dirty
EOG Master
By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer
<!--endtext--><SCRIPT language=JavaScript><!-- Beginfunction popUp(URL) {day = new Date();id = day.getTime();if (URL.match(/qtplayer/)){ eval("page" + id + " = window.open(URL, '" + id + "', 'toolbar=0,scrollbars=1,location=0,statusbar=1,menubar=0,resizable=1,width=440,height=300,left = 300,top = 200');");}else{ eval("page" + id + " = window.open(URL, '" + id + "', 'toolbar=0,scrollbars=1,location=0,statusbar=1,menubar=0,resizable=1,width=440,height=220,left = 300,top = 200');");}}// End --></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript> <!-- function openMP(the_url) { the_url = "http://" + document.domain + "/" + the_url; var the_height_width = "height=600,width=890" + ",menubar=no,location=no,toolbar=no,resizable=no,scrollbars=no,status=no"; if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) { the_height_width += ",left=" + ((screen.availWidth - 890) *.5) + ",top=" + ((screen.availHeight - 600) *.5);} else if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Netscape") != -1) { the_height_width += ",screenX=" + ((screen.availWidth - 890) *.5) + ",screenY=" + ((screen.availHeight - 600) *.5); } window.open(the_url,"_blank",the_height_width); } // --></SCRIPT><!--begintext-->SALT LAKE CITY ? He is six wins away from a national championship or one loss away from being unemployed.
However it works out, coach Mike Davis is sure of one thing: Indiana basketball will be better off without him.
<!--endtext--><TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=5 width=170 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=enhance>
(enlarge photo)
Indiana head coach Mike Davis, accompanied by his son, Antoine, 7, watches his team during practice Wednesday, March 15, 2006, in Salt Lake City, Utah, ahead of their Thursday NCAA first round basketball game against San Diego State.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--begintext--><!--begintext-->Four weeks removed from announcing a resignation that seemed inevitable since the day he replaced Bob Knight, Davis has no regrets about being so near the end of his tumultuous six years as head coach of the Hoosiers.
"There's no frustration for me because I've appreciated this opportunity," said the coach, whose resignation takes effect when the season ends.
Sixth-seeded Indiana (18-11) plays 11th-seeded San Diego State (24-8) on Thursday in the first round of the Oakland regional. The Aztecs are seeking their first NCAA tournament victory in the history of the program.
Whether Davis' tortured tenure ends against the Aztecs or further down the road, the coach insists he's optimistic about his own future. He thinks Indiana's could be good, too, if only the Hoosier faithful will let their next coach breathe.
"I think what we should really get out of this whole situation is that it's very important you support and embrace the next coach," he said. "Because it's a great program and I feel like the program could be back in the top five again if that happens."
If not, Davis worries, his successor won't fare much better than he did.
Not that it was all that bad.
Davis is 114-78 through nearly six seasons. He led the Hoosiers to the national title game in 2002. He averaged 19 wins a season, recruited good players, ran a clean program.
But he was never fully accepted and the myriad reasons for that are complicated. Some had to do with missing the NCAA tournament the last two years. Most, however, stem from Knight's ugly departure and the cult of personality The General built over three decades in Bloomington.
Many compared it to trying to replace John Wooden at UCLA ? or Bear Bryant at Alabama.
"He told me about the pressure, but he said I wouldn't really understand it until I got there and went through it," said Marco Killingsworth, the Alabama native who figured nothing could match the passion they have in his state for football. "Now, I see what he was talking about."
An assistant of Knight's, Davis replaced him and, by doing so, probably saved the program from complete collapse. In the weeks and months that followed, though, the message became clear.
No matter how good Davis did, or how many games he won, he would never be embraced as Indiana's legitimate coach.
Maybe that's why, in his mind, the best coaching move he ever made was saying he would go. The way Davis sees it, only by announcing he was leaving did the fortunes of Indiana basketball start pointing upward again.
Yet even if that upward arrow results in an improbable trip to the Final Four in three weeks, Davis knows that leaving is the only thing to do.
"If we won a national championship, it wouldn't change my decision," he said. "Because I don't think anyone needs to be in a situation where their coach is questioned every game, every possession. That's the reason I stepped away."
Freed from the burden of playing for a coach whose every move is second guessed and whose future is uncertain, the Hoosiers overcame the midseason slump in which they lost seven of eight and played themselves into contenders again.
They went from possibly missing the tournament again to a No. 6 seed that has won five of its last six.
"I think we can win it," guard Marshall Strickland said. "I think we have all the pieces."
Meanwhile, freed from the burden of trying to please an unpleasable constituency, Davis is coaching better, and speaking unflinchingly about his time at Indiana.
He said he made the decision to leave two weeks before the announcement on Feb. 16. He was hearing too many boos and too much second-guessing for a team that, at the time, was still ranked in the Top 25, still thought of as a Big Ten contender.
"I'm not leaving because of wins and losses," he said. "I think that's what people don't understand."
He figures his next job will come soon ? that his time at Indiana has given him name recognition only 10 or 15 coaches around the country enjoy.
"You don't have to know a lot about basketball to know who I am," Davis said. "For me, as a coach, that should help."
For now, though, there are between one and six games left.
Davis plans to enjoy them ? without any bitterness.
"I had as good an opportunity as any coach in the country," he said. "I knew I wouldn't be here for 20 years. I said that when I got the job."
___
<SCRIPT language=JavaScript><!-- function hourConvert(hour) { return (1 + (hour + 11) % 12); } function ampm(hour) { return ((hour + 24) % 24 > 11); } function formatAMPM(pmcheck) { return (['a.m.', 'p.m.'][+pmcheck]); } var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2006, 2, 16, 02, 06, 02)); var monthname=new Array('January','February','March','April','May','June','July','August','September','October', 'November','December'); document.write('' + monthname[date.getMonth()] + ' '); document.write(date.getDate() + ', '); document.write(date.getFullYear() + ' - '); var hours = date.getHours(); var formattedHours = hourConvert(hours); var formattedAMPM = formatAMPM(ampm(hours)); document.write(formattedHours + ':'); var minutes = date.getMinutes(); minutes = ((minutes < 10) ? '0' : '') + minutes; document.write(minutes + ' '); document.write(formattedAMPM + ' '); var timeZone = date.toLocaleString(); var reg = /.[SD]T/; var tzLength = timeZone.length; var tzOffset = tzLength - 3; var civilianTimeZone = timeZone.substr(tzOffset, 3); if (civilianTimeZone.match(reg)) { document.writeln(civilianTimeZone, '
'); } else { timeZone = date.toString(); tzLength = timeZone.length; tzOffset = tzLength - 8; civilianTimeZone = timeZone.substr(tzOffset, 3); if (civilianTimeZone.match(reg)) { document.writeln(civilianTimeZone, '</p>'); } }//--></SCRIPT>March 15, 2006 - 9:06 p.m. EST
AP National Writer
<!--endtext--><SCRIPT language=JavaScript><!-- Beginfunction popUp(URL) {day = new Date();id = day.getTime();if (URL.match(/qtplayer/)){ eval("page" + id + " = window.open(URL, '" + id + "', 'toolbar=0,scrollbars=1,location=0,statusbar=1,menubar=0,resizable=1,width=440,height=300,left = 300,top = 200');");}else{ eval("page" + id + " = window.open(URL, '" + id + "', 'toolbar=0,scrollbars=1,location=0,statusbar=1,menubar=0,resizable=1,width=440,height=220,left = 300,top = 200');");}}// End --></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript> <!-- function openMP(the_url) { the_url = "http://" + document.domain + "/" + the_url; var the_height_width = "height=600,width=890" + ",menubar=no,location=no,toolbar=no,resizable=no,scrollbars=no,status=no"; if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) { the_height_width += ",left=" + ((screen.availWidth - 890) *.5) + ",top=" + ((screen.availHeight - 600) *.5);} else if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Netscape") != -1) { the_height_width += ",screenX=" + ((screen.availWidth - 890) *.5) + ",screenY=" + ((screen.availHeight - 600) *.5); } window.open(the_url,"_blank",the_height_width); } // --></SCRIPT><!--begintext-->SALT LAKE CITY ? He is six wins away from a national championship or one loss away from being unemployed.
However it works out, coach Mike Davis is sure of one thing: Indiana basketball will be better off without him.
<!--endtext--><TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=5 width=170 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=enhance>
(enlarge photo)Indiana head coach Mike Davis, accompanied by his son, Antoine, 7, watches his team during practice Wednesday, March 15, 2006, in Salt Lake City, Utah, ahead of their Thursday NCAA first round basketball game against San Diego State.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--begintext--><!--begintext-->Four weeks removed from announcing a resignation that seemed inevitable since the day he replaced Bob Knight, Davis has no regrets about being so near the end of his tumultuous six years as head coach of the Hoosiers.
"There's no frustration for me because I've appreciated this opportunity," said the coach, whose resignation takes effect when the season ends.
Sixth-seeded Indiana (18-11) plays 11th-seeded San Diego State (24-8) on Thursday in the first round of the Oakland regional. The Aztecs are seeking their first NCAA tournament victory in the history of the program.
Whether Davis' tortured tenure ends against the Aztecs or further down the road, the coach insists he's optimistic about his own future. He thinks Indiana's could be good, too, if only the Hoosier faithful will let their next coach breathe.
"I think what we should really get out of this whole situation is that it's very important you support and embrace the next coach," he said. "Because it's a great program and I feel like the program could be back in the top five again if that happens."
If not, Davis worries, his successor won't fare much better than he did.
Not that it was all that bad.
Davis is 114-78 through nearly six seasons. He led the Hoosiers to the national title game in 2002. He averaged 19 wins a season, recruited good players, ran a clean program.
But he was never fully accepted and the myriad reasons for that are complicated. Some had to do with missing the NCAA tournament the last two years. Most, however, stem from Knight's ugly departure and the cult of personality The General built over three decades in Bloomington.
Many compared it to trying to replace John Wooden at UCLA ? or Bear Bryant at Alabama.
"He told me about the pressure, but he said I wouldn't really understand it until I got there and went through it," said Marco Killingsworth, the Alabama native who figured nothing could match the passion they have in his state for football. "Now, I see what he was talking about."
An assistant of Knight's, Davis replaced him and, by doing so, probably saved the program from complete collapse. In the weeks and months that followed, though, the message became clear.
No matter how good Davis did, or how many games he won, he would never be embraced as Indiana's legitimate coach.
Maybe that's why, in his mind, the best coaching move he ever made was saying he would go. The way Davis sees it, only by announcing he was leaving did the fortunes of Indiana basketball start pointing upward again.
Yet even if that upward arrow results in an improbable trip to the Final Four in three weeks, Davis knows that leaving is the only thing to do.
"If we won a national championship, it wouldn't change my decision," he said. "Because I don't think anyone needs to be in a situation where their coach is questioned every game, every possession. That's the reason I stepped away."
Freed from the burden of playing for a coach whose every move is second guessed and whose future is uncertain, the Hoosiers overcame the midseason slump in which they lost seven of eight and played themselves into contenders again.
They went from possibly missing the tournament again to a No. 6 seed that has won five of its last six.
"I think we can win it," guard Marshall Strickland said. "I think we have all the pieces."
Meanwhile, freed from the burden of trying to please an unpleasable constituency, Davis is coaching better, and speaking unflinchingly about his time at Indiana.
He said he made the decision to leave two weeks before the announcement on Feb. 16. He was hearing too many boos and too much second-guessing for a team that, at the time, was still ranked in the Top 25, still thought of as a Big Ten contender.
"I'm not leaving because of wins and losses," he said. "I think that's what people don't understand."
He figures his next job will come soon ? that his time at Indiana has given him name recognition only 10 or 15 coaches around the country enjoy.
"You don't have to know a lot about basketball to know who I am," Davis said. "For me, as a coach, that should help."
For now, though, there are between one and six games left.
Davis plans to enjoy them ? without any bitterness.
"I had as good an opportunity as any coach in the country," he said. "I knew I wouldn't be here for 20 years. I said that when I got the job."
___
<SCRIPT language=JavaScript><!-- function hourConvert(hour) { return (1 + (hour + 11) % 12); } function ampm(hour) { return ((hour + 24) % 24 > 11); } function formatAMPM(pmcheck) { return (['a.m.', 'p.m.'][+pmcheck]); } var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2006, 2, 16, 02, 06, 02)); var monthname=new Array('January','February','March','April','May','June','July','August','September','October', 'November','December'); document.write('' + monthname[date.getMonth()] + ' '); document.write(date.getDate() + ', '); document.write(date.getFullYear() + ' - '); var hours = date.getHours(); var formattedHours = hourConvert(hours); var formattedAMPM = formatAMPM(ampm(hours)); document.write(formattedHours + ':'); var minutes = date.getMinutes(); minutes = ((minutes < 10) ? '0' : '') + minutes; document.write(minutes + ' '); document.write(formattedAMPM + ' '); var timeZone = date.toLocaleString(); var reg = /.[SD]T/; var tzLength = timeZone.length; var tzOffset = tzLength - 3; var civilianTimeZone = timeZone.substr(tzOffset, 3); if (civilianTimeZone.match(reg)) { document.writeln(civilianTimeZone, '
'); } else { timeZone = date.toString(); tzLength = timeZone.length; tzOffset = tzLength - 8; civilianTimeZone = timeZone.substr(tzOffset, 3); if (civilianTimeZone.match(reg)) { document.writeln(civilianTimeZone, '</p>'); } }//--></SCRIPT>March 15, 2006 - 9:06 p.m. EST
