Knight’s Fate Is on Hold, but Indiana Is Moving On

Why on earth should Bob Knight dislike the new Big Ten Conference tournament?

It gave him his first postseason victory in four years Thursday.

Knight--the center of controversy once more--strode out of the tunnel at United Center to cheers and scattered boos Thursday, allowed to coach against Ohio State because Indiana has three days to appeal the Big Ten’s disciplinary ruling for his tirade against referee Ted Valentine last month.

With Knight reportedly facing a choice between a one-game suspension or a $10,000 fine, Indiana has until Monday to accept the penalty or register an appeal--a three-business-day window that encompasses the inaugural Big Ten tournament and prevents it from being marred by the absence of its most visible and divisive figure.

“There wasn’t any doubt in my mind I’d be coaching,” Knight said after Indiana’s 78-71 victory over the 8-22 Buckeyes that went from blowout to close call in the final minutes. “No. Never. . . . I know the rules. I said then it was not possible I wouldn’t be coaching.”

The rules allow considerable wiggle room, but that could close like a vise. The Big Ten penalty could apply to an NCAA tournament game, conference officials said.

After losing its final three regular-season games by double-digit margins, Indiana was starting to look shaky for the NCAA tournament. (And Indiana’s recent lack of NCAA success, three consecutive first-round losses, is no secret.)

The Ohio State win helped, and Knight, who opposed the Big Ten tournament on principle, is now bent on doing his best to win it, although a victory over Purdue in one of the quarterfinal games today would figure to take care of an NCAA bid for sure.

If Knight is eventually suspended, it won’t be the first time.

He served a one-game suspension in 1985 after the famous chair-throwing incident, and another in 1993 after kicking at a chair in which his son, Pat, a player on the team, was sitting. In 1995, he was fined $30,000 for a profane outburst after an NCAA game, and the university paid it.

The choice between a suspension and a fine is a Big Ten standard. Former Indiana Coach Bill Mallory faced the same dilemma in 1991 when he was suspended by the Big Ten for criticizing officials after a controversial call. Mallory took the suspension.

It’s not clear whether Indiana has the option of simply passing a hat in 17,357-seat Assembly Hall.

Knight was on good behavior Thursday, hardly arguing a call made by the crew of Eric Harmon, Sam Lickliter, Randy Drury.

When guard Michael Lewis was called for a holding foul, Knight leaped to his feet.

“Come on!” he yelled. “Use your head, Mike.”

Lewis got an earful of expletives audible in the crowd, but Knight was more delicate with the officials, whom he joked with lightly before the game.

The conflict between Knight and Valentine--who didn’t officiate any of Thursday’s games and might not be used in Big Ten games for part of next season--has a history.

It extends at least back to the 1992 Final Four, when Duke beat Indiana, 81-78, in a game that turned partly on a technical Valentine called against Knight.

The tension between the two was palpable in the Indiana-Illinois game Feb. 24 in which Knight was ejected after receiving three technicals from Valentine--one after he was already ejected.

Knight, who says he was merely walking onto the court to check on injured forward Luke Recker after a disputed call when he got the second technical, later called Valentine’s officiating and the Illinois game “the greatest travesty” he had seen in his career.

Even as he awaited word on Big Ten disciplinary action, Knight took another sarcastic swipe at officials this week. Asked on a conference call about the conditioning factor for players in a four-day tournament, he said the real issue was referees who work five and six games a week while traveling cross-country, sarcastically calling them “the most superbly conditioned athletic participants in the entire world.”

But after the Ohio State game, Knight was reasonably cordial with a media crowd.

“The thing you have to understand, I have my stance on the Big Ten tournament. I’d have voted against it [after the game]. I had my say, I conveyed my reasons. But once [the Big Ten tournament] was decided, we figured out the best way we could to get ready. We worked like hell. Do me a favor, strike out the word hell, that might be unsportsmanlike conduct.”

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In other Big Ten tournament games Thursday:

* Maurice Linton made a high-arcing jumper with 3.7 seconds left as Wisconsin rallied from a nine-point second-half deficit to defeat Penn State, 52-51.

The Badgers (12-18) will meet regular-season co-champion Illinois (21-8) today in the quarterfinals. Penn State is 15-12.

* Quincy Lewis scored 25 points and Sam Jacobson had 23, and the two led Minnesota on a 17-6 game-ending run as the Golden Gophers (14-14) rallied for a 64-56 victory over Northwestern (10-17).

Minnesota, a Final Four team last year, will meet regular-season co-champion Michigan State (20-6) today in the quarterfinals.