Knight, Huggins enliven Big 12 basketball
College Basketball | Sports
By JOHN ROHDE
Friday, October 20, 2006
They have combined to coach 1,985 college basketball games and have won 1,436 (.723). Yet they have gone face-to-face only twice.

Two of Bob Knight's 869 career victories have come at Bob Huggins' expense.

Knight said he couldn't recall ever coaching against Huggins.

Huggins had little trouble remembering.

"He's already whacked me twice," Huggins said.

There was Indiana's 81-60 victory at Cincinnati in the 1991-92 season, when Huggins' Bearcats went 29-5 and advanced to the Final Four.

The following season, visiting Cincinnati, ranked No. 4, lost 79-64 to Knight's Hoosiers.

On Jan. 8, the two will meet for a third time when Knight's Texas Tech team travels to Kansas State, where Huggins already has sparked the most significant fan interest since the late 1980s.

Adding to the intrigue of this Big Monday game, Knight enters the season needing only 11 victories to pass Dean Smith as college basketball's all-time winningest coach.

Magical No. 880 could come against Huggins.

"I don't want him to come to Manhattan and get it," Huggins said of Knight breaking the record. "I'm all for him. I want him to do that. But he could just as soon do it before or after he comes to Manhattan."

Though rarely on-court opponents, Knight and Huggins certainly are aware of each other.

"I've got great respect for what he does," Huggins said of Knight. "He is, and has been, maybe the greatest coach of all-time. He's done it in so many different eras, in different ways with different personnel and different teams. I've got the utmost respect for him."

Cut, cut, cut. This isn't working.

If Knight and Huggins are going to become the Big 12's hot new coaching rivalry, somebody had better start talking smack. Pronto.

Heck, this should be easy. Knight certainly can be Mr. Mean, and Huggins has shown the ability to be Mr. Meaner.

Therein lies the allure between these two.

"I really like Huggins as a coach because he is tough-minded and his teams play well defensively, and he isn't afraid to go out on a limb," Knight said. "If things aren't going well, he just tells kids, 'You've got to play better.' I really like that in a coach.

"He is not sitting there thinking to himself, 'Well, this won't look good if I get up and get on this kid's (butt) or whatever.' And I like that."

Knight paused, then deadpanned, "I admire that in Huggins because I have always been reluctant to get up and raise hell with a kid during my career."

This pending rivalry got off to an incredibly slow start this week at Big 12 media day because Knight and Huggins couldn't have been more accommodating.

When Huggins suffered a heart attack in September 2002, he supposedly was going to learn how to relax. An exhausted Huggins hasn't slowed since taking over the Wildcats on March 23. Though fatigued, Huggins granted all interview requests.

Knight spoke nonstop for 45 minutes, captivating an audience of huddled reporters.

Knight didn't shoot down one question. He called reporters by their first names rather than by dirty names.

It was a riveting session of Knight Court as he told tales dating back to his days as a high school athlete in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Knight spoke of how the game has changed, should change and won't change. He proclaimed what's right with the sport and what's wrong with it.

After his private powwow with print media, Knight stepped up on the main dais and spoke another 15 minutes in his formal interview session.

In closing, Knight even complimented the interview moderator, which hasn't always been the case (see 1995 NCAA tournament post-game session).

Knight told the Big 12's Peter Irwin, "You are really a good guy to handle these things because you have an understanding of coaches and the press and you have just been good as long as I have been here. Always a pleasure to spend time."

Irwin thanked Knight, who then delivered a parting shot, "Everybody lies a little bit."

Now, if we can just get these dueling Bobs to start taking shots at each other we'll have ourselves a rivalry.

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/15046

Quick side note. When I met up with Huggins awhile back, somehow we got on the topic of Bob Knight. This was before he got the KSU job. But he was talking about how Knight hit a police officer when he wanted his team to practice in the Pan-Am games years ago and how he is not allowed back in the country for fear of prosecution. I now find it kinda interesting how he was talking about a Big XII coach before he got a Big XII job