We were due for another Bob Knight news anecdote that involved a controversial/noteworthy quote. It's been a little while since our last one, hasn't it?
So here's a nugget that sort of flew under the radar, despite the fact the 72-year-old Knight said it on television Thursday night. And forgive me for not picking up on it right away. I admit I wasn't dialed into that thrilling Alabama-Arkansas game amid all the other hoops happening around the country.
Anyway, MLive.com caught his quotes during that game and has passed them along. They are about Michigan's Fab Five era, one that's been scrubbed away due to NCAA violations that have led to the vacation of records.
With Indiana and Michigan set to play a super-duper, totally awesome game Saturday night, the lead-up has been well-publicized. After all, it's the first time Michigan has been ranked No. 1 in the polls since the '92-93 season, back when the Fab Five was doing their trendsetting thing, making Final Fours and going up against Knight's IU teams in the twilight of his good years there.
How great is it that Michigan and Indiana are both really good again at the same time for the first time in two decades? Thoughts on this rekindled, classic Big Ten rivalry, Bob?
"I'm not sure what the Fab Five was," Knight said Thursday during an ESPN broadcast of an Alabama-Arkansas game. "They never won anything.
"They never won a championship, they didn't get anywhere, they got beat."
Shortly after ESPN showed a promotion for Saturday's matchup between No. 1 Michigan and No. 3 Indiana in Bloomington's Assembly Hall, play-by-play man Rece Davis began to offer a historical perspective on how long it'd been since Michigan had reached the No. 1 spot in a national poll. And, naturally, the Fab Five's 1992-93 team -- which began the year as the preseason No. 1 -- came up.
Knight, as is often the case these days, was not impressed.
"Fab indicates, to me, that you've won something," Knight said. "I've never been able to understand what 'Fab' was," he added. "It wasn't championships, I always knew that."
So crotchety, so indignant, Bob Knight. This is just who the guy is. It's why ESPN pays him to sit still in a sweater and be on the call for games. (To this day, I remain surprised he does it, period.)
I can't help but wonder where Knight -- who still is not on good terms with Indiana, though it's mostly a one-sided quarrel -- will be when the game is played Saturday. Will he even try to watch it? It would be ironic if he didn't. The last time these teams had so many people paying attention, Knight was the man at the center of the competition.
) at Purdue. I know Purdue's not great this year, but they're a respectable 4-4 in a tough Big Ten, and beating anyone in the Big Ten this year (with the exception of PSU) at their place by 37 is impressive.
