It’s Speculation Overload Concerning Knight Moves

What could possibly be more circuslike than the day Indiana University fired Bob Knight?

Try the day after IU fired Knight.

“Can’t talk,” Digger Phelps yelped into the phone Monday. “You’ll know why in 24 hours.”

We guessed Phelps was busy arranging the floral centerpiece for ESPN’s sit-down with Knight, the sort in which journalist Digger usually digs in with, “We’re both coaches, Bob . . . “

You needed a lead suit to protect yourself from the post-Knight radioactive fallout. There hasn’t been this much speculating since the Gold Rush.

What’s going to happen? What now? Who’s next?

“It will get worse,” said Kevin O’Neill, the former Northwestern coach and a friend of Knight. “You can mark that down. This is the beginning. This is going to be like a cyclone touching down.”

In fact, Knight indeed touched down late Sunday night when his plane landed in Bloomington. The ex-Hoosier coach returned from a Canadian fishing trip--got fired, eh?--met with his former team and vowed to 2,000 supporters outside Assembly Hall he would tell his story just as soon as he located Phelps’ phone number.

According to the Indianapolis Star’s eyewitness accounts, a defiant Knight used a bullhorn to reach the assembled masses.

“There’s nobody that’s ever coached that appreciates the support of students as much as I have,” Knight bellowed.

While the etiquette arbiter Knight last week scolded a kid for calling him “Knight” instead of “Mr. Knight,” the coach apparently did not admonish anyone for setting fires on his behalf or scrawling death threats in crayon.

Knight said, “I’m going to tell you my side of this thing, and I think you’ll be interested in hearing it.”

Funny, Roy Firestone thought that once.

The late-night, post-Knight news flew faster than that chair Knight chucked across the floor against Purdue.

One Indiana player, Dane Fife, announced he was transferring in the wake of Knight’s ouster as other Hoosiers pondered their futures.

Athletic Director Charles Doninger, the missing link in the Indiana chain of command Knight never adhered to, confirmed that this season’s interim would not be a current Division I coach, which pretty much narrowed the list to two current Hoosier assistants, Mike Davis and John Treloar, plus a cadre of available former coaches who might be willing to serve one-year terms: Charlie Spoonhour, Joey Meyer, Tom Davis.

The players, to a man, minus the departed Fife, have thrown support behind Mike Davis. This would also satisfy freshman Jared Jeffries, the Hoosiers’ most highly touted recruit in years.

But Davis said Monday he would do what Knight told him to do, which could be problematic for university officials fearing a puppet regime.

Davis also faces a potential credibility problem in that he was a witness to last week’s incident in which Knight allegedly grabbed student Kent Harvey. Davis has sided with Knight’s version of the story and might have some explaining to do if the university police’s final report suggests otherwise.

Long term?

Iowa’s Steve Alford has to top any short list.

“They can say whatever they want, they’re going to hire Alford,” O’Neill said. “They can procrastinate, say and do anything they want. They’re going to hire Steve Alford.

“They should quit making such a facade of it. I think they’ve wanted to hire Alford for years now.”

Alford’s role could be of “damage control” coach. He is of Indiana stock, the star of Indiana’s 1987 national title team, but is estranged enough from Knight to make him politically correct within the Indiana hierarchy.

Of course, Alford already has a top-drawer job as coach of Big Ten rival Iowa, beginning the second year of a four-year contract.

Alford said when he was hired in 1999, “This is where I would like to call home for a long, long time.”

Just how long is long?

Iowa officials said Monday Alford would hold a news conference today to discuss his future.

A school official would not confirm or deny whether Alford has an “out” clause in his contract, but guessed the issue would be addressed today.

Alford also has a timing problem not unlike football coach Rick Neuheisel faced when UCLA sought him to replace Terry Donahue. While Neuheisel considered UCLA his dream job, he felt, morally, he could not leave Colorado after one year.

If Alford doesn’t leave Iowa, Utah’s Rick Majerus is a possibility. Majerus is a candidate for every opening, but Indiana is one place outside Provo he has openly professed love for, and he is the caliber of coach that guarantees the Hoosiers will remain in basketball’s upper echelon.

The beauty for prospective Hoosier coaches is they have a year to watch the situation play out.

Where does this leave Knight?

It’s not likely he’ll coach this year, but friends say he’ll be back.

O’Neill: “I think he’ll be coaching next year and I don’t think he’ll be coaching a low-major school, I’ll tell you that right now.”

Admittedly, it is going to take a different kind of athletic director to handle Knight.

“It’s going to have to be an AD that’s confident in himself, a strong guy that wants a great basketball program,” O’Neill said. “And there’s not that many of those guys out there.”

Few doubt Knight can still coach. It wouldn’t surprise O’Neill to see Knight in the Big Ten.

One conference insider said Monday that Knight, knowing he was on shaky ground at Indiana, put out feelers this summer when Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo considered leaving East Lansing for the NBA.

If Brian Ellerbe falters at Michigan, wouldn’t Knight be a good fit in Ann Arbor, the white-horse candidate who rides in to clean up a program savaged by NCAA scandal?

Knight needs only 117 wins to break Dean Smith’s career victories mark, and we can’t think of a more delicious thought than Knight eclipsing Smith’s mark at Assembly Hall as an opposing coach.

“If I’m Iowa, and Indiana hires Alford, I hire Knight,” O’Neill said. “That would be an interesting scenario, wouldn’t it?”