Intentional Upset: Bob Knight Steps Down
February 5th, 2008 at 8:34 amBy Chris
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Texas Tech head coach Bobby Knight has decided to step-down from his position, effective immediately. In a move that caused much surprise in the coaching world, Coach Knight leaves as the winningest coach in Division 1 basketball with 902 wins. Over at SportsbyBrooks, they have a great write-up discussing the motivations behind Coach Knight’s decision, which apparently was related to him losing his coaching spark.
Coach Knight’s son, Pat Knight will be taking over for his father immediately and the effectiveness Pat has with these kids may also be a motivating reason for the elder Knight’s surprising retirement. The SB Nation Texas Tech blog, Double-T Nation, thinks recruiting may have played a part as well:
I’ll be honest, after spending some time looking at Knight’s past recruiting classes last week, I believe that Knight knew that he could still coach his ass off, but something changed. I think that Knight could still recruit players, but something happened with that 2005 recruiting class that changed Knight. Knight recruited eight talented players and five of them transferred after one year with Knight.
It was after this mass exodus that his next class, 2006, consisted of five JUCO’s and one freshman. Of those five JUCO’s two transferred (Benny Valentine and Jay Mitchell) while the freshman (Decensae White) transferred to Santa Clara. That 2005 class was a wake-up call to Knight for what had happened to a program that was starting to build some stability. With those five players transferring, Knight scrambled to get players who could fill the gaps.
In honor of Coach Knight’s retirement (as a UK fan, it’s hard to think of a coaching sideline that doesn’t include Robert Montgomery), I thought I’d leave you with a video retrospective of some of what made Coach Knight great. Enjoy:
Sportscenter’s Top 10 Coach Knight quotable moments:
I just LOVE the last highlight. Best. Quote. Ever.
Of course, how can we forget about what Isiah Thomas learned playing under Coach Knight (NSFW language):
Great stuff. Coach Knight leaves with three national championships and as the coach of one of the best college basketball teams ever: The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, a team that finished 32-0 and finished the season by cutting down the nets in the NCAA Championship game.
No D-1 basketball team has finished undefeated since.
February 6th, 2008 at 8:51 am
[...] his surprising decision to leave Texas Tech, Coach Bobby Knight spoke to ESPN’s Jay Bilas to give his side of the story. For those of us [...]