Commentary : Championship Ring Makes It Worthwhile for Indiana Players

Daryl Thomas was leaving an arena as a college basketball player for the final time. He had a grin on his face so wide it barely fit inside the Superdome. For perhaps the 1,000th time in the moments since Indiana had won the national championship Monday night, someone asked him if it had all been worth it.

“Worth it?” he repeated. “Worth it?” He paused, dug his left hand out of his pocket and stuck it out. On his finger was a ring, an NCAA championship ring. Thomas smiled again. “This,” he said, “makes it all worth it.”

Everyone knows what Indiana’s players go through to play for Bob Knight. They are abused constantly, screamed at for four years. That’s why, especially for seniors Thomas, Steve Alford and Todd Meier, Monday’s heartstopping 74-73 victory over Syracuse, was so special. They were part of Knight’s worst Indiana team as sophomores, part of a team that achieved and achieved only to fail at the end as juniors and then, at last, part of perhaps his ultimate victory.

“This was the only right way to end it,” said Thomas, hoarse from shouting and crying and cavorting. “I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am right now. I love everyone on this team, I really do. Everything we’ve gone through together. The feeling is unbelievable.”

Thomas and Alford have been whipping boys of Knight’s for entirely different reasons. Thomas, 6-7, a player with huge potential who was at times wonderful -- like Monday with 20 points -- and at times awful -- like Saturday with three fouls in three minutes -- never had the toughness Knight wants in his players. Knight called him names constantly, put much of the blame for last year’s season-ending loss to Cleveland State on his broad shoulders and threw him off the team briefly last November for cutting class.

Alford, by contrast, never had a toughness problem. In spite of his baby-faced cleancut look, no one is tougher than Alford. Knight always knew this. He knew he could pick on Alford, hammer him at times, and Alford could take it. “Every time something went wrong with this team all year, coach put it all on Steve,” center Dean Garrett said. “He was always the one responsible and coach always told him that. He always just took it and played better.”

In the final days of his career, Alford could see a change in Knight. He knew that when he was finished, when he had scored the last of his 2,438 career points, more than any player in Indiana history, that Knight would be appreciative of what Alford had done. But in the last month, Alford has heard his coach laud him, talk about how special he is. For all the ups and downs Indiana players live through with Knight, they crave his approval. Knight’s words clearly touched Alford.

“No one can understand what it’s like to be an Indiana player except the players,” Alford said Monday. “Too much is made of what we go through. Do we take a lot from coach? Sure we do. But we learn a lot too. He cares about every one of us. I wouldn’t change the experience I had the last four years for anything. I wanted to play in a program and for a coach where I would have a chance to win a national championship.

“That’s why I wanted to play for Coach Knight. He’s the best coach in the country and he proved that again tonight and this season.”

Although Knight claimed the victory meant nothing to him personally, the truth is this season was one of vindication for him. Two years ago, after finishing seventh in the Big Ten and losing control of himself during the infamous chair-throwing incident, Knight’s future as a coach was certainly clouded. No more. The Hoosiers have gone 51-12 the last two seasons and were deserving national champions.

Knight often tells his players there is no better way to play basketball than his way. He believes with all his heart that if his players do exactly as they are told, they will win. Perhaps not easily, but ultimately.

That is what this tournament was about. This was not an overpowering team by any means. It was not comparable to the unbeaten 1976 Indiana team or the 1981 team that dominated every opponent it played in the NCAA Tournament. This team trailed in each of the last five games it played. It needed a near-last second shot to win twice. It trailed LSU by 12 and Syracuse by nine. And yet, Alford and Thomas, with considerable help from Garrett and Monday’s hero Keith Smart, found a way. And they got help elsewhere.

There was Joe Hillman, who three years ago called Knight and said he wanted to come to Indiana even though Knight didn’t recruit in Glendale, Calif. Hillman was a prolific scorer in high school but in college he has become a floor-leader and an excellent defender. Two years ago he was a walk-on. Last year he was a redshirt. Monday, with a national title at stake, he was on the floor.

There also was Steve Eyl. Knight once told his assistant coaches that if they ever recruited another player like Eyl he would fire all of them. And yet Saturday when Thomas got into foul trouble, it was Eyl who came off the bench and filled the void.

And then there is Meier. When he was a high school senior in Oshkosh, Wis., Meier was a 6-8 kid who could run the floor, shoot and rebound. He was a part-time starter as a freshman. But two knee operations stripped him of his mobility and his jumping ability. Some games he played not at all. Others, he played a little. And yet, whenever he played, he always contributed.

A little more than a year ago, Indiana opened its Big Ten season by losing home games to Michigan and Michigan State. That made 13 Big Ten losses in 20 games over two seasons. Knight was nearly hysterical. The night after the Michigan State loss, he met with his team.

And he talked about Todd Meier. He talked about looking down the bench in the final seconds of the loss to Michigan State and seeing tears rolling down Meier’s cheeks. Meier had not played one minute in the game and yet, in Knight’s opinion, he was more involved emotionally than anyone on the team.

“If the rest of you boys could ever bring yourselves to care like Todd,” Knight said, “you can be a hell of a basketball team.”

Indiana is 43-8 since that night. It became a hell of a basketball team. And, Monday night, Todd Meier stood at center court -- having played two minutes -- with tears rolling down his cheeks. Different tears though. He had come a long way from Michigan State. So had Thomas and Alford and Knight and every other Indiana player.

And to a man, they would all show your their rings and tell you it was all worth it.