Victory Does Little to Cool Down Knight

By halftime, Steve Alford had gone from returning hero to just another coach trying to beat the home team.

By game’s end Tuesday night, Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers had just enough to beat Iowa, 74-71, at Bloomington, Ind.

By the time Knight left a postgame news conference, his face was as red as his shirt.

“You people have got to understand that I’ve coached a thousand games in my career, and the only ones that I remember that are any different than other ones are some real heartbreaking losses we’ve had,” Knight said.

“And it’s only different because of what happened in the game. I wish somebody would believe me when I say that.”

Knight was clearly upset about all the hype surrounding the return of Alford and their supposed rift.

Alford, one of the greatest players in Indiana history, returned to Assembly Hall for the first time as an opposing coach. Before the game, instead of coming out from the hallway to the Indiana locker room, Knight walked onto the court from the visitors’ hallway and exchanged handshakes with Alford.

It didn’t always appear that comfortable. The two hadn’t talked since Alford became the coach at Iowa last spring.

As the postgame news conference appeared to wind down, Knight said: “I’m going to leave this one comment: Alford has never asked me to do anything that I haven’t done. Period. And I’m a little bit tired of the bull that’s attached to this.”

But then Knight returned, shouting. “Why didn’t I talk to him at the Big Ten meeting? There were 10 other coaches there and I didn’t get a chance to speak to seven of them.”

Before the game, the fans gave Alford a standing ovation. At the end, the cheers were for Kirk Haston and A.J. Guyton, who scored 25 and 20 points for No. 11 Indiana, 14-2 overall and 4-1 in the Big Ten.

Iowa trailed by six before a free throw and a three-point shot by Dean Oliver pulled the Hawkeyes (7-9, 1-4) within 73-71.

OTHER TOP 25 GAMES

C.J. Black made the go-ahead free throw with 1:04 left in the second overtime and No. 16 Tennessee (16-2, 4-1) pulled out an 81-79 victory over No. 9 Florida (13-2, 2-2) in a Southeastern Conference game at Gainesville, Fla. . . . Seton Hall made 10 three-point shots and freshman Samuel Dalembert had a school-record 11 blocked shots as the Pirates (12-3, 4-1) scored a 78-70 Big East victory over No. 19 St. John’s (12-3, 4-1) at East Rutherford, N.J. . . . Chris Williams scored six straight points during a 13-4 second-half run in a 87-85 victory for Virginia (12-5, 3-2) over No. 21 North Carolina (11-7, 2-2) in an Atlantic Coast Conference victory at Charlottesville, Va.

WOMEN

Alicia Ratay scored 17 points to lead No. 5 Notre Dame (14-2, 5-0) to its 10th consecutive victory, a 67-53 decision over Pitt (11-6, 2-4) in a Big East game at Pittsburgh. . . . No. 8 Iowa State (13-2, 5-0) won its its ninth in a row with a 76-64 Big 12 victory over Oklahoma State (10-6, 2-2) at Stillwater, Okla. . . . No. 15 Texas Tech notched a 51-47 Big 12 victory over Kansas State (9-9, 2-3) at Manhattan, Kan.