Bob Knight Is Still Opposed to Postseason Big Ten Tournament

Indiana Coach Bob Knight says the Big Ten should resist a postseason basketball tournament because it would be bad for fans and weaken schedules.

“I think they’ll eventually get it through,” the coach of the NCAA champions said. “But you will very rarely see four games being replaced on anyone’s schedule that were as difficult as the four conference games that are being dropped. Just keep that in mind, and that has a lot to do with it.”

Knight, who has won three national titles in 16 years at Indiana, said most Big Ten coaches supported the concept at a recent meeting.

“One of the things that they argue about--arguments always tickle me, particularly arguments offered by administrators,” Knight said. “They all argue that everybody else has a conference tournament. By the same token, everybody else plays a round-robin schedule, too. So when it fits our thoughts, we’ll invoke the ‘everybody-else-does clause,’ and when it doesn’t we’ll try to studiously avoid it.

“But we’ll be the only conference in the country that doesn’t play a round-robin schedule and I think it’ll be a mistake. There’s going to be two teams that you don’t see play every year.”

The coach said he recognized when he first joined the league that it would be tough playing for a conference championship when each team didn’t play the other nine teams twice. The Big Ten later switched to its current 18-game format.