Knight Has A Rather Boring First Showing, But His Son Has A Great Night
Friday, November 21, 2008
I really hate to say anything bad about Coach Knight, as the guy scares me to death, but his first trip to the booth last night was less than stellar. It's not like he didn't provide analysis, but a lot of it just seemed either completely obvious or uninspired. Not only that but I think ESPN might be afraid to put him on camera. I watched a good bit of the Duke-S.Illinois game last night and I think I only saw him on camera once.
Combine that with the odd choice of essentially replacing him on the second game with Vitale, and it was just a random night altogether. So much so, that Coach Knight's son decided to steal the headlines. Pat Knight's Texas Tech Red Raiders put up a school record 167 points in a win over East Central Oklahoma. Via the Dallas Morning News....
Texas Tech gave coach Pat Knight something his father never got with the Red Raiders — 167 points.That's just wild. Take a look at the boxscore when you get a chance as well, it'll just blow your mind. Shooting 52%, on 13 of 25, from 3-point range will always help you out. And who said that the new 3-point line would cause scoring to be down?
The Red Raiders defeated East Central 167-115 Thursday night.
Trevor Cook scored a career-high 20 points and was one of 10 players in double figures for Texas Tech, which easily eclipsed the record for most points scored by the Red Raiders. Alan Voskuil and John Roberson each had 17 points and Mike Singletary and Wally Dunn each had 16.
"I'm a big believer in confidence," Knight said. "We got 10 guys that score double figures. Proves to them they can at least put it in the bucket. Our defense is a little different. The game is just so different from anything. We're not going to face anything like this."
Texas Tech defeats East Central 167-115 (Dallas Morning News)
8 Comments:
Yeah, I disagree with AA 100% on this. Knight was excellent on commentary, focusing on the game and doing a great job explaining the teams' tendencies and playcalls.
It's a little hypocritical of you to get on Bobby Knight for just focusing on the game while also railing on guys like Dick Vitale for getting too emotional and not talking about the game.
You can only have it one way or the other and I'd take Bobby Knight over Dick Vitale 8 days a week. I missed Knight in the 2nd game. Michigan was running a sweet zone and Dickie V was off in la-la land talking about nonsense.
I think I know why Knight wasn't shown on TV that often. He has one ugly face, especially in HD.
I'm with Sean O. Knight was fantastic last night. AA: either you've been conditioned to accept crappy commentating, or you don't know the proper job of a color commentator. Knight provided insightful analysis throughout the game, broke plays and strategy down and was spot on with most of his thoughts. I could have used less "Well this is what I would've done as a coach", but Knight did FAR better in his first game than Vitale has in years.
Two fun facts:
1) the two teams took 207 shots combined, which averages out to better than 5 shots/minute
2) Tyree Graham played 18 minutes for TT but didn't score; how bad would that feel when your team goes off for 167?
Bob Knight is quickly going to be the best analyst on ESPN for college basketball. He is the anti-Vitale and doesnt need to steal the show or yell and scream or get on a soapbox. He was outstanding last night and the plan for this tourney was to have him do 1 game and Vitale the other to save Vitale's voice some strain early in the year. AA should know that.
Actually AA,
your colleagues at SBB said that scoring in mens' college basketball would be down. Thankfully, they were wrong. Texas Tech is the most exciting team in football and mens' basketball, hands dowsn!
East Central Oklahoma scored 115, though. East. Central. Oklahoma.
To me, the shame of letting some D2 team from Jeremy Shockey's home town drop 115 on you outweighs scoring 167.
I actually enjoyed Knight's debut. His subdued analysis, paired with a very good Dan Shulman, resulted in the actual game being the prime source of entertainment. I'd much prefer this to the Dick Vitale Show that we got in the second game.