Redeem Team Better than Dream Team?

Good article from si.com



The Redeem Team better than the 1992 Olympic team?

The Dream Team would have too much inside (and too much MJ) for the '08 team
Jordan and Scottie Pippen would spearhead a stout defensive effort
The 1992 Olympic team set a standard that might never be matched
Redeem Team Is Superior
Without question, it would be a competitive game. The Redeem Team would try to run while the Dreamers would do their best to utilize their size and strength in the half court. But the experience of the 2008 team would win out.

Dream Team vs. Redeem Team
Pos. Player Pos. Player
G Magic Johnson G Jason Kidd
G Michael Jordan G Kobe Bryant
G John Stockton G Chris Paul
G Clyde Drexler G Dwyane Wade
G/F Scottie Pippen G Deron Williams
F Larry Bird G Michael Redd
F Charles Barkley F LeBron James
F Karl Malone F Carlos Boozer
F Chris Mullin F Carmelo Anthony
F C. Laettner F Tayshaun Prince
C Patrick Ewing C Dwight Howard
C David Robinson C/F Chris Bosh

By Jack McCallum, SI.com
From the comfort of my couch I send a shout-out to Alex Wolff, my distinguished Sports Illustrated colleague who has been covering the Redeem Team. Alex's assignment was easier than mine was in 2004 (when covering Team Bad Vibe in Athens was about as pleasurable as getting a root canal) but more difficult than the task in 1992, when chronicling the Dream Team consisted mainly of ferreting out Charles Barkley's post-midnight agenda on Barcelona's famed Las Ramblas.
Like the veteran knuckleballer, I've been summoned from the bullpen to perform the obvious -- compare the Redeem Team to the Dream Team. Not in terms of global popularity (no matter how many times you've seen Kobe Bryant mobbed by Chinese fans, it doesn't compare to the Elvis-is-in-the-building treatment extended to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, et al.). And not in terms of public comportment during the Games (the '08 team has earned points by showing up at some athletic events, unlike the Dreamers, who, Barkley excepted, mostly stayed in and bonded at their luxury hotel). We're talking strictly basketball.
As the Food Network would put it: Whose cuisine would reign supreme? What we're examining here is a game between Team '92 in its prime against Team '08, which held off Spain 118-107 on Sunday to win the gold.
First of all, discount margin of victory, which was an astounding 43.8 for the Dream Team, compared to 27.9 for this year's team. NBA-caliber players on international teams were a rarity when Chuck Daly's team took the court 16 years ago, as opposed to the stacked rosters against which Mike Krzyzewski's charges had to compete.
The pressure, too, is a wash. Bird joked that if the '92 team lost, it "wouldn't be allowed back in the country," the very idea of NBA players losing to lesser lights being laughable at that point in time. But though the template of top European teams beating thrown-together Americans is now well established, the Redeem Teamers had just as heavy a burden on their collective back. Indeed, with USA Basketball czar Jerry Colangelo in charge, this year's quest to recapture the gold took on the form of a holy crusade ... and crusades aren't about silver and bronze medals.
But my feeling is that the '92 team would prevail. That's not merely old-school sentiment talking (though I can't deny there's some of that), but cold, hard facts. Here are a few of them:
• The best all-around player on the '08 team was LeBron James, with Kobe a close second. (During the NBA season, I reverse that order.) The best all-around player on the '92 team was Jordan. And Jordan, at that time, was a better player than either James or Bryant, offensively and defensively. To a large extent, teams draw their identity and their strength from their best player.
• The '08 team could not begin to match the Dreamers on the interior. Not only did the '92-ers have two classic centers in Patrick Ewing and David Robinson -- that's two more classic centers than the '08 team had -- but Barkley and Karl Malone could also supply post-ups and rebounding. Dwight Howard was a force at times in Beijing, but against the Dream Team, he'd have three fouls before Coach K could look around for a replacement. Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer would play their tails off, but they would get pounded inside.
• The '08 team is deeper at the point with a combination of Jason Kidd, Chris Paul and Deron Williams, particularly since John Stockton was limited by a leg injury in Barcelona and could provide only minor backup help for Magic. But that's irrelevant. Any number of players besides Johnson (Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Chris Mullin and Clyde Drexler) could initiate the U.S. offense, which was more versatile than the Beijing team's.
• The '08 team played hard on defense (though it had few answers for Spain in the final), but the Dream Team was better at that end of the court. If you saw Jordan shut down Lithuania's Sarunas Marciulionis or Pippen put the clamps on Croatia's Toni Kukoc -- both of the international players were world-class at the time -- you would have to give the advantage to the '92 team in a close game. And that's not even to bring up how Robinson and Ewing would protect the paint.
Keep in mind that this is not in any way a condemnation of the '08 team, which comported itself splendidly both on and off the court. It is merely to say that it would not beat the once and future kings who set a standard that will probably never be matched.

REDEEM USA BASKETBALL IN 2008

THE REDEEM TEAM
Great article from CBSSPORTSLINE.COM

If Jerry Colangelo had doubts that his vision would take, they began to evaporate in the fall of 2005, shortly after Milwaukee Bucks swingman Michael Redd walked into a Chicago hotel suite for an interview with Colangelo, the man appointed to reverse the slide in the global fortunes of U.S. basketball. Dressed in sweats and with a garment bag slung over his shoulder, Redd greeted the former Phoenix Suns owner, then asked to duck into the john. Moments later he emerged -- in a suit and tie.
It's a story worth noting in part because Redd, a shooter of cane-sugar sweetness, will provide Team USA with a skill essential to success at the Beijing Olympics. But it's most notable because it shows that representing the land of the sport's invention is once again an honor worth getting gussied up for.
After decades of sending coaches overseas to stage clinics, the panjandrums of USA Basketball are now letting knowledge flow in the opposite direction. For the past three years Colangelo has presided over the first standing U.S. men's national team, using as his model the stable programs that have helped countries such as Argentina (at the 2004 Games) and Spain (at the '06 world championships) win the gold medals that Americans once took for granted. "It's a total 180," says guard Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat, a returnee from Athens, where the U.S. was lucky to win a bronze. "In '04 we spent [three weeks] in training camp, then shot off to Greece. This team has been together for three years. We know the system and respect the system. We're just picking up where we left off [last summer]."
The U.S. program maintains a pool of 33 pros, all committed for a three-year cycle that includes a worlds and an Olympics. The team itself is chosen by a committee of one, Colangelo, who defers readily to coach Mike Krzyzewski. And an attitude overhaul is evident in all sorts of subtle ways. The USA on the uniforms pops in red, while players' names are writ in muted blue. Coaches and players all but pack copies of Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World with their playbooks, hewing closely to talking points that ban arrogant references to hoops as "our game." Even the team's official slogan [United We Rise] and unofficial nickname [the Redeem Team] imply room for improvement.
An autopsy of the debacle in Athens turned up a number of causes. The team featured only three holdovers from the group that had qualified the previous summer, and seven of the original nine invitees withdrew. In the end some 14 players turned down Uncle Sam, invoking excuses from family obligations to lingering injuries to the security situation in Greece. As a result, coach Larry Brown took charge of a team with an average age of 23.6 years, and it showed. Behind the scenes, problems of dress and punctuality festered, and on the eve of the Games, Brown wanted to send several players home. Body language is the Esperanto of basketball, and both Stateside and in Athens people didn't like what they saw. Some players heedlessly inflated expectations -- as camp opened, Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony, then 20, guaranteed a gold -- while others tried to pooh-pooh the poor results. "It's not like it's the end of the world," a 19-year-old LeBron James said in the aftermath of a loss to Puerto Rico.
Technically, LeBron -- or LeBronze, as he came to be known -- was right: The loss to Puerto Rico merely signaled the end of uninterrupted U.S. Olympic basketball hegemony dating back to the 1992 Dream Team. After losing to Lithuania in pool play and Argentina in the semifinals, Brown pronounced himself "humiliated," and the Americans headed home in a fog of alibis, citing the fouls whistled on center Tim Duncan and the zones they weren't used to shooting over. In fact, the U.S. sank the second-fewest 3-pointers of the dozen teams in the tournament, a performance that recalls an old chestnut about as American as they come: "There are only two great plays -- South Pacific, and put the ball in the basket."
Enter Colangelo, 68, who over a half century has been a player, coach or executive at every level of the game. "The way they conducted themselves left a lot to be desired," he says of the 2004 team. "Watching and listening to how people reacted to our players, I knew we'd hit bottom." Colangelo told NBA commissioner David Stern that he'd only assume duties as managing director if he was given autonomy. It's a measure of how abysmal the situation was that he immediately got what he asked for.
In 2005 Colangelo arranged face-to-face sit-downs with every prospective national team player, to hear in their own words why they wanted to represent their country. The few good men to set things right wouldn't be paid or guaranteed playing time, much less a starting spot. Still, Colangelo says, "I got buy-in. Halfway through my talk with him, LeBron said, 'I'm in.' " Indeed, among the nearly 30 players he approached, only the San Antonio Spurs' Duncan and then Minnesota Timberwolves foward Kevin Garnett turned him down.
With its star power and the smell of success, the expanding player pool became a recruiting tool in its own right; USA Basketball no longer found itself in the role of supplicant, and veterans such as Jason Kidd (now of the Dallas Mavericks) and Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers) signed on. The prospect of exposing oneself to the Chinese market, home to more NBA fans than the U.S. has people, surely helped too. Says USA Basketball executive director Jim Tooley, "It's in vogue again to be playing for your national team."
There have been stumbles along the way. Two summers ago at the world championships in Japan, Greece, a team without a single NBA player, beat the U.S. in the semifinals with a flurry of high pick-and-rolls, an NBA staple. "It's been overanalyzed," Colangelo says of that game. "There were six minutes [during which] they made every shot and we missed free throws. But it might have been the best thing to happen to us. We kept pounding on our guys that the international gap had closed and we needed to respect every opponent."

2008 U.S. Olympic Team
Player Position Height Weight Team
Carmelo Anthony Forward 6-8 230 Nuggets
Carlos Boozer Forward 6-9 258 Jazz
Chris Bosh Forward 6-10 230 Raptors
Kobe Bryant Guard 6-6 220 Lakers
Dwight Howard Center 6-11 265 Magic
LeBron James Forward 6-8 240 Cavaliers
Jason Kidd Guard 6-4 212 Mavericks
Chris Paul Guard 6-0 170 Hornets
Tayshaun Prince Forward 6-9 205 Pistons
Michael Redd Guard 6-6 215 Bucks
Dwyane Wade Guard 6-4 212 Heat
Deron Williams Guard 6-3 205 Jazz

The coaching staff learned too. "We didn't know the international game well enough," says Krzyzewski, the coach at Duke since 1980. "[Greece] played with a physicality and intensity that our guys weren't accustomed to, and because we were young, it knocked us back. We now have the athletic ability and versatility to handle that." Krzyzewski will consider playing more zone, and he'll be deploying players who are more rugged, versatile and experienced. The additions of Kidd and Bryant have helped nudge the team's average age up to 26.1.
But even at the 2006 worlds, Colangelo and Krzyzewski could point to a remade culture. In contrast to the crowds in Athens, the Japanese cheered the Americans. And the U.S. players in turn cheered each other. "From Athens we learned we need time to develop camaraderie," Krzyzewski says. "We have to be committed to one another before we can be committed to the team. We're developing a program, not 'selecting a team.' No one ever 'selects a team'; you select people and hope they become a team."
That process continued last summer, as the third-place finish at the worlds forced the U.S. to qualify for Beijing. What at first looked to be a chore seems more and more like a blessing. Outside shooting, ball movement and a sense of urgency went missing in Athens; during the FIBA Americas qualifying tournament last July, the U.S. shot 47 percent from beyond the arc and collected assists on 68.3 percent of its baskets, feeding off the keynote struck when, on the first possession of the first game, its most celebrated player, Bryant, hit the floor for a loose ball. The Americans won all 10 games, by an average of 39.5 points. "We have the infrastructure, the buy-in, the changed culture," says Colangelo. "The bottom line is on us: We need to finish the job and win. "
The U.S. will never be able to duplicate the continuity and stability of some other national-team programs. When Argentina won the gold in Athens, 10 of its players had been together for at least five years. But, says Tooley, "we're getting as close as we can." Compared with the 15 practices and six exhibitions the 2004 team logged before the Games, the core of the '08 team will have worked out at least 70 times and played 29 games when it faces China in its opener on Aug. 10. Last summer's starting lineup of Kidd, Bryant, James, Anthony and Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard returns intact.
"Our goal is to win a gold medal and be humble about it," says Kidd. "And if we do win by 50, to make sure it's because we're playing the right way."
During the Olympic qualifier last summer, after Bryant hit the floor for that loose ball, he was whistled for traveling, in accordance with FIBA rules that are strict on that point. "Our tendency the summer before would have been to start yelling, 'Hey, we're getting screwed,' " Krzyzewski says. "But instead of bitching and moaning, we were more like, 'Well, that's a travel. We didn't know that.' "
There's something to be said for humility. Until an athlete bows his head, after all, no one can hang a gold medal around his neck.

2008 U.S. OLYMPIC BASKETBALL TEAM

Bryant, James to lead US team
By ANDREW SELIGMAN, AP Sports Writer
CHICAGO (AP)—MVP Kobe Bryant has a shot at another big prize after falling short of the NBA championship, and he’ll have plenty of help along the way.
LeBron James is there. Dwyane Wade, too.
They will lead a U.S. Olympic basketball team that was announced Monday and hopes to capture the gold medal in Beijing in August after a third-place showing in Athens four years ago.
The team already has “re-established itself” on an international level, USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said during a news conference.
The next step is to bring home the gold, and the U.S. will send a deep, versatile team to China. Carmelo Anthony and Jason Kidd were also among the 12 players chosen from a pool of 33. They were joined by the Detroit Pistons’ Tayshaun Prince, along with Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Michael Redd and Deron Williams. “It was a very difficult selection process,” Colangelo said. “When you have as many outstanding players as we have in this country—to select a group of 12 is obviously going to leave out a number of outstanding people.”
The Pistons issued a statement from Prince in which he said he was “honored to be selected.”
“I take great pride in being given the opportunity to represent my country, and I strongly believe that with the team that has been assembled, the United States will be represented well,” Prince said.
The team was selected without a tryout. It will have a minicamp this week in Las Vegas and meet there July 20-25 to train and play an exhibition against Canada before heading overseas. The Americans open Olympic play against China on Aug. 10.
Although the Americans captured the gold at the Sydney Games in 2000, they no longer dominate international play as they once did. The talent gap has narrowed and many top players have chosen to not play for the national team in recent years.
Now, the U.S. team appears loaded. Then again, the Americans went 5-3 in Athens and lost for the first time since NBA players started competing in 1992 even though they had James, Anthony, Wade and Tim Duncan. That group got routed by Puerto Rico before losing to Lithuania and Argentina, but this one is confident it will take the gold.
“It’s really the world’s game. We think we’re the best at playing that game,” said coach Mike Krzyzewski, warning that “unless we show the respect to the rest of the world that it is the world’s game” there will be no gold medal.
Wade and Anthony said they didn’t know what to expect in Athens.
“I’ve always seen greatness in the Olympics, but that was never one of my dreams,” Wade said. “I never really expected to be on the Olympic team, especially in my first year. I didn’t have a clue what I was getting into. … Now, we respect the game so much. We respect the team basketball that they play internationally so much.”
Anthony saw the 2004 Games as a chance to have “some of the best workouts in the summertime with the best players in the world” and went there thinking “the USA is supposed to win everything.”
“Going through that experience really helped me to learn the international game,” Anthony said.
He’s part of a team that includes one of the best shooters (Redd) and defenders (Prince). There are role players and scorers, including the two biggest.
Bryant will play in his first Olympics after winning his first MVP while leading the Los Angeles Lakers to the finals. James averaged 30.0 points, just enough to beat Bryant for the scoring title.
Those two, along with Anthony, Kidd and Dwight Howard, started for a team that went unbeaten in the Olympic qualifying tournament last year. Eight of the 12 players headed to Beijing played on that team and six played in the 2006 world championships.
“We’re a team already,” Krzyzewski said. “The thing that this program has done is … provide continuity and relationships. … We’ll hit the ground running.”
Phoenix forward Amare Stoudemire withdrew from Olympic consideration, apparently concerned about pushing his body too hard after knee surgery in 2005 and 2006. So did Detroit’s Chauncey Billups, who would have had a tough time making the team given the backcourt depth.
Wade’s season ended in March because of a sore left knee that had been bothering him since surgery in 2007. He started working out in his hometown Chicago in May, and James and Paul joined him to help sharpen his game. Colangelo visited recently and left convinced the 6-foot-4 guard was healthy.
“This was to see how far along he had come in his rehab,” Colangelo said. “That was the whole thing. Plus, I had a little conversation I wanted to have with him. We took care of that. I watched him work. I saw him do a few things in terms of explosiveness that showed me that he was pretty much back.”
Trainer Tim Grover has been working out with Wade. Colanagelo said Grover assured him the Miami Heat star will completely ready when the team gathers in Las Vegas next month.
“I feel great,” Wade said.
And he’d feel even better with a gold medal dangling from his neck.
Now ask yourself, where are all of the big men? Will this haunt the US later on in the final rounds? Tayshon Prince???? Come on, there has to be a big, like Tyson Chandler. I hope this mix of players works out for the US to win GOLD!!!

He Did it "His Way." Bob Knight the Best Coach in any Sport has Stepped Aside

He is gone! The best coach in any sport finally called it a "day" and left the court for the last time and he did it "My Way" as his favorite song states. No one understands that this is perfect for himself, Pat, and the Texas Tech basketball team. He doesn't get a teary send-off from each team he plays, (he does not want it to be about him), Pat gets 10 games to be himself and coach, gameplan, break down film, be in charge. The players get to see Pat in action and adjust to his styles and methods. A great way to step away into the wilderness, which is exactly where Bobby Knight will go to fish and hunt.

I am sure that most people first thought when they heard the news was he must have done something really bad this time to just up and resign. The medai was all up in arms and waiting for their next big Bob Knight tirade. Well, guess what? Not this time. The media can't believe it, the great coach had to do something, but I guess we'll just write about all of the controversial acts he has done in the past insted of honor a once in a life time coach, man, father, grandfather, husband, who did it HIS WAY! By the way ESPN's Pat Forde is an idiot!

http://espn.com/
LUBBOCK, Texas -- Bob Knight left when he wanted to this time.
Almost a decade after he was fired by Indiana, the school he led to three national championships, Knight walked away Monday from college basketball in midseason.
The Texas Tech coach, known as much for his brilliance as his fiery temper, abruptly resigned and handed over the team to his son.
"He's ready," successor and son Pat Knight said during his weekly radio show. "He's tired."
It was a stunning midseason move by the winningest men's coach in major college basketball, who gave no hint a change was coming. Pat Knight, a Red Raiders assistant, was appointed his father's successor in 2005.
"There's a transition that's going to take place here from me to Pat and I've dwelt on this all year long ... how it would be best for him and for the team and for what we can do in the long run to make this the best thing for Texas Tech," Knight told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which first reported the resignation.
Knight told the newspaper that health concerns did not prompt his decision, but he jokingly added, "I feel better today than I did on Saturday."
On Tuesday morning, Bob Knight also told Minneapolis Star Tribune sports columnist Sid Hartman on radio station WCCO-AM that it was just time to go. The remaining 10 games would also give his son and successor, Pat Knight, a chance to work with many of the returning players.
"It really wasn't a very tough one, Sid," he said. "And so with that in mind, I just thought it was time for me to step down here and let him take over this coaching job here."
Bob Knight also said he's ready to quit battling with the officials.
"Well, I won't have to see any more bad calls, that'll be one thing," he said. "I mean, we had some horrendous officiating in games this year. And I think that really, to me, has never been a part of the game, but this year it just seemed to bother me more than at any other time."
Knight left during his 42nd year as a head coach with more wins than any Division I men's coach and only two losing seasons. Pat Knight inherited a team that is struggling at 12-8.
"This is my team, that's what he told me. He's done," Pat Knight said on his radio show. "He's got a lot of life left to enjoy."
The 67-year-old Knight informed Texas Tech athletic director Gerald Myers of his decision in a meeting around noon Monday, Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance told The Associated Press. Knight then called Hance and told him.
Milestone Man

Bobby Knight's first collegiate coaching win came when Richard Nixon was president. His 900th came over 30 years later. Here's a look at his milestones:
Victory
Date
Result
100
Feb. 27, 1971
Army 64,Navy 50
200
Dec. 19, 1975
Indiana 93,Georgia 56
300
Feb. 7, 1980
Indiana 83,Northwestern 69
400
Dec. 8, 1984
Indiana 81,Kentucky 68
500
Jan. 14, 1989
Indiana 92,Northwestern 76
600
Jan. 6, 1993
Indiana 75,Iowa 67
700
March 5, 1997
Indiana 70,Wisconsin 66
800
Feb. 5, 2004
Texas Tech 75,Nebraska 49
880*
Jan. 1, 2007
Texas Tech 70,New Mexico 68
900
Jan. 16, 2008
Texas Tech 68,Texas A&M 53
* -- Became winningest men's coach in NCAA Division I history
"I think Bob is through with coaching. I think he got to the point where it wasn't fun for him," Hance said. "He thought about it Sunday all day and talked to his wife and decided 'This is something I want to do.'"
Myers said Knight told the team before practice Monday.
The Red Raiders beat Oklahoma State 67-60 on Saturday, giving Knight his 902nd victory. He earned his 900th last month against Texas A&M.
The Red Raiders next play Wednesday night at Baylor.
Knight's resignation will not cost the Red Raiders one of their top recruits. Corbin Ray, a 6-foot-8 forward from Katy, Texas, told KRIV-TV in Houston on Monday night that he would still attend Texas Tech.
"Pat was the one recruiting me," Corbin said, according to the station. "I originally committed to him first. I was just hoping to get a year or two with Coach Bob Knight. I respect his decision and wish him the best."
"I guess you can never be surprised at some of the things Bob does," former UCLA coach John Wooden told the AP. "I don't think there's ever been a better teacher of the game of basketball than Bob. I don't always approve of his methods, but his players for the most part are very loyal to him. I would say that no player that ever played for him would not say he did not come out a stronger person."
Knight broke in at Army in 1965, but made his mark in 29 years at Indiana.
He's a complex package, someone who can hit a policeman, throw a chair across the court or be accused of wrapping his hands around a player's neck, yet has never been in trouble for breaking NCAA rules, always has a high graduation rate and gave his salary back a few years ago because he didn't think he'd earned it.
In September, Knight signed a three-year contract extension that ran through the 2011-12 season.
"I didn't know, I've never really known when I was going to step down from this job. As I thought about it, my first thought was at the end of this season," Knight told the Lubbock paper. "My thinking was .. the best thing for the long run for this team would be for Pat and his staff to coach these remaining 10 games."
NCAA president Myles Brand, the former Indiana University president who fired Knight, declined to comment on the resignation, spokesman Erik Christianson said.
By The Numbers
Most known for having more wins than any coach in Division I men's basketball, Bobby Knight hit some other marks along the way. Here's a look at some of Knight's other career numbers:
• 1,273 Career Games
• 29 20-Win Seasons
• 4 30-Win Seasons
• 1 Perfect Season
• 28 NCAA Tournaments
• 3 National Championships
• 1 NIT Championship
• 1 Olympic Gold Medal
• 70-34 Postseason Record
• 15 NBA First-Round Draft Selections
• 36 Players In The NBA
Knight arrived at Texas Tech in March 2001, six months after being fired by Indiana for what school officials there called a "pattern of unacceptable behavior."
The most recent off-the-court action by Knight to draw headlines came last November, when two people accused the coach or his hunting buddy of hitting them with birdshot. Neither person was injured or required medical treatment, and no criminal charges were filed against Knight.
In Knight's first six years at Tech, he led the Red Raiders to five 20-win seasons, a first at the school.
Knight passed former North Carolina coach Dean Smith as the winningest Division I coach Jan. 1, 2007, getting career win No. 880. To celebrate the milestone Knight chose "My Way" by Frank Sinatra, a mantra for how he navigated his personal and professional worlds.
Back then, Knight explained why "My Way" was so fitting.
"I've simply tried to do what I think is best," Knight said. "Regrets? Sure. Just like the song. I have regrets. I wish I could have done things better at times. I wish I would have had a better answer, a better way, at times. But just like he said, I did it my way and when I look back on it, I don't think my way was all that bad."
What he did and how he did it made Knight a legend. However, the influence and discipline he brought to coaching made him special.
"Outside of my immediate family, no single person has had a greater impact on my life than Coach Knight," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who played for Knight at Army. "I have the ultimate respect for him as a coach and a mentor, but even more so as a dear friend. For more than 40 years, the life lessons I have learned from Coach are immeasurable. Simply put, I love him."
Knight got his 100th victory at Army, then moved to Indiana, where his Hoosiers went 662-239 from 1971-2000. He won national titles there in 1976, '81 and '87.
"I am very fortunate and blessed to have played for him. He made me a better man and for that I am grateful," former Indiana star and current New Mexico coach Steve Alford said.
Knight's first NCAA title came in 1976 when Indiana went undefeated, a feat no team has accomplished since. In 1984, he coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in Los Angeles.
When he began his coaching career at Army, he was 24, the youngest-ever Division I coach. Knight won 20 or more games in 29 seasons.
"Today was the most relaxed and relieved I've seen him in a long time," Pat Knight said during his show. "He thought about doing it a year ago but he didn't want people to think he was just staying for the record. So he kind of pushed himself to go one more year."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.