Whenever Knight is in the news I'm inclined to defend him as at least a mixed bag, but there are plenty of people doing that today after he set the new win record, and in any case I find the achievement a little depressing. The (admittedly overstated) hypothetical in this ESPN piece gets at why. I've never judged Knight harshly for his failed public persona, but I think there's a strong case to be made that his locker room persona has either gotten out of hand or is simply no longer appropriate for college basketball. I was an undergrad at IU in 1994, when Andre Patterson, Charlie Miller, and Neil Reed were heralded as the most promising recruiting team in the country, and I watched as the three of them were systematically destroyed by Knight. The fact that this sort of thing has happened repeatedly in the latter half of Knight's career is a sure sign that something is wrong. So I suppose it's the disappointment over all that squandered potential that's got me a little depressed.
January 2, 2007
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