A conversation with the Master
”Every year a team takes a different route to whatever it`s going to wind up becoming or doing,” Bob Knight says.
He is the Indiana basketball coach, the finest coach in the business, and here he is discussing his current Hoosiers, a band of callow youth and abiding curiosity. Seven freshmen and a pair of sophomores, they comprise the spine of this team, yet already they find themselves highly ranked and burdened with the expectations of greatness. Part of that is testament to their own talents. But more of it, certainly, is testament to the genius of Knight, the beacon who will guide them along their route.
”This team,” he now goes on, ”starts out first of all learning what the season`s going to be all about. Then they have to make themselves competitive, and how soon they do so will kinda determine what the season is for them.
”Are we going to wait for them to develop and mature, or will they be smart enough, competitive enough to do that fairly early? I don`t know. I just don`t know that. So I`m curious to see just what we`re going to be.”
Will it be important to remember they`re just 18-, 19-year-old kids while you`re waiting to see, Knight is asked.
”To me, all that`s bull. Now let me ask you a question. As long as you`ve been around sports, do you think that coaches as a group are as protective about their futures as any group you`ve been around?”
Yeah, sure.
”See, I do too,” Knight continues. ” `We`re too young.` `We`re not big enough.` `We`re not deep enough.` There are more reasons why we aren`t going to be good enough, but none of them to me are acceptable. We lost not because we were young, we lost because we didn`t handle the ball well. You may say that`s because we`re young. I don`t believe that. We were sloppy. We didn`t look at the right keys to make passes. We didn`t block out well. Whatever. I think you lose because you play badly, not because you`re young, or not big, or not deep. All those are excuses, not reasons.
”I`ve never talked to our players about being young. I want them to think, `Hey, we`ve got a system of play, we`ve got the kind of talent that will enable us to play with anybody, and if we don`t, there are some things that we`re not doing that are preventing us from doing that.` Not because we`re 19 years old.”
– – –
What they must do to win. Those factors might seem obvious, but that conclusion is too simple, too superficial when applied to any team as young as Indiana`s. For the player takes a quantum leap when he moves from high school to college, and he then encounters countless adjustments both physical and mental.
In high school he was a star; now he is just one of many. In high school he was the scorer; now he may have to assume another role.
In high school he could err, and still succeed on natural talent; now he errs, and is gobbled up as easily as hors d`ouvres. In high school he faced
(maybe) eight major college prospects in his career; now, he faces a talented collegian every time out. (”I think that`s the hardest mental adjustment a kid goes through,” says Knight. ”That`s why some kids don`t make it from high school to college, they`re just never able to adjust to the competition demands on their own game.”)
He probably played little defense in high school, but now-certainly at Indiana-that must become a staple of his game. The games, the intensity of the games themselves is more withering than he ever encountered in high school, and practices are longer and rougher, more arduous and more demanding. ”They have,” says Knight, ”no idea of what they`re getting into.”
Did you try to give them some idea with a speech before practice opened on October 15?
”I didn`t talk to them,” Knight says. ”You just start practice. But I get them together every day before practice for about three minutes, and talk to them about something we`re doing that night, or where we are, and then, over the course of each practice, I`ll let a kid know we don`t have West Valley on the schedule this year, that we`re playing a little different competition.
”I think developing a kid`s mentality to play at this level is a daily proposition. I think you have to direct attention to that every day until all of a sudden we`re playing, and then-whoever we`re playing through December-they`re going to be playing kids they never heard of who are really good. Then it will begin to dawn on them what we`re talking about.”
Is this approach different from one you might take with a veteran team?
”Not really. Not really. But now these guys have got a lot to learn, seniors shouldn`t have anything to learn, and when you`re teaching-at least when I`m teaching-I have a different approach to those I`m trying to get to learn than to those I`m trying to get to retain a level they`ve already reached. These kids haven`t reached any level yet.
”See, when you`re talking about kids who`ve already reached a level, you`re probably not going to practice as hard, you aren`t going to practice as long, you`re probably going to be less patient and tolerant-you want them to be less tolerant with themselves at that point. But this team hasn`t accomplished anything yet, and that`s what I tell them.
”I tell them, `You can take any state championships you won, or any honors you won in high school, and put `em away until you`re done with this phase of your career. Then, when you`re older, you can tell your kids you were a great high school player. But I think it would be a hell of a lot better to be able to tell them you were a great college player. Or when you`re watching the NCAA finals, to be able to tell your kids or your grandkids about the year you played in it or the year you won it.` I say, `That`s what being here is all about, and we`ve got a long way to get to that point.` ”
– – –
This young Indiana group is so highly regarded that soothsayers are already saying it will someday win a national championship. That, of course, is not certain, yet the freshmen have proven so talented that none are being redshirted, and, says Knight, ”They`re all going to play. They`ve all responded, and we`ve got some kids that-given a normal increase in development from where they are right now through the course of the year-will be very, very good players, and have the chance to be exceptional.”
Does that, his visitor finally wonders, put any pressure on you?
”I`ve never felt any pressure,” says Knight. ”I had a job before this one, and I`ll have one after this one. So it doesn`t make any difference to me. The only pressure I feel is the pressure of being satisfied that we played well.
”But this is a team you just absolutely can`t tell about. There`ll be a player come along who nobody ever heard about who`ll be a very good college player. There`ll be a team nobody ever heard about that`ll be a very good college team. That`s just the way it is now. I`ve always made this comment. I`ll see a team picked to win the Big 10, and I`ll say, `They have no chance, and here`s what`s going to happen. They`re going to be in the middle of the year, and their record`s going to be 4-5 or 5-4, and everyone`s going to be writing about what`s wrong with so-and-so. But, in effect, it was very unfair to pick them because they weren`t qualified.` That`s what becomes a problem for some teams.”
Couldn`t it become a problem for your team?
”Yeah. But it`s not going to bother me any.”
But aren`t you going to have to keep your team from being bothered?
”It will be a problem with our players,” Knight says. ”They already feel they were good in high school, and that they`re going to be able to move into that kind of position (in college). Well, that isn`t going to happen unless they do several things to get themselves into that position.
”Whether they can get themselves there, they really don`t know yet. That is what`s going to take place the next couple of years.”
