Davis’ Future Still in Limbo With Eight Games Left

Indiana coach Mike Davis can’t escape the question. It comes after practices, after games, during the weekly Big Ten news conferences and from every conceivable angle.

For Davis, it is a question with no answer yet--will he coach the Hoosiers next season?

“It’s definitely hard,” Davis says. “Sometimes you sit around and say, ‘Where am I going to be in June?’ People always look to the future and it’s February and there’s still so much uncertainty.”

It’s been that way from the moment Indiana announced that Davis, an assistant coach, would replace Bob Knight, who was fired in September after winning three national championships and 11 Big Ten titles in 29 seasons.

Davis knew he faced a season full of expectations and questions when he was handed the title of interim head coach at a school with a storied basketball history.

His task during his audition: win with a team devoid of seniors, with five first-year players and only two returning starters. It would have been a daunting proposition for anyone, including Knight.

The Hoosiers entered the weekend at 14-9 (5-4 Big Ten), barely in the top half of the conference. The team has blown three substantial second-half leads on the road--at Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa--and nearly did it again last Saturday at Penn State before winning in overtime.

Davis’ two biggest wins came during a 16-day stretch in January when the Hoosiers beat then-No. 1 Michigan State and defeated state rival Purdue.

Yet such performances might not be enough.

In a state where basketball is king and the Hoosiers rule success is measured in 20-win seasons and Sweet 16 appearances. If victories don’t come, the questions will.

So these days Davis faces a semi-regular interrogation about whether he is the right man for the job, a question he has posed himself.

“I’ve been through a lot in my life,” Davis says. “I’ve lived this way for a long time, with uncertainty. I don’t know if I will be back, but hopefully I will be.”

While Davis does not have all the answers, he’s tried to keep his soft-spoken, upbeat demeanor in the face of such scrutiny.

“He tries to be the same at home that he’s always been,” wife Tamilya Davis said. “He tries not to bring that stuff home. He tries not to be all stressed out.”

That’s not always easy, when the questions keep coming.

“Before the season, I thought 20 wins would be the benchmark,” says Mike Pegram, a Knight supporter who runs one of the largest Indiana Web sites. “He said the day he was hired that if he didn’t have a great season, he shouldn’t be back. I’d say with the kind of year we’re looking at, I wouldn’t call it a great season. I’d call it on par to what Knight did and that puts it into a real gray area.”

Still, Pegram believes if the Hoosiers win their remaining home games, Davis deserves to return as coach.

Davis does have supporters within the athletic department.

“He’s done a very good job,” outgoing athletic director Clarence Doninger said. “He’s been very, very cooperative in every way and he’s done good work with a team that we knew was going to have its good points and its bad points.”

Those words of support, however, have done little to stop speculation about Davis’ successor. Pegram’s Web site is filled daily with split opinions about Davis and rumors of deals cut between the university and various candidates.

Indiana officials have repeatedly denied any such deal.

But the topic has become so commonplace, it’s off limits at Davis’ home. The only time Davis says he really ponders his future is when he’s alone, making the one-hour commute between Bloomington and Indianapolis.

“I think about it, especially when I’m driving home,” says Davis, who has a daughter, Lateesha, 19, and two sons--Mike Jr., 15, and Antoine, 2. “You want to take care of your family and make sure they’re OK.”

This has been much more than a change in job title for Davis. There was a dramatic transformation from virtual unknown to one of the most recognizable and discussed people in Indiana.

“My life changed tremendously,” he says, smiling. “Everywhere I went, people recognized me. It’s nice. I’m able to go to the store now and buy something and not worry about how much it costs. I don’t have to worry about how much a salad weighs any more or buying a sandwich or pinching pennies.”

Instead, those worries have been replaced by others, such as job security and being picked apart in public. He had to follow Knight, whom many Hoosiers fans still adore. The comparisons between the two were inevitable.

“Of course it’s not fair to compare one year with a series of years,” Doninger said. “But people are going to do it anyway.

“The only promise we made to Mike is that he will be in the mix when this is done.”

When Davis took the job, he was afforded no honeymoon, no margin for error and put under excruciating pressure from the start. But as the season winds down, his toughest job will be facing the scrutiny that’s sure to follow the season finale--and to answer the question that won’t go away.