A Season on the Brink

by John Feinstein

  Knight didn’t panic, though. Nothing was wrong with Alford mechanically. There was no sense beating him up emotionally because everyone knew Alford was doing everything he could to break the spell. The rematch with Iowa was next. The Hoosiers, in spite of their struggles, had done what Knight had asked: They had won all their games after the Iowa loss to set up the rematch. After three straight poor performances, though, the question was, Would they break loose or break down?

  They broke loose. Alford’s touch returned. He was five-of-seven in the first half. Everyone sizzled. Leading 27–21 with 10:30 left, Indiana went on a rampage, outscoring Iowa 19–6 the rest of the half. Assembly Hall was rocking as it almost never rocked. Iowa made it closer during garbage time, but the final was 84–75.

  Knight walked off the floor twirling Al McGuire’s red handkerchief—having stolen it from him during the postgame TV interview. He was giddy. He knew his team, faced with a big game, had responded in a big way. What’s more, the Hoosiers were in first place in the Big Ten with a 14–1 record. If they could win at Purdue, they would clinch at least a tie for the title.

  But they didn’t win at Purdue. In foul trouble right from the start, they fell behind by nine at halftime and never caught up. They got to within one, but could never get even. Garrett fouled out with just two points. Thomas and Smart also fouled out.

  It was an aggravating loss, because unlike the game the year before at Purdue, this one had been winnable. Still, if they won their last two league games—at Illinois, and against Ohio State at home—they would do no worse than tie for the Big Ten championship.

  But Illinois produced another loss. The Illini had lost three straight close games to the Hoosiers, and the law of averages, if nothing else, was on their side. Alford had another poor shooting day (six-of-sixteen), and Illinois led almost the entire second half. The game ended with Alford’s desperation halfcourt heave being blocked at the buzzer with Illinois leading 69–67.

  Now they had lost two straight. Worse, they were one game behind Purdue. If Purdue won at Michigan State and Michigan, it would win the league title, regardless of what Indiana did against Ohio State. This did not please Knight. The week following the Illinois loss was a long one, the practices tough. Knight hated having to depend on someone else—especially someone like Michigan coach Bill Frieder.

  But that’s the way it turned out. Frieder’s team did to Purdue exactly what it had done to Indiana on the last day of the season in ’86. The Wolverines humiliated the Boilermakers, 104–68. When Indiana, trailing by eight midway in the second half, came back to beat Ohio State 90–81 in the home finale for Alford, Thomas and Meier, the two teams had tied for the Big Ten title with 15–3 records. It was Knight’s eighth Big Ten championship as a coach, breaking the record of seven held by Fred Taylor. Knight had played on three of those seven Taylor-coached teams at Ohio State, meaning that in nineteen Big Ten seasons as a coach and player he had been part of eleven championships.

  At least as important as the title, Purdue’s loss changed the seedings for the NCAA tournament. If Purdue had beaten Michigan, it would have been the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Regional. Indiana would have gone back to the Eastern Regional—and back to Syracuse, site of the Cleveland State nightmare—as a No. 2 seed. But when Purdue got hammered, it dropped from a top seed to a No. 3 seed, and the Hoosiers slid right into their No. 1 spot in the Midwest.

  That meant that to reach the Final Four, Indiana would only have to travel forty-five miles north to Indianapolis, and then a hundred miles east to Cincinnati. Home cooking, but more important, lots of home fans.

  They proved important that first weekend. The opening game was a 92–58 breeze past Fairfield, hardly surprising since Indiana was the No. 2 seed in the sixty-four-team field, and Fairfield was No. 63. But the second-round game was against Auburn, one of those talented but inconsistent Southeast Conference teams.

  The Tigers came out blazing. Within six minutes they led 24–10, and the 34,576 in the Hoosier Dome were in shock. But Thomas and Alford got hot, the officials—apparently intimidated by Knight—made some strange calls against Auburn, and the game swung completely around very quickly. IU got even at 40–40 with 5:38 left, led 53–48 at the half and blew to a 107–90 victory. That they were able to play at that quick a pace that effectively against athletes like Auburn had was very encouraging to Knight. He would admit later that after the Auburn game he began thinking his team just might be good enough to win the whole thing.

  The Auburn victory set up one of those matchups Knight would just as soon never deal with. The round-of-sixteen opponent would be Duke, and that meant coaching against Krzyzewski. Of all his proteges who have gone on to become head coaches, Krzyzewski is not only the most successful, but the one closest to Knight. He had done a brilliant job getting this Duke team to the round-of-sixteen one year after it lost four starters off the team that reached the NCAA championship game.

  It was an awkward week for both men. Indiana was clearly the better team, but Krzyzewski harbored the belief—quietly—that if he could get a good performance from his best shooter, guard Kevin Strickland, an upset was possible. The two coaches talked early in the week. Knight even offered to talk to any members of the North Carolina media Krzyzewski asked him to talk to. Krzyzewski was asked about the relationship so many times that he finally said one day, “You know, this game is turning into forty ways to say I love you.”

  There was no sign of love once the game started. Duke was ready to play, and led 29–21 early. But, just as it had done against Auburn, Indiana got on a roll. A couple of stupid plays by Duke, some hot shooting by Smart and Calloway, and it was 49–39 at halftime. Duke hung in, though, and when Tommy Amaker buried a three-pointer with three minutes left, the lead was 78–76.

  Suddenly, the Hoosiers faced a crucial possession. They had not expected this kind of comeback. Duke had confidence on offense, and the way it played defense, if it ever got a lead. . .

  It never did. Alford shot-faked, drove the lane—a surprise to the Duke players—and coolly hit a reverse layup. It was 80–76. Strickland missed a jumper and Smart hit a drive of his own. That was it. Ballgame. Strickland had shot five-of-fifteen. Krzyzewski had been right. If he had played well, Duke might have pulled the upset.

  But it didn’t, and the Hoosiers were in the final eight. Knight was subdued after the game. There was no real joy in beating Krzyzewski. He and the coaches went to work preparing for LSU as soon as they returned to the hotel that night.

  LSU. That meant Dale Brown, one of Knight’s least favorite coaches, and Knight’s least favorite group of fans, dating back to the Tiger-bait incident in Philadelphia in 1981. What’s more, although LSU was only 24–14, it had the kind of athletes that could give Indiana trouble. Looking at the tape Saturday night, Knight commented, “How in the world did that son-of-a-bitch [Brown] ever lose fourteen games with this team?”

  That seemed like a reasonable question the next day. From the start, Garrett could not handle 6–8 Nikita Wilson inside. LSU’s guards were quick and slick. Indiana was leading 18–17 with 11:39 left in the first half when Thomas was called for three seconds. Knight did not see and could not hear the call. He asked for an explanation. He got none. Angry, he walked out of the coaches’ box to find out what the call was.

  As soon as he left the box, referee Tom Fraim had no choice. He nailed Knight with a technical foul. Knight went slightly crazy. He screamed. He yelled. He stormed to the scorer’s table, where Gene Corrigan, representing the NCAA Tournament Committee, was sitting. He told Corrigan just what he thought of the situation, banging his hand on the table and on the phone next to Corrigan. Amazingly, Knight was not hit with another technical. Almost as amazingly, the technical was only Knight’s second of the season, proof of his newfound self-control on the bench. Now, though, facing Dale Brown with a Final Four trip on the line, he was not so controlled.

  This was also a classic case of an official being intimidated by Knight. F
raim, one of the best officials in the country, would admit later that he probably should have given Knight a second technical. Furthermore, he conceded that he had hesitated because he believed if he gave Knight another tech, Knight would get even angrier and probably earn a third technical—and ejection from the game. Not wanting to deal with that, Fraim let Knight run amok.

  Interestingly, none of the three officials working the game advanced to the Final Four. The main reason, as it turned out, was their failure to deal more firmly with Knight.

  The technical cost the Hoosiers only one point, and they led at halftime, 47–46. But LSU took command early in the second half, leading 63–51 after a ferocious Wilson dunk with 12:24 left. It didn’t look good for the Hoosiers. It looked worse several minutes later when Calloway went down, his knee hurt again. He limped off with Garl, his season—and his team’s—seemingly over. By the time the two of them came back to the bench, it was 75–66 LSU, and the clock was down to 4:38.

  Under the stands, Calloway had told Garl he felt okay, that he could play. Garl had no choice but to take his word. He told the coaches Calloway could play.

  Slowly, Indiana rallied. Hillman came off the bench to produce a vital three-point play. Brown helped by going to a spread offense. That kept the ball away from Wilson. The Hoosiers kept creeping back. Smart made it 76–75 with forty seconds left. Indiana would have to foul. It did, going after freshman point guard Fess Irvin with twenty-six seconds to go. Irvin had played superbly, with fourteen points and three assists. But the pressure got to him. His free throw was a brick.

  Down came Indiana with a chance to win. Knight would never call time in this situation. He always felt his players had a better handle on what to do than the opponents. The clock ran down. The ball went inside to Thomas. He shot-faked and went up, thinking he was going to get hammered. He was off-balance when he shot from ten feet out in the lane, and the shot was woeful—short and to the right. An airball.

  But there was Calloway, swooping in as if he had never had a knee injury. He grabbed the ball in the air, and in one motion banked it in. It was 77–76, Indiana. Basket by Calloway. Calloway, from Cincinnati, in Cincinnati. Calloway, who had been reminded time and again in practice that he had played for a loser in high school and would have to prove to his college coach that he was a winner. “Talent will only take you so far, Ricky. . ..”

  It wasn’t talent that had put Calloway in that spot. It was grit and smarts and, above all, being a winner. In the stands, Calloway’s divorced parents each leaped straight into the air as their son’s shot fell through.

  LSU still had six seconds to get off a shot. It got a good one, a turnaround jumper in the lane by Wilson. But it hit the front rim. Time ran out. Indiana was going to New Orleans. Knight couldn’t resist one final swipe at Dal Brown. Describing the last play on national TV, he made direct reference to Brown’s changing defense, the “freak defense,” as Brown called it. “On the last play,” Knight said, “we used our freak offense.”

  The Final Week would be hectic. This would be an entourage week for Knight. Friends would fly into New Orleans from all over the country to hang out with Knight. Johnny Bench, the former Cincinnati Reds catcher, was there. John Havlicek, Knight’s old teammate. David Israel, the former Chicago Tribune columnist, now working in television in Los Angeles. And others. And the usual members of the entourage. The Indiana plane had to make three separate trips to New Orleans before the team left on Friday.

  They arrived Friday afternoon, almost forty-eight hours after Syracuse, Providence and Nevada–Las Vegas, and late for their scheduled practice because of hundred-mile-per-hour headwinds. Knight was in a good mood, happy to be in the spotlight and in his fourth Final Four.

  The semifinal opponent was Nevada-Las Vegas. The Rebels were 37–1, ranked No. 1, and the favorites to win the tournament—except among basketball people, most of whom picked Indiana. Knight was worried about Armon Gilliam, UNLV’s 6-9 All-America, a superb player. He was afraid he might dominate the game.

  He wasn’t far wrong. Gilliam, despite double-and triple-teaming, scored thirty-two points. What’s more, Freddie Banks, UNLV’s mad bomber, banged in thirty-eight points, making ten three-point shots from every conceivable spot on the floor. But Gilliam and Banks didn’t get enough help. Knight had decided not to guard point Mark Wade, a great passer but a poor shooter. Wade didn’t hit a shot until the last five seconds of the game.

  In the meantime, Alford was superb, hitting ten-of-nineteen from the floor and eleven-of-thirteen from the foul line. Both misses came on a two-shot foul in the second half, the first time in his college career Alford had missed twice in one sequence. He never missed again, though.

  The game was Indiana’s almost throughout. Vegas made a last desperate run, cutting a 90–80 lead to 92–88 with 1:11 left. But Banks ran out of ammunition in the final minute, missing two shots from the field, and a free throw when the lead could have been cut to two. The final was 97–93. Indiana would play Syracuse for the national championship.

  By now, Knight was as thrilled with this team as with any he had ever coached. This was not a dominating team like the two that had won national championships for him in the past. Those teams had run over the NCAA tournament like an eighteen-wheel truck. This team had been behind in every game it played in the tournament—except against Fairfield—and kept finding ways to win.

  And then there was Alford. With the end of the Little Kid’s career now plainly in view, Knight was already becoming nostalgic. He talked about how Alford got so much out of his talent, how much he admired his toughness, how much he would be missed.

  Alford was already taking his place in that great tradition of Indiana basketball under Knight. The way the inner circle told it now when the Mentor wasn’t around, Quinn Buckner was the man who invented basketball, Randy Wittman was the man who perfected basketball, Alford was the man who played basketball the way it should be played and Damon Bailey would be the man who took basketball to a new dimension.

  Alford laughed at all this, remembering the many evenings when he had been the world’s worst player. At the Sunday press conference before the title game someone asked Alford to talk about his four years under Knight. With a glance at his coach, Alford said, “I’ve survived four years and I’ve only got one game left. I’m not going to blow it now.”

  He didn’t say another word. The Little Kid had always been smart.

  They went through all the rituals in those last twenty-four hours. There was a small glitch when they arrived at the Superdome to practice Sunday. Syracuse’s practice uniforms had been stolen and their practice had started forty-five minutes late. They were still on the floor. Knight was angry until what had happened was explained to him. “Tell them to take all the time they need,” he said.

  They looked at tape in the locker room until Syracuse left. Later, Knight would tell people that practicing that day had probably been a mistake. The team was drained from the up-and-down game against Vegas. Just shooting and walking through would have been a better idea, Knight thought.

  On game day, they walked through at the hotel and listened to Havlicek and Buckner, just as the ’81 team had done before playing North Carolina. Before they left the hotel, Garl made arrangements for a postgame feast. “If we lose,” he told the banquet manager, “we’ll still pay, but we won’t be here to eat.”

  The game was everything a national championship game should be. It was 34–33 Indiana at halftime when Alford tossed in a three-pointer at the buzzer. Remembering that Wittman had made a jumper to put IU ahead of North Carolina 27–26 in 1981 never to trail again, Hammel saw the shot as a potential harbinger.

  “Randy Wittman,” he said softly as the teams left the floor.

  Not this time. Syracuse took the lead on two free throws by Seikaly fifty-two seconds into the half. Seikaly had collided in the lane with Calloway on the play. Calloway went down, a bone in his wrist broken. But he said nothing at the time and kept playing. Onl
y after the game did he tell Garl, “I think I broke my wrist.”

  Syracuse, playing in its first national championship game, was not going to go away. The Orangemen led 52–44 with 13:09 left. Indiana somehow came up with a 10–0 surge. Hillman was playing now for Calloway, who would not score in the game.

  Hillman had initially come in for Smart, who had been yanked with 16:41 left because of a bad pass. But Knight wasn’t angry; he just wanted to settle him down. As Smart came out, Knight tapped him on the rear end and said, “Be ready to go right back in.” Kohn Smith grabbed Smart and reminded him that there was plenty of time left and no need to rush anything.

  Smart came back for Hillman with 12:12 left. Eight seconds later, Hillman replaced Calloway for the rest of the night.

  The last ten minutes of the game belong in a time capsule. Every possession was tight-throat time, a little bit tighter each time. The lead and the momentum seesawed until Syracuse’s Howard Triche hit a jumper from the lane to make it 72–70 Syracuse with fifty-seven seconds left. This was ironic. Knight had ordered his players to let Triche shoot most of the night, and the strategy had paid off. He was two-for-eight until that shot. But it dropped.

  Then Smart, who had been spectacular down the stretch, missed a baby-jumper on the baseline. Triche grabbed the weakside rebound with thirty-eight seconds left, and Alford fouled him immediately.

  The game was in Syracuse’s hands now. Triche made the first free throw, but missed the second. Smart grabbed the rebound, raced through the defense and hit from the lane to make it 73–72 with thirty seconds to go. Indiana called time.

  If Jim Boeheim, who had coached a wonderful game all night, made a mistake, it was here. Instead of running an inbounds play to get the ball to one of his guards, Sherman Douglas or Greg Monroe, both good foul shooters, he inbounded to Seikaly, who passed to freshman Derrick Coleman. He was fouled with twenty-eight seconds to go. Knight called time again to let Coleman think.