Not Indiana Basketball As We Knew It
by Matt Jones
Stretch your mind back for a second to 1987. The Cosby Show was ruling the television roost (pre-Pam days), Ronald Reagan was in the last days of his cowboy presidency (enjoying his post Iran-Contra bounce) and the Twins were doing their best to wave the Homer Hanky across America (all hail Kent Hrbek!) At this time the center of the college basketball universe resided in Bloomington, Indiana. Keith Smart had just etched his place in the college basketball lexicon right next to Jack Givens, Ed Pinckney and Lorenzo Charles with a game-winning shot from the baseline to beat the Syracuse Orangemen and give the Hoosiers their third national championship in eleven years. While Georgetown, Louisville, North Carolina and Kansas could all stake their claim as top college basketball programs in the 1980s, the center of college basketball was clearly in the heartland, and most conversations on the topic began by discussing good ol’ IU.
At the helm of course was the General, Bobby Knight. Beloved by many, detested by the rest, he was the pre-eminent figure in college basketball, ruling the roost with a slightly too tight red sweater (or in his earlier days slightly too tight Indiana polo shirt) and projecting total authority over the program. Knight was (and is) a man of amazing contradictions, who could be at times unbelievably generous (such as his personal delivery of a Pan Am Games gold medal to Kyle Macy, who had been injured and sent home from the experience) and at times unbelievably unruly (see the famous internet audio of Knight being “sick and tired of losing to Purdue”). He ran as clean a program as any in the NCAA and yet found ways to embarrass the university time and time again. Yet whatever one thought of Knight, one thing was clear: Indiana basketball was relevant and was the only college program that those who had no interest whatsoever in the sport could still converse about intelligently. 60 Minutes came to Indiana to interview Coach Knight for a reason and it wasn’t the fine cuisine in Bloomington. To all except the strongest of fans, Indiana basketball was the college basketball story.
Today Indiana basketball is a shade of its former self. Indiana sits at 5-6, a record that would be dismal by any Hoosier standard, but becomes even more so when closely examined. The Hoosiers have played six teams of quality (North Carolina, UCONN, Kentucky, Notre Dame, Charlotte and Missouri) and five teams that swing towards the lower end of mediocrity (Indiana State, Western Illinois, Ball State, Furman and Oral Roberts). They lost all six games against the quality teams and in the process put up absolutely embarrassing performances against two of them (Kentucky and Notre Dame). These losses also included a second half collapse (Missouri), an offensive performance that was one of the worst in school history (Kentucky), and a loss on a buzzer beater half court shot at home when Indiana’s own scorekeeper started the clock too late (Charlotte). Well at least they can take solace in their five wins, right? Wrong. Three of the wins were at home and could have easily been losses, including a game against Oral Roberts that was virtually given to them in the end. (By the way, whatever happened to the Reverend Oral Roberts? You never see him any more. When the crazy televangelists are parading on television, you still see Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and even occasionally Jimmy “I have sinned against you my lord!” Swaggert. But no more Oral. Not sure why.) All in all, it has been one of the worst non-conference seasons in the school’s history and the ground swell of Hoosier nation has found the place to point its collective finger. For many, all of Indiana’s problems can be placed at the footstep of one person: Mike Davis.
Now I must admit up front that I have a pre-disposition to want to see Mike Davis succeed. Davis became the coach of Indiana under the very worst of circumstances, with the fan base divided over the firing of Bobby “That is Coach Knight to you son” Knight and the mild threat of a player revolt during the process. He was stuck in a no-win situation from the very beginning, and feeling sorry for those in such circumstances as I do (I have a fondness in my heart for field goal kickers as well), I truly was rooting for Davis to succeed. However, replacing a legend is never easy, as such notables as Joe B. Hall, Matt Doherty and the second Joe Millionaire can attest. Davis did an adequate job for his first couple of seasons, and thanks to his miracle run in the 2002 NCAA Tournament (which included an amazing upset over a great Duke team in the Sweet 16) he gained a great deal of early goodwill from the Hoosier fan base. Sure, Davis had his quirks (such as running onto the court hitting himself in the head at the end of a game against Kentucky), but it looked as if his unique style had the potential to succeed in Bloomington.
However, that was then. In the interim, all of the leftover kids of the Knight era have passed, and Davis has presided over the collapse of the Indiana program in a way that would make even Jerry Krause shudder. Recruiting was supposed to be Davis’ strong suit and he brought in many “Billy Donovan specials”, guys that had the recruiting gurus salivating, but that ultimately have had little impact on the floor. However he seemed to be unable to land the players that IU truly coveted, the Bobby Knight-esque guys who would go diving on the floor for loose balls, made free throws and occasionally even had buzz cuts. He missed out on the son of an Indiana legend when Sean May decided to head to North Carolina rather than follow in his father’s footsteps at IU, and in the process gave the critics their first ammunition in what would soon become a full fledged assault on his coaching tenure. His teams often played uninspired and at times looked selfish, a style that is sometimes (wrongly) blamed on his newest star Bracey Wright. Things came to the brink last year when Indiana missed out on post-season play completely, a heresy that the Indiana faithful will not soon forget.
Ultimately it does not take a genius to realize that Mike Davis’ days in Bloomington are numbered. I will not undertake the generic sportswriter’s response and call for his ouster, nor will I take the time to defend him. It is likely the case that Davis never truly had a chance to succeed in Bloomington, for a variety of reasons ranging from his coaching inexperience to the long shadow cast by his predecessor. However what is much more fascinating to me is the state of the program itself. Throughout college sports, we are increasingly seeing unrealistic fan bases call for the ouster of their coach as they, like the 45-year-old former high school quarterback who leaves his wife for a new 28-year-old secretary, seek to recapture their glory days.
Much has been written about the absurdity of the Notre Dame and Nebraska football situations, and the decisions by those administrations to release perfectly solid football coaches because they did not excel at the highest of highs were correctly ridiculed. However, this situation is slightly different. Whatever one wants to say about Mike Davis, it is clear that he is not presiding over the equivalent of a nine-win college football team like Nebraska at the time of Frank Solich’s firing. Thus if he is let go, the rationale is much more understandable.
Still the more interesting point is that Indiana basketball is at a crossroads. They clearly are no longer on the level of the teams such as Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and Kansas, whom they once (and still wish to) considered their peers. Much more disconcerting to them however is the fact that they have since been left in the dust by programs such as Arizona, Michigan State, Syracuse, Connecticut and even neighboring Illinois. Put simply, Indiana basketball is just not Indiana basketball anymore.
The next coaching decision and the five years that follow it are thus absolutely crucial for the future of this program. Each year another batch of recruits comes forward whose memory of Indiana is not Isiah Thomas, Quinn Buckner or Steve Alford, but rather is A.J Moye, Kirk Haston and Pat Ewing, Jr. If the program does not make a significant move forward soon, it could be relegated to secondary status, a result unthinkable in the basketball-obsessed state of Indiana. There are two paths they can follow, and the next five years will determine if IU basketball becomes like Kentucky, a school that wins no matter who is the coach, or like UCLA, a program that needs a special coach to win.
