Indiana’s Giomi Says Knight Is Not to Blame

Mike Giomi, the leading rebounder and third-leading scorer on the Indiana University basketball team, said Thursday he does not fault Coach Bob Knight for dropping him from the team for academic reasons.

“Coach Knight expects his players to perform equally on the court and off the court,” said Giomi, a junior forward. “I think it was a given standard for everyone to attend class and be academically eligible.”

Knight said he dropped Giomi for failing to meet academic requirements he had set for the player before the season began. Giomi, who had lost his scholarship last year but had made it back onto the team as a walk-on this season, said he was let go for cutting classes.

“You are supposed to attend classes and I’m sorry that the situation (his dismissal) had to occur by me not attending those classes,” Giomi said, adding that he had missed three classes since the second semester began on Jan. 7.

Giomi said he had been warned earlier by Knight that if he missed a class this semester he would be cut. He said Knight questioned him about missing a class during a team meeting Monday evening.

“I told him I had and he informed me I was cut from the team,” Giomi said.

Knight told the New York Daily News that Giomi had brought about the situation himself.

“On Monday I said to (Giomi), ‘Are you still cutting classes?’ He told me he was. That was that. I hate like hell to lose a kid, but he did it to himself,” Knight said.