I don’t know what irritates me more – Furman Bisher turning his column into the AJ-C‘s job wanted section for a day, or the number of Georgia fans commenting on the Bisher piece who think that hiring Bobby Knight would be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
People, as a general rule of thumb, consider that anything being proposed for any Georgia sports program in a Furman Bisher column has EPIC FAIL written all over it. This one isn’t about making Georgia men’s basketball better. It’s about getting Bobby Knight a new hobby.
If Damon even considers this seriously for more than thirty seconds, I’ll be pissed. And worried. About everything. Including the football program.
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UPDATE: Be still, my heart, it’s a twofer!
“To me it’s no contest, if Bobby Knight is interested in Georgia basketball it’s no contest,” Vitale said. “He’s so good I’d come with him as an assistant. I’d be his chauffeur.”
It looks like the circus is coming to town early this year. Thanks, Furman.
Get The Picture 
senator: thank you, thank you, thank you for saying this.
i suspect that the fools who would endorse such a half-baked notion are also the types who, to paraphrase james carville, couldn’t even spell “uga.”
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Amen. I don’t wanna turn into the joke that is SCUm and start a cemetary for coaches that should’ve stayed retired.
That being said, It’d be worth every cent of 2 million dollars just to see Bob Knight beat the dogshit out of Michael Adams with a chair.
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Actually, I’m a little on the fence with this one. The obvious backlash of bringing Knight in makes sense, but the question becomes.. who can we get that would truly help bring us to the next level? I think Knight could be a bridge.. help elevate our recruiting and turn the program over in a few years to a young up and coming coach. Georgia Basketball is a tough sell to anybody, and Felton, despite being a good coach, couldn’t bring in the talent. Knight could get some, but I see him as a bridge, not the final answer. There may be other coaches out there that can come in and elevate our program, and I’m fine with going with that in principal, whether that’s Knight or someone else like him. I see it as kind of a Bill Parcells kind of thing.. come in and get the ship righted and going in a constructive direction. While Felton did bring honor back to our program, I’m not sure our program appears to be in much better recruiting position than the day he took it over.
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Well one thing is for sure if he does come to Athens he could still wear his black and red sweaters. I did not realize he was 68 yrs old. He looks much younger to me. Like Heyberto…I don’t know for sure if this would be all bad. He could raise the profile of your program. If we would beat the snot out of little Eddie Munster at UF and Pearl at UT….I would welcome the insanity.
I read somewhere that Feltons and Knights records their last four years of coaching were very similar but I also read that in the four years before Knight at Texas Tech they only won 12 Big-12 games compared to 38 during Knights tenure. That seems like improvement to me.
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I highly doubt Adams would allow the hiring of Knight, assuming Damon would even give the idea the slightest sniff.
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This is right up Michael Adams alley. This is the same man who hired Jim Harrick against Vince Dooley’s wishes.
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Yeah, but since Harrick was such a disaster, why go with another geezer? (Although to be fair, Harrick had a history of scandal that Knight… well, he’s got one too, just quite a different type of scandal…)
I don’t think “Georgia Basketball is a tough sell”… lots of money, new practice facility, Stegeman renovations in the works, and a great recruiting base… I can’t imagine UGA is much less attractive than Florida or Tennessee was when they hired their current coaches. (Would YOU live in Knoxville?) VCU’s coach has apparently said he would go to Georgia but not Bama.
I’m glad Knight is interested because it indicates that knowledgeable people realize what a great job this *could* be. But I wholeheartedly agree with the Senator’s last paragraph. Thanks for thinking of us, General, but don’t sit around waiting on that call.
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We sold our souls for Harrick, and look what that got us. Bobby Knight is an ass of biblical proportions and would be a cancer to the University.
Look at the few GTP posting, replace Kiffin with Knight and UT with UGA. That’s not a place we want to be.
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Bisher is a biggoted old fart who has always despised the University of Georgia. His bogus and hate-filled diatribes against Coach Butts still leave a bitter taste in our mouthes. Stick it up your butt, Bisher. You are still reviled around here! Dr. Thomas Johnson Class of ’74
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Please no, Kight has been washed up for fifteen years. When was the last time he was relevant outside of his name?
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It is time for Furman Bisher to retire. Seriously.
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This might not be the worst possible hire, only because I heard President Hugo Chavez floated his interest through various “coincidental” acquaintances to President Adams.
When I see Georgia fans say that Bobby Knight would make the program relevant, I want to punch a small animal. Personally, I want the program to be sustained long-term. I don’t want a three-year side show that 1) can’t recruit and 2) can’t control his behavior. If we want someone like that, hire me. I can’t recruit. I’ll act like an ass to whomever, whenever. I’ll do it on the cheap, relatively speaking.
You really need to ask yourself a simple question:
Where do you want this program to be in three years? If you want to be right back here looking for a coach again after three years of meh basketball where you probably win 17-18 and get a 8/9 seed in the NCAAs two out of three years, then Bobby is your guy. Or, we could skip that three-year stretch and go straight to the search for someone that will build the program for long-term success. I prefer the latter option.
I get the feeling that a lot of Georgia fans don’t think their program is relevant unless it is embroiled in some sort of controversy or flux. That goes for football as well as basketball.
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When I see Georgia fans say that Bobby Knight would make the program relevant, I want to punch a small animal.
The best part is how many of our fans have defined “relevant” to mean “regularly appearing on Sports Center”. As if that’s the highest aspiration a sports program can have these days.
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Pingback: Hopefully…the last links on the Knight stuff | MrSEC.com
Or, hire me. I bring to the table what Realist does except I’ll recruit better.
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I did not realize he was 68 yrs old. He looks much younger to me.
Ummm… what is it you think 68 year old men normally look like?
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The older you get, the younger old people look.
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To put it bluntly, you’re all nuts. In terms of technical basketball knowledge, Knight is light years ahead of any other basketball coach of my lifetime. He’s a great coach and Georgia would be foolish not to hire him. You want to take a look at Texas Tech’s records with him as opposed to its records before him? He wouldn’t be a long-term solution, but he would leave the Georgia program better than he found it.
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Michael, do you know the famous corollary to Murphy’s Law? When it comes to Georgia basketball, Murphy was an optimist.
Look, I willingly concede that no one Georgia winds up interviewing for the job will possess Knight’s intellectual mastery of the game. And if that were all there was to this, it would be a no-brainer to interview and hire the man. The reality of the situation is that it’s not that simple.
The man’s grasp of institutional loyalty is tenuous at best. At Indiana, his genius for Xs and Os was matched by his ability to play boosters off against his bosses. Texas Tech’s reward for taking a chance on Knight after he was booted from IU? He walked out on the program in the middle of the season. He’s on record saying if he coached again, he wanted it to be at a winning program. Nobody is knocking on his door right now. So now maybe he’s looking for a program that’s just a little more forlorn than he is. That’s hardly the basis for bringing him on board. And who’s to say he won’t twist things in Athens into knots once he gets there? The man’s MO clearly says otherwise.
And for me the topper is this absolutely screwy way that he’s let his interest in the Georgia job become known. Except from Knight’s standpoint, it’s not screwy at all. He’s basically put down a marker and ginned up interest in himself. If nobody takes it, he’s lost nothing, not even public respect, because he can deny he had anything to do with it. And if Damon Evans picks it up, Knight’s got the upper hand in the bargaining.
I’m sorry, but I feel like the program will be on pins and needles every day the man is in Athens. As for your assertion that he’d leave the program in better shape than he found it, that’s an even money bet at best. (And, yes, I say that with full awareness of where Felton left things.) But that’s hardly lifting the bar at this point anyway, is it? I’m hoping for a little more with this hire.
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It’s true Knight is one of the greatest ever, but that’s a life time achievement award and not a ready indication of his current abilities. And I noticed he left Texas Tech as a non tournament team with things not necessarily looking up. I don’t think Knight is in a position to take advantage of the enhanced resources available in Athens (namely, the state’s recruiting base).
He won’t leave the program so well off that it’s worth going through a coaching change and I’m not interested in hiring a “Knight assistant”.
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I’ll grant you that Knight didn’t leave Indiana in a blaze of glory. Ditto for Texas Tech. That said, he turned Texas Tech into a consistent tourney team, which they had never been before, AFAICR. He won three national titles at Indiana, which is over half of that program’s total haul. Even if the endings weren’t great, the beginnings and middles were.
You know with Knight you’re getting a great coach, albeit one with some quirks. Would you rather hire another mid-major coach whose team wins one game in the tournament? This isn’t a criticism of Georgia; that’s how most BCS conference teams hire their new coaches these days. Sometimes, the guy is Thad Matta and sometimes he’s Pete Gillen. If Georgia does end up hiring the next Matta, how long is that guy going to stay before a bigger program comes calling?
And one other point: support for Georgia hoops is lukewarm at best right now. The program desperately needs someone who will excite the fan base and Knight is just the guy to do that. He makes sense to coach at a football school. You’ve mentioned improvements to Stegeman as part of the attraction for a new coach. Isn’t there value in a coach who will fill the refurbished arena?
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Pete Gillen, master of the early time out. Ouch. Of course, I can’t say the Hoos are doing much better with Leitao.
The most positive thing I’m hearing from you is that Knight will be a fun ride while he’s here. That may be true (hell, it probably is true), but isn’t Georgia back in the same boat when he leaves in 3-4 years? And that’s what I’m having an especially hard time with: how does Bobby Knight make Georgia a stronger program for the longer haul when he’s gone? It hasn’t played out that way at either Indiana or Texas Tech.
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Knight will probably leave decent talent, but nothing extraordinary. He’s not a great recruiter at this stage. He’ll be more concerned with finding coachable players who can learn the motion offense. However, he certainly won’t leave the program in bad condition. He left Indiana in such a bad state that the Hoosiers made the NCAA Final two years after he was fired.
That said, if you don’t simply view Knight as a means to an end, he’ll get Georgia to the tournament on a regular basis after a 1-2 year ramp up period. When was the last time that Georgia could say that? Plus, you’ll probably enjoy watching well-played basketball. After living through Felton and Ron Jirsa, you probably deserve it.
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That said, if you don’t simply view Knight as a means to an end, he’ll get Georgia to the tournament on a regular basis after a 1-2 year ramp up period. When was the last time that Georgia could say that?
Well, that would be the Jim Harrick era – good product on the court, unpleasant baggage off the court. That sounds like a somewhat familiar refrain. Now I’m certainly not suggesting that Knight is a world class sleaze like Harrick (he isn’t), but he does come with some cost. What we’re discussing is whether the good outweighs the bad. All I’m saying is that Georgia’s track record doesn’t give me much reason for optimism on that.
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I think I’m clearly in the minority here, but I would welcome Bobby Knight if he wants to be here. I think I can honestly say I’ve watched a lot more men’s basketball during the Felton era than the average UGA fan (I was a b-ball usher for two years while I was an undergrad, 2003-2004). I personally want to see a team that doesn’t regress the way Felton’s teams seemed to do. If nothing else, you know what you’re getting from Bobby Knight. Sure, he likely will not turn Georgia into a perennial national player, but you will get consistent, disciplined play from his teams where they will have a chance to win every time they take the floor. I never felt that way during the Felton era. You felt like half the time his teams had no business being out on the court with the opposition. Like Felton, you know Knight is going to run a clean ship and keep good guys around. I don’t expect a lot from Georgia basketball. I just expect them to be competitive and I’m willing to take on Bobby Knight and all the “perks” that come along with it to reach a level of being competitive every night.
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