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If Bobby Knight was in his prime coaching today, how successful would he be

KingOfBBN

KingOfBBN

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Sep 14, 2013
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I'd say not that successful. He's obviously intelligent when it comes to basketball but like we saw in the 90s and 2000s, elite recruits didn't want to put up with him nor did they have to and went elsewhere.

He's a prime example of a coach that if his career started twenty years later, he'd get zero praise.
 
He might be okay so long as he could recruit like he used to. Jim Calhoun seemed to have a similar style. Outside of him I can't think of anyone that might be on the same bully/lunatic level that is successful.
 
Friendly reminder that Bob Knight literally choked one of his players. There are likely several other incidents that went unreported. There's 100 times the exposure now and that POS would be busted very quickly pulling one of his unacceptable bully stunts.
 
The Bobby Knight born in 1940 would not get along with a Bobby Knight born in 1960. The OP was talking about a 20 year adjustment.

Bobby Knight graduated from tOSU in 1962. Woody Hayes coached the football team at tOSU from 1951-1978.
Anyone remember Hayes retirement game? here is snapshot of Woody Hayes in his final game.

Knight was a product of his time.



This post was edited on 1/2 8:36 PM by UKvisitor
 
Originally posted by ~Keyser Soze~:
Friendly reminder that Bob Knight literally choked one of his players. There are likely several other incidents that went unreported. There's 100 times the exposure now and that POS would be busted very quickly pulling one of his unacceptable bully stunts.
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Remember two years ago when they freaked out about the Rutgers' coach acting crazy? Where was that reporting back when Knight was coaching even before the Neil Reed incident? Where was the outrage for that when all of us were coming up and playing sports?
 
Knight would be fine with the behavior thing

And he would go unchallenged over it, just as it always has been and probably always will be possible to overlook personality issues if you win

Consider our own Billy Gillispie: he got away with equally boorish and abusive stunts as Knight, and it was kept hidden for all but the last few weeks of his tenure. In fact, and like Knight, if Billy had won there probably never would have been any public knowledge of what he did to Josh and at Two Keys and so forth and so on and on and on....

Knight's motion offense (or "moving-screen offense" as Joe B called it) would work today but it isn't and wasn't built for the 3-point shot. Nor was Knight's D (which to me was similar to Tubby's "ball-line D"), which would be torched from beyond the arc. If you recall, it was Pitino that really had Knight's "number", and he did it behind three-point shooting, especially with the "inside-out" passing he made popular and in transition (ie, spotting up for an open 3 on the break).
 
Originally posted by UKvisitor:
The Bobby Knight born in 1940 would not get along with a Bobby Knight born in 1960. The OP was talking about a 20 year adjustment.

Bobby Knight graduated from tOSU in 1962. Woody Hayes coached the football team at tOSU from 1951-1978.
Anyone remember Hayes retirement game? here is snapshot of Woody Hayes in his final game.

Knight was a product of his time.




This post was edited on 1/2 8:36 PM by UKvisitor
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I'll give Hayes credit, he was going back for more. It didn't seem to enter his mind, "what have I done here?" The old dude was all in. What right did they have to pull him off? In my opinion, THE most telling image of college sports for the entire 20th century: Woody Hayes's uppercut in the 1978 Gator Bowl.
 
I'd guess he'd be as successful as the guy from Wisconsin is in today's game.

Similar styles, similar players. To me it's like watching a YMCA Men's League team take on and beat a bunch of individually talented, but not bball saavy HS kids.

Somehow seems to work if you get just the right mix of dorky white guys with awkward-but-somehow-effective bball skills.
 
Not very successful because kids today don't want to play for a bully and I don't blame them.
 
Originally posted by catzfanjim:

Not very successful because kids today don't want to play for a bully and I don't blame them.
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I don't think any of us would. There's a difference between getting yelled out and coached and then the psychological torture and often physical encounters that come with playing for Bobby Knight. I played for that type and he sucked.
 
Knight is waaaay too much of a control freak and wouldn't allow today's top players to play to their strengths, let alone have even the slightest input in the film room or other team meetings. He'd be average at the very best and if he landed top recruits then most would transfer out in short order after they realized what an a-hole he is, IMO.
 
Fired is how he would be! Done!! We live in a different media world now and his shit would be viral all the time! His behavior was really questionable then but would not be tolerated today!
 
Knight in his prime was a very good recruiter, motivator, and in game coach. If the question is how would a good recruiter, motivator, and in game coach do in his prime today, I would think very well, even if he was a preposterously cantankerous asshole.
 
With his bullying antics he wouldn't be doing any better then Crean.
 
In looking back at Knight's record, in his final 6 years at IU, he never made it past the second round. At TT, he had a Sweet 16 in 6 full seasons. The other 5 seasons, he never made it out of the 2nd round.

In those last 12 years of coaching, he never lost fewer than 9 games. You have to go back to the 92-93 for him to have a great season in which he won the B10 and went to the E8. In the previous season, he went to the FF.

My conclusion is that after 93 RMK was mostly living on his legend as a great coach but the game had passed him by. He didn't adapt well to the changes and that is why his teams never again went to the FF after 92.

Simply put, he would most likely be a good coach today but not a great one.
 
His tactics wouldn't work on kids today. We are in a one and done, two and through basketball society. I wish he was still coaching, I'd pray we would play him so Cal would spank that tail year in and year out!
 
Originally posted by UKvisitor:
The Bobby Knight born in 1940 would not get along with a Bobby Knight born in 1960. The OP was talking about a 20 year adjustment.

Bobby Knight graduated from tOSU in 1962. Woody Hayes coached the football team at tOSU from 1951-1978.
Anyone remember Hayes retirement game? here is snapshot of Woody Hayes in his final game.

Knight was a product of his time.



This post was edited on 1/2 8:36 PM by UKvisitor
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I dunno. Being a product of your time usually has more to do with worldview, etc - but people with severe anger issues have existed in every generation.

I don't think he'd be any less likely to want to punch someone for the tiniest perceived slight if he were born 20 years later. I know plenty of people like that, and none of them would be able to hold a public-eye type job like that for too long nowadays.
 
Originally posted by Samwise Ganjee:
Knight would be fine with the behavior thing

And he would go unchallenged over it, just as it always has been and probably always will be possible to overlook personality issues if you win

Consider our own Billy Gillispie: he got away with equally boorish and abusive stunts as Knight, and it was kept hidden for all but the last few weeks of his tenure. In fact, and like Knight, if Billy had won there probably never would have been any public knowledge of what he did to Josh and at Two Keys and so forth and so on and on and on....

Knight's motion offense (or "moving-screen offense" as Joe B called it) would work today but it isn't and wasn't built for the 3-point shot. Nor was Knight's D (which to me was similar to Tubby's "ball-line D"), which would be torched from beyond the arc. If you recall, it was Pitino that really had Knight's "number", and he did it behind three-point shooting, especially with the "inside-out" passing he made popular and in transition (ie, spotting up for an open 3 on the break).
Click to expand...
i pretty much agree with everything you say here. especially the strategic aspects. you hit the nail on the head there. billy g did a lot of the same stuff, but he didn't throw chairs across the free throw line or (as far as we know) choke players. i think we'd know if he did. now these things were caught later in knight's career, but who knows what he was getting away with in the 70's when there wasn't the exposure that there was in the 90's. i think he would have had to restrain himself somewhat to get by today.
 
I wouldn't think he would have any success. But I honestly believe that if his prime was now, we would hear of athletes getting kicked off his teams for beating the holy crap outta him. Heck, he might even have gotten shot by a kid or their parents.
 
The players would put up with him if they thought he would make them better. It's the parents who would kill his recruiting. Elite talent parents don't care if you make their son go to class. They care if you run an offense that will spotlight their son's skillset. The big NBA money wasn't there for anyone but superstars back in Knight's heyday. Now you have crap players on crap teams making millions.
 
Maybe Bobby Knight has genetic issues? Have we seen a simliar pattern with his off springs?

Still hang with Bobby Knight was a product of his time.
 
Not very. His method of coaching wouldn't work in today's society/the generation he'd be recruiting.

You think any top-tier recruit wants to go and get screamed at by a raving lunatic when they could instead go play for Calipari, Self, Shusheffskee, Miller, *Williams, Donovan, Izzo, or Boeheim? I doubt it.
 
He'd be fine. Frank Martin is the closest comparison I can make in today's game and BK would have more talent and is better Xs and Os coach.
Posted from Rivals Mobile
 
Knight was an enigma. He had great success in the 70's and 80's. Then the 24 hour cable news cycle with its higher scrutiny regardinf his boorish unprofessional behavior pulled the curtain back and revealed what a jerk he was. As a result, the best players opted for other programs. He is one of the most disgusting coaches in US sports history.
 
Originally posted by joshua029:
I wouldn't think he would have any success. But I honestly believe that if his prime was now, we would hear of athletes getting kicked off his teams for beating the holy crap outta him.
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Agreed that he wouldn't be nearly as successful today, but disagree on the idea a player might "beat the holy crap out of him." By all accounts, Knight was a uniquely intimidating figure. A lot of that was position and the way he carried himself - but much of it was simply physical. He was 6'5 and hulking. And you're talking about, relatively, kids - 18-22 year olds. Were he coaching in the NBA, then, yeah, Charles Oakley might have worked him over. But not college athletes - especially considering the perception that kids today are softer. If he could and routinely did reduce West Point cadets to tears in the 1960s, the coddled athlete of today would have little chance of standing up to him....
 
Knight was a great coach, as far as basketball was concerned. He knew basketball and is very smart.

However, he's also an egocentric bully, who can't admit when he's wrong.

IMO, if Knight coached today, you would see him at a mid-major school (such as UTEP) that occasionally got to the Sweet-16.
 
Good question and an answer from a fan that knows him


Coach Knight was a master and a genius with his invention of the "motion offense"--however it required controlling the tempo of the game. It was with the advent of the shot clock that brought his coaching style down a few notches----I remember games from the 70's where his team held the ball for 11 minutes before attempting their first shot. So the Bob Knight coaching before the shot clock and after it had different results-

As the college game became more like the NBA game, Coach Knight wasn't as effective. After all he would rather watch Frogs fornicate than the NBA--can you see why?

I enjoyed having a Coach with anger that everyone hated--what destroys the game of basketball now is apathy--seems that anger and apathy are opposites-anger demonstrates love for winning and passion--Coach Knight had that and the fan base grew.

He may be deemed a jack ass by the fan base from the likes of Kentucky and Purdue, but we need this anger back in Indiana--being a complacent nice guy that accepts losing is what we currently have--apathy is only a moment away.
 
For the record

For the record, the NCAA debuted a 45-second shot clock for men for the 1985-86 season, reducing it to 35 seconds by the 1993-94 season.

Coach did do well with the 45 second shot in 1987 winning the whole thing but as the clock shot went to 35 the winner of the games were based more on the players and not the coaching in my opinion--it favored the athlete and coaching like Coach Knight's way of the past became less relevant--

He was one of the best at old-time basketball--but those days are gone, long gone.

By the way, for those of you who hate him, he complimented your fan base saying your knowledge about the game was superior the last time I heard him telecast a game.
This post was edited on 1/6 4:21 PM by Chris4IU
 
Almost no kid tolerates that today, not yours, not mine, nobody's, and I say that's for the good. He treated some of those kids like sub-humans . . . over basketball.
 
Originally posted by BluegrassBaron:
Knight was a great coach, as far as basketball was concerned. He knew basketball and is very smart.
Click to expand...
Bobby says, "I'll drink to that."

bobknightdrinking1_zpsf4c5a5e6.jpg
 
Re: For the record


Originally posted by Chris4IU:
For the record, the NCAA debuted a 45-second shot clock for men for the 1985-86 season, reducing it to 35 seconds by the 1993-94 season.

Coach did do well with the 45 second shot in 1987 winning the whole thing but as the clock shot went to 35 the winner of the games were based more on the players and not the coaching in my opinion--it favored the athlete and coaching like Coach Knight's way of the past became less relevant--

He was one of the best at old-time basketball--but those days are gone, long gone.

By the way, for those of you who hate him, he complimented your fan base saying your knowledge about the game was superior the last time I heard him telecast a game.
This post was edited on 1/6 4:21 PM by Chris4IU
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Bob Knight slapped Joe B. Hall. Who was supposedly his friend and is loved by pretty much everyone who meets him and has a radio show with former rival Denny Crum.

That says everything you need to know about Bob Knight.
 
Re: Good question and an answer from a fan that knows him

Originally posted by Chris4IU:

Coach Knight was a master and a genius with his invention of the "motion offense"--however it required controlling the tempo of the game. It was with the advent of the shot clock that brought his coaching style down a few notches----I remember games from the 70's where his team held the ball for 11 minutes before attempting their first shot. So the Bob Knight coaching before the shot clock and after it had different results-

As the college game became more like the NBA game, Coach Knight wasn't as effective. After all he would rather watch Frogs fornicate than the NBA--can you see why?

I enjoyed having a Coach with anger that everyone hated--what destroys the game of basketball now is apathy--seems that anger and apathy are opposites-anger demonstrates love for winning and passion--Coach Knight had that and the fan base grew.

He may be deemed a jack ass by the fan base from the likes of Kentucky and Purdue, but we need this anger back in Indiana--being a complacent nice guy that accepts losing is what we currently have--apathy is only a moment away.
Click to expand...
Anger didn't make him a better coach. Anger destroyed his coaching career. RMK preached self-control all his life but, ultimately, his own lack of self-control brought about his demise. You have anger confused with passion. BTW, Cal has passion.
This post was edited on 1/6 5:09 PM by preacherfan
 
Re: For the record

Originally posted by podgejeff_:


Originally posted by Chris4IU:
For the record, the NCAA debuted a 45-second shot clock for men for the 1985-86 season, reducing it to 35 seconds by the 1993-94 season.

Coach did do well with the 45 second shot in 1987 winning the whole thing but as the clock shot went to 35 the winner of the games were based more on the players and not the coaching in my opinion--it favored the athlete and coaching like Coach Knight's way of the past became less relevant--

He was one of the best at old-time basketball--but those days are gone, long gone.

By the way, for those of you who hate him, he complimented your fan base saying your knowledge about the game was superior the last time I heard him telecast a game.

This post was edited on 1/6 4:21 PM by Chris4IU
Click to expand...
Bob Knight slapped Joe B. Hall. Who was supposedly his friend and is loved by pretty much everyone who meets him and has a radio show with former rival Denny Crum.

That says everything you need to know about Bob Knight.
Click to expand...
He also flat out lied about UK players not going to class and, as far as I know, has NEVER said anything about UNC*** and the fact that players have NEVER gone to class there. Seems hypocritical to me.
 
Re: For the record

If he coached today, Knight would be worse than his career 15-18 record against us.

If he coached against Cal, he would have tried to 'Cheney' Cal by now.....or better yet pulled a Woody Hayes.

IU President Myles Brand who fired Knight did him a favor.

And I can't tell who's more miserable in the picture.............Schulman or Bilas?
 
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