MEN’S TOURNAMENT NOTES : Knight Not Sorry, but He Feels Sorry for Critics

Coach Bob Knight of Indiana said Wednesday that he was mildly surprised last week by the reaction of black groups to a picture of Knight standing over a black player with a bullwhip.

Callers to television stations and newspapers said they found the coach’s action offensive, citing a negative racial connotation.

“I’ve been around long enough to see people jump on things that really have no relevance to what their purpose of jumping on them is,” Knight said. “It’s (like), ‘Boy, I see something I can use to my advantage and I jump on it.’

“Anybody with any intelligence at all is able to understand that here is a team completely free of any offending thoughts. And the players have enough of an understanding of the coach’s sense of humor to say, ‘Here’s something we can get for the coach and we’ll all get a kick out of it.’ ”

Knight’s players presented the whip to him as a joke.

“To me, it’s pretty obvious that there’s a pretty good rapport between players and coaches and all concerned,” Knight said. “I’ve got to feel sorry for anybody who has to make something out of this that is the furthest thing from what took place.

“Those are kind of sad people.”

During a teleconference that hooked up all four coaches involved in this weekend’s Final Four in Minneapolis, Knight again used the occasion to crack wise, spin tall tales and steal the spotlight.

Among his comments:

--On the Hoosiers’ readiness for Saturday’s semifinal game against top-ranked Duke: “Our team is in pretty good shape except for the three kids who didn’t shoot well in the tournament. I’ve had them digging ditches at the golf course this week. They haven’t been able to practice.

“That’s what we do when kids don’t shoot well. We have them help around the university. They’re putting in a water system at the golf course, so our players have been digging ditches there when they aren’t in class.”

--On whether he regrets any of his actions after more than a quarter of a century in college coaching: “The thing I regret the most about my career is when I made my team swim that moat that was filled with sharks.

“That probably hasn’t received nearly the publicity that it should have, relative to my image. We had the team swim the moat . . . after we had a particularly difficult game. We have an old castle down here in Southern Indiana that’s surrounded by a moat.

“The mistake I made was that I had two really tough kids playing for me on that team and we lost four sharks.”

In the other semifinal, Michigan will use five freshman starters against Cincinnati.

“It signals to us that we were pretty fortunate to get a group this talented that could blend egos and fit needs and roles, and accept needs and roles to be successful,” Coach Steve Fisher of Michigan said. “They’ve done a marvelous job. It will be rare to get another group of freshmen to do that.”

But it could happen, Coach Bob Huggins of Cincinnati said.

“When I was younger and I was trying to get a head coaching job, everybody said, ‘You’re too young,’ ” Huggins said. “I tried to tell them that age and competency don’t necessarily go hand in hand. I know a lot of old people who are extremely incompetent.

“If you have people who can play, they can play. It doesn’t matter whether they’re freshman, juniors or seniors.

“He’s got a group of freshmen that can play the game.”

Reaching the Final Four should help Cincinnati in recruiting.

“What it does is alleviate some of the peer pressure that (recruits) get,” Huggins said. “We’ve been involved with some good kids the last three years and it’s come down to us and a couple of other people.

“A lot of times, what happens is, the peer-pressure thing kind of eliminates us because we’re (up against) teams that have been to the Final Four, or close to the Final Four, and play a lot of games on national television. People haven’t seen us, and their peers haven’t.

“This is going to make Cincinnati an acceptable place to go (in the minds of) their peers, the people they go to school and hang out with.”

When Knight was late coming on the line, Coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke was asked if Knight had ever kept his players waiting when Krzyzewski played for him at Army.

“Never,” Krzyzewski said. “He was very considerate to us.”