As Hoops Nation sits this weekend and waits to see what happens in Indiana, add
Thomas Boswell of the Post to the list of people who hope Knight is let go.Â
He has an article up today calling Knight a bully, no great surprise there, and
suggesting that - well, you go read it for yourself. It's not a hugely great
article, but it's pretty good. The
board of trustees is to meet Sunday, apparently with an angry mob
of landgrebes (ok, who remembers that trivia?) camped out to defend Bob Knight.
In news more immediately related to Duke, Jared Jeffries has said that if
Knight goes, he will not stay. Mike
Sulivan lists schools and odds, all dependent, of course, on what actually
happens with Knight. Needless to say, if Jeffries bails, there will be a late
recruiting frenzy.
Dane Fife and Kirk Haston
are also both saying they'll leave if Knight leaves. In other news from
Bizarro Land, Kirk Haston and Tom Geyer are accusing former assistant Ron
Felling, one of Knight's accusers, of assaulting them, and Luke Recker, in
individual workouts. This is, we assume, intended to impeach the integrity of
one of the witnesses, but one of the questions we would ask is simple: did you
tell Coach Knight about this incident? If not, why not? And if you did, why was
Felling not fired?
It seems just as likely to us that a) it didn't happen, or b) that violence
is accepted as part of IU basketball and Felling felt his actions were within
the parameters established by his boss. If the allegations are to be
believed, violence and physical aggression are part of Knight's M.O. Â
There's no particular reason why an assistant, particularly a long-time
assistant, would behave violently without the tacit permission of his boss. He
would surely face dismissal, at least in normal circumstances.
In the second article linked above, there is some evidence that people in
Indiana are starting to realize how people outside the state perceive Bob Knight
and his odd control over Hoosierdom. Rick Reilly ripped him a new one in
SI, and at least one prominent IU booster says that the national focus makes it
a bigger deal than it would be otherwise.
Perhaps predictably, Andy Katz has learned that
Knight will not resign and will force the board to act. He says the board
has three options: 1) ask for his resignation, 2) continue the investigation, or
3) basically ignore the whole mess.
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