Keep the Streak Alive.” Included in the book were the team’s complete statistics—Damon had averaged 31.1 points per game, shooting 64 percent from the field, and had gotten 14.7 rebounds and four assists a night—a history of the back-to-back 15–0 seasons, and details on the Farmers’ summer workout plans. There were also pictures of Knight from the local newspapers: Knight watching Damon play, Knight holding court with the fans. And finally, there was a letter to Knight, thanking him for coming to two games and for his interest in Shawswicke basketball.

  The coaches looked through the book wide-eyed. It was Felling who couldn’t resist. “And just think,” he said finally. “We’ve won nineteen games without Damon.”

  Indeed they had.

  The roller coaster was working full-time the next two days. Knight was funny one minute, angry the next. Friday, when Calloway threw a pass while standing close to the basket, Knight stopped play. “Ricky, do you know the story of the Good Samaritan?” Calloway shook his head.

  “The Good Samaritan is a biblical character, Ricky. Old Testament. He was a basketball player who kept throwing passes when he was only two feet from the goddamn basket. You know what God did? He cut him for overpassing.”

  A moment later, Calloway threw a pass three feet over Winston Morgan’s head. Knight slammed a chair in disgust. “We cannot have this shit Sunday, boys. You throw passes like that, we’re gonna get our ass beat.”

  Part of the problem in practice was that the white team was doing a good job imitating the Iowa press because they had spent the whole week doing it. Knight inserted himself in Robinson’s spot and promptly threw a pass just as bad as the one Calloway had thrown. But he settled down and suddenly the press wasn’t quite so ferocious. “Hamso,” Knight said, coming out, “you think I have any eligibility left?”

  This would be a hectic weekend. The game was on national TV, and several recruits had been invited to campus for the weekend. Saturday, two of them were there: Keith Smart, the junior college guard from Kansas, and Sean Kemp, the 6–10 sophomore from Elkhart. It was the first day of March, a cool but gorgeous day, and everyone was in an up mood—including Knight.

  Before practice, he was trying to get Oliphant to dunk. At 6–6, it wasn’t easy for Oliphant. He was a classic victim of “white-man’s disease,” and his feet never got very far off the ground. But he did dunk. In the locker room, Knight asked Pelkowski if he had seen Oliphant’s dunk. Pelkowski nodded. “You ever see a slow white American dunk better than that?”

  Pelkowski, still injured, laughed. “Magnus, are you going to practice today?” Knight knew the answer was no. “You know, Magnus, you have the bes
t deal going. You have a better deal than the people getting U.S. aid in Colombia.”

  The comedy routine ended as soon as practice started. Joby Wright sat with Sean Kemp during much of the practice, selling. “Most places you go into, the only signs you see say, ‘No smoking,’” Wright said, pointing to the championship banners at each end of the floor. “They’re making a whole movie, Hoosier, about basketball in this state. That’s a hell of a statement. You come here, it’ll be hard, shit yeah, it’ll be hard. But you’ll be set for life when you finish at Indiana.”

  Kemp nodded. A few feet away sat Smart. A junior college sophomore and a high school sophomore—once, Knight wouldn’t have wanted to mess with either. Now, he entertained both eagerly. “Keith,” he said sitting down and putting an arm around Smart, “what do you think? Will we ever win another game?” Smart laughed.

  Knight joined Kemp and his coaches. He was talking about how concerned he was with the Iowa press. “First time in fifteen years I ever prepared for one team before we had played another,” he said. The coaches wanted to know if Knight holed the team up in a hotel the night before a game at home.

  “No, never have,” Knight said. He slapped Kemp on the knee. “I trust my players.”

  He sent those players home that night with a final word of warning: “Get a good night’s sleep,” he said. “You know there’s no curfew, but if I were you guys, I’d be in at ten just in case I decided to phone you.”

  Robinson had a problem. As part of a class he was taking, he was supposed to go to a play that night. Knight grinned. “The old I-have-to-go-to-a-play routine, huh, Stew? Who are you going with?”

  “Myself.”

  “You sure you aren’t going with a girl?” Giggles.

  “Sure.”

  “You better be sure, because if one of my friends who is going to that play tells me you’re there with a girl, you’ll be in big trouble.” More giggles.

  “What friends of yours are going?”

  “None of your damn business.” Nonstop guffaws.

  Because of the CBS telecast, the tipoff was set for noon. That was very early, so early that Knight canceled the walk-through before the pregame meal.

  Knight had more to say at the meal than he had said all season. There had been very little rhetoric in the past few days. There had been little talk about positioning or about tradition. Knight had focused squarely on basics, on handling the Iowa press. This was the last home game of the year, the last home game for Morgan, Robinson, and Witte. It was a chance for twenty victories, a chance to put themselves in excellent position in terms of seeding for the NCAA tournament, a chance to stay in a tie with Michigan for first place in the Big Ten.

  Knight spoke first about what had to be done to win. “The first fifteen seconds of every possession their defense will attack you,” he said. “But after that, we can attack them. You cannot be careless with the basketball and you cannot let up at any point in the game. They have the quickness to score a lot of points quickly if we let down.”

  Knight paused. Enough on how to win. It was time to tell them what winning meant and what they were playing for in this game. “Not a lot of teams get to this point,” he said. “I want to give you an example of what playing here is all about. This weekend, you people are playing to get into the NCAA and to stay in first place in the Big Ten. All right, the whole program at Texas comes from here. [Bob] Weltlich coached here for five years and for two years with me at Army. At Texas today, they’re playing for the Southwest Conference championship. If they win today, they win the championship.

  “Last night, Cornell played at Princeton for the Ivy League championship. Tommy Miller played for us and coached for us here for five years and he had Cornell playing for the Ivy League championship last night. And today at Duke, Mike [Krzyzewski], who played for us and coached for us, is playing for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship and to be ranked number one in the country.

  “That all came from here. That’s all part of here. Those three teams in different parts of the country in different conferences, it’s all part of this whole program. That’s what you represent and that’s what you’re playing for and that’s what you ought to be playing for.

  “Because this is the best way to play basketball—ever. That’s why so many people who play this way have a chance to do these things. That’s why you’ve got a chance to do it. You’ve done a hell of a job getting yourselves into this position. Let’s take advantage of it.”

  It was a striking speech, noteworthy not only because Knight wanted his team to know what it was part of, but because Knight seemed to be reminding himself that he had created something special. “The best way to play basketball—ever.” That was Knight’s assessment of what he had created as a coach.

  The locker room was a zoo before the game. There was hardly room for the players, it was so crowded. Keith Smart was there and two juniors from Marion High School were there with their coaches. Morgan and Robinson’s high school coach, Phil Buck, was there. Bill Shunkwiler, Knight’s high school football coach, was there and so was Steve Bennett, one of Jim Crews’s assistants, and Phil Eskew, an old Knight buddy who had run the Indiana High School Athletic Association for years. The regulars were there, too: Buckner, Abernethy, Steve Ahlfeld, Steve Green, Rink, and Bomba. If Knight had sold tickets he could have retired rich.

  The game was worth the price of admission. George Raveling got a technical before the game was a minute old. He stormed out of the coaching box in protest. Knight jumped up, screaming for another technical. When referee Darwin Brown, Knight’s old friend from the first Ohio State game, came by, Knight demanded to know why Raveling hadn’t gotten a second technical. “It’s automatic, goddamn it,” he yelled. As Brown went by, Knight brushed his arm—by accident. He drew a technical. This was all in the first ninety seconds.

  The players seemed not to notice any of these histrionics. With Harris again playing like an All-American, Indiana jumped to a 14–6 lead. Harris had been averaging ten rebounds a game since his talk with his mother and Knight after his benching. In this game he would score fifteen points and get thirteen rebounds.

  All the work against the press had been worth it. They were moving the ball quickly, before Iowa could trap, and Indiana was getting good shots on almost every possession. Knight continued his duel with the officials, but the players just kept playing. A Harris tip-in of a Thomas miss got the lead to 30–18. Alford produced a four-point play a minute later, swishing a long bomb falling down with Iowa’s Gerry Wright on top of him. The foul on Wright came after the shot, so Alford shot one-and-one. He made both shots, and it was 40–22 with 3:24 left. The lead was still eighteen when Daryl Thomas went to the foul line with 1:17 left. But he missed and Iowa promptly got a three-point play from Andre Banks and a Roy Marble tip-in after a Robinson turnover. Those five points chipped the lead to 46–33 at the half. It could have been twenty. It was thirteen.

  “Should have had them by twenty,” Knight said, calmly, clinically. “You just can’t let down, boys. Not now. Not when we’re so close. Okay, spread yourselves out around the room and take deep breaths.” The day had turned up unseasonably warm and the gym was hot. Playing against Iowa’s incessant pressure, Knight was concerned about stamina.

  The coaches huddled in the hall. Knight was pacing. Repeatedly, he asked how much time was left. “Longest goddamn halftime ever,” he said finally. He went back inside.

  “Boys, you’ve worked too hard not to give these twenty minutes everything you have left. When we come back in here we should all be ready to drop from exhaustion. That’s how close we are. We’ve all worked since this summer, since October 15, to get to here. We’re twenty minutes from the Promised Land now but it’s got to be our best twenty minutes of the season.”

  It turned out to be the longest, toughest twenty minutes of the season. It began as an easy romp. Raveling picked up a second technical screaming about a Calloway basket after it looked like Calloway had been
tied up. The bucket made the score 62–45. Alford’s two free throws made it 64–45, and Indiana had the ball with a chance to push the margin over twenty. It was over.

  Only someone forgot to tell Iowa. Harris turned the ball over and Bill Jones produced a three-point play. Daryl Thomas charged and Banks scored. Alford turned it over and Al Lorenzen scored. In two minutes the lead was down to eleven. Knight stood up, palms down. “Settle down,” he said. They did for a moment, Alford hitting. But Iowa scored twice more to cut it to nine. The crowd rumbled nervously. A Harris tip-in built the margin back to 68–57 with 7:50 left. Comfortable. But the press was wearing Indiana down. Two quick turnovers led to two quick baskets and then Robinson missed a drive and Wright went all the way for a layup. It was 68–63.

  Knight sat, arms folded, watching. Thomas was called for charging again. Jeff Moe, the Indiana kid who had buried the Hoosiers in Iowa City, hit two free throws to make it 68-65. Iowa was playing box-and-one on Alford now, denying him the ball when he had to have it most. Calloway came through with a soft bank shot to make it 70–65. Just when everyone was sighing with relief, Moe answered with a bomb. Alford tried to force his way to the basket and lost the ball. Ed Horton promptly posted inside, and his basket made it 70–69 with 3:10 left. In little more than ten minutes, Iowa had outscored the Hoosiers 24–6.

  Alford had to have the ball now. He got it, made a move, and was fouled with 2:55 left. Just what Indiana wanted—Alford on the line for two automatic points. Somehow, Alford missed. The crowd groaned. Iowa could take the lead. Knight looked a little like Moses must have looked gazing on the Promised Land. Hammel was nearly hysterical. “It’s just awful to ruin a great year like this. This is disastrous, just disastrous.”

  Iowa had time. It worked the ball around. Then, for some reason, 7-foot center Brad Lohaus tried a seventeen-footer. It had no chance, but Horton went over everybody for the rebound. He turned and had a wide open five-footer for the lead . . . it rolled off. Morgan rebounded. List Indiana’s five biggest rebounds of the season and Morgan probably had four of them.