NCAA Tournament Is Famous For Them Cinderella Stories

David not only knows Goliath, he used to call him “Coach.”

Steve Alford played on Mike Krzyzewski’s 1983 U.S. Olympic Festival team, back when Alford was about to become a freshman at Indiana and Krzyzewski was preparing for his third season at Duke without so much as an NCAA tournament appearance to his name, much less a Final Four.

“I can remember counseling Steve in my room, trying to get him to shoot,” Krzyzewski said, a teasing smirk playing across his face. “No, trying to talk to him about the other end of the court.”

They share a link to Bob Knight, but they are their own men.

Krzyzewski, 52, played for Knight at Army and coached briefly under him at Indiana. Alford, 34, played for Knight at Indiana from 1983 to ‘87, starring on the Hoosiers’ 1987 national championship team.

They’ll meet Friday in the semifinals of the NCAA East Regional at East Rutherford, N.J., when Alford’s 12th-seeded Southwest Missouri State team takes on top-seeded and No. 1-ranked Duke after upsetting Wisconsin and Tennessee in the first two rounds.

“His team is good defensively. I’m really pleased,” Krzyzewski said. “We’re good friends.”

Krzyzewski sees a player grown into a confident and astute young coach.

Alford’s players see a coach whose playing days seem a long time ago to them, although they’ve seen the video: Alford’s instructional shooting tape.

“If you watch it, you’d laugh, seeing him in his little USA shorts,” guard William Fontleroy said. “You’d see how styles change.”

Alford’s style as a coach was shaped not only by playing for Knight but also by playing for his father, Sam Alford, a well-known Indiana high school coach who was at Chrysler High in New Castle for 20 years and now sits on his son’s bench as an assistant coach at Southwest Missouri State.

“I’ve been on my dad’s bench since I was in preschool,” Steve said.

Growing up the way he did, Alford had a pretty good notion of how the game ought to be played--and coached.

“I’ve felt like I was an assistant coach for a long time,” he said. “On several occasions, I told Coach Alford or Coach Knight how to do things. They didn’t listen. That’s why Dad kicked me out of eight practices and Coach Knight kicked me out of seven.”

The coach born of those experiences is more likely to have his team play Wiffle Ball or a game called basketball golf in practice as he is to throw someone out.

Still, Southwest Missouri State guard Allen Phillips calls Alford a “very demanding coach.”

“But it’s not a dictatorship,” Fontleroy said. “He leans on his dad and his other coaches. He’s a character. He has a real serious side and then a fun side. Last time it was basketball golf. You make a half-court hook shot, that’s a hole in one.

“He tries to keep us loose, so we won’t get uptight. Down deep, he’s a serious coach. He can get real intense.”

What Alford has managed to do is strike the right chord between authority figure and fun figure, and he raids the state of Indiana for players such as Fontleroy, center Danny Moore and guard Kevin Ault--a former Mr. Basketball who couldn’t see himself playing for Knight and picked Alford instead.

“I like being one of the guys,” said Alford, who drew a lot of attention in the first two rounds by chest-bumping his players.

One of the guys? No, that doesn’t sound like the Knight we know.

“He chest-bumped a little,” Alford said, breaking up a crowd of reporters. “Maybe I picked that up from him.”

Some of the things he picked up from Knight have to do with motion offense and man-to-man defense, meticulous game preparation and critiquing film.

Left implicit is what he did not pick up.

“I was extremely passionate as a player. I loved playing the game and everything about the game,” Alford said. “I don’t want our kids to have a bad experience. If they have a bad practice, they’ll hear about it, but even then, I want them to enjoy basketball. I want our players to look at me as someone they can talk to all the time.”

He also wants to be someone who can beat them all the time.

Think Alford has lost that shooting touch over the years?

“Oh no, he proves it to us every day in practice,” Fontleroy said.

“He’s still the best,” his father said.

“If one of them throws the ball at me and says, ‘Let’s go. Check up,’ I want to go, ‘OK, let’s go,’ ” Alford said. “I don’t want to lose that passion.”

From player to coach, he has made the transition look seamless.

Alford was never an assistant at all, hired as head coach at Manchester College, a Division III school in Indiana, after his modest four-year NBA career ended.

He took over eight games into a four-win season in 1991. Three years later, Manchester lost in the NCAA Division III championship game to finish 31-1.

His teams at Southwest Missouri State have gone 16-12, 24-9, 16-16 and 22-10, and this is probably his final game as the Bears’ coach. He is expected to replace Tom Davis at Iowa after the season.

“I’m a demanding coach. I hate losing. I love winning,” Alford said. “There’s nothing like it.”

If there’s any difference between that feeling as a player and as a coach, it’s the pressure.

“Once the ball goes in the air, the exercise itself takes care of the stress as a player,” Alford said.

But whatever stress he feels isn’t visible on the sidelines.

“Steve shows a lot of confidence,” Krzyzewski said. “I think if I was as good a player as Steve was, I would feel confident. He knows what he’s doing. He’s in command of the situation. I’m sure he learned a lot playing for his dad and Coach Knight and playing professionally.

“I like talking to Steve because Steve is smart. He has good insights into the game. He really loves the game for all the right reasons. His kids certainly seem to enjoy playing for him, and they play very hard.”

By the way, Alford didn’t get that chest-bumping thing from Krzyzewski either.

“You get over 50, and your chest is not where it used to be,” Krzyzewski said. “You start bumping now, you could get hurt.”

Alford is influenced by many, but is a coach all his own.

“I’m sure he wants to try to disprove people that think he came out of Indiana with a golden spoon in his mouth,” Krzyzewski said. “He was a great basketball player, but he wasn’t a great athlete. His kids should listen to him because of how hard he worked to do that.”

He won an NCAA championship and an Olympic gold medal as a player. Now he’s in the Sweet 16 as a coach. You’ll be hard pressed to find somebody who doesn’t think he’ll be back this way again.

“It’s hard to explain,” Alford said. “I just love the feeling and joy you get from winning, whether you’re preparing the game plan as a coach or doing the physical things, taking the shots as a player.

“I remember our championship season, beating Auburn in the second round, running off the floor, telling Coach Knight we were going to keep going. We still have another week to play. The season is not over.”

No, not quite.