Offense at Indiana is not equal opportunity. Those players who shoot best are going to shoot most. It is important that every player know his offensive limitations. It is also important that a player know who the best shooter is on the team.
As coaches we talk about two things: offense and defense. There is a third phase we neglect, which is more important. It’s conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense.
You can’t imagine the number of people in professional sports who have come up to me and said, “God, you treat those assholes like I’d like to treat them.” And my question is, “Then why don’t you?”.
I’ve never felt my job was to win basketball games – rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.
From the time I started teaching, when I was 21, I’ve always signed my name Bob Knight. My college coach called me Bobby, still does. But I have never introduced myself to anybody in my adult life in any way other than, “I’m Bob Knight.”
We don’t want defeat in life. How are we going to be beaten? All right. We have to deal with those things. What’s going to cause us to lose the game, whatever the game might be?
