BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Bob Knight, one of the vital profitable and influential figures within the historical past school basketball, handed away on Nov. 1, 2023 surrounded by household and mates. He was 83 years previous.
Knight’s teaching accomplishments are legendary. He went 902-371 throughout a 42-year head teaching profession that included stops at Military (1966-71), Indiana (1972-2000), and Texas Tech (2002-08). These 902 wins ranked No. 1 all-time when he retired in 2008, and presently ranks sixth. He was a four-time Nationwide Coach of the 12 months, a five-time Large Ten Coach of the 12 months, and was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame (1991), the School Basketball Corridor of Fame (2006), and the IU Athletics Corridor of Fame (2009).
Whereas he loved large success at every of his three head teaching stops, he turned a larger-than-life determine within the sport due to his accomplishments in Bloomington. Employed by IU on the age of 30 in 1971, he led this system to a few NCAA titles (1976, 1981, 1987), 5 Remaining Fours (1973, 1976, 1981, 1987, 1992), and 11 Large Ten Common Season Championships (1973-76, 1980-81, 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993) in his 29 years as head coach. Knight’s 1976 group, which went 32-0 on its solution to the NCAA title, stays the latest to go undefeated on its solution to an NCAA title. His 1975 and 1976 groups, in the meantime, every went undefeated (18-0) in Large Ten play, and no Large Ten group has gone undefeated in a single season in league play since. Indiana’s 37 consecutive Large Ten wins throughout that interval additionally established a brand new convention normal that has by no means been severely threatened.
Knight’s dominance at IU stretched via all three many years that he coached in Bloomington. The Seventies included 4 Large Ten titles, two Remaining Fours, and one of many biggest groups in school basketball historical past with the undefeated 1976 nationwide champions. As nice because the Seventies had been, the Nineteen Eighties had been even higher. School basketball’s most profitable group through the decade, Knight’s groups captured two NCAA titles and 5 Large Ten championships. Within the Nineties, the Hoosiers gained two extra league crowns, superior to a different Remaining 4, earned 10 NCAA tourney bids, and 4 straight Candy 16 journeys. The Nineties additionally featured one in every of Knight’s biggest groups to not win an NCAA title, because the 1993 group went 17-1 within the Large Ten, was the No. 1 total seed within the NCAA Event, and featured 4 gamers that may finally be first-round NBA Draft picks.
Along with his accomplishments representing Indiana College, Knight additionally loved related success on the worldwide stage. He assembled and coached arguably the best novice males’s basketball group in historical past, as he led the 1984 U.S. Olympic group to a gold medal in Los Angeles, and guided the U.S. group to the 1979 Pan American Video games gold as properly.
Whereas his groups excelled on the courtroom, Knight’s student-athletes additionally embodied what it meant to be a student-athlete. Throughout his IU teaching profession, 98 % of his four-year gamers earned their levels.
Moreover being one of many sport’s most profitable coaches, Knight was additionally one of the vital progressive. He revolutionized and popularized the ‘movement offense,’ an offensive model initially credited to one in every of Knight’s mentors, Henry Iba. Not like conventional ‘set’ offensive performs, the movement offense relied on participant motion, correct spacing, passing, reducing, and screening to create scoring alternatives. It is a model of play that turned synonymous with Knight and his IU groups, and it stays very a lot a staple of lots of the recreation’s most profitable coaches to