Knight Is Right--Knight

Indiana basketball Coach Bobby Knight, criticized recently by the media and Hoosier fans for kicking one starter off the team, benching four others and starting four freshmen, broke his silence Monday night on a Cincinnati radio show hosted by former Bengal tight end Bob Trumpy.

In case you were wondering, a few losses haven’t changed Knight’s mind.

“It’s a decision that I’d make the next 100 times I had to make that decision, based on the circumstances that led up to it,” Knight said. “The decision is based on what happens before we make the decision, not what happens afterward.”

Knight was assailed after the Illinois loss for keeping star guard Steve Alford on the bench.

“I think Steve’s play has immeasurably improved since being benched in the Illinois game,” Knight said. “And I really believe that it was tougher on me to bench Steve than anybody. I think Steve would be the first to tell you that he learned an awful lot from the experience.”

Knight also had a few words for the media, quoting former Pittsburgh Pirates’ Manager Danny Murtaugh: “I know where to get a guy in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, the bases loaded and us down by three runs, to come up to the plate as a pinch-hitter and hit a home run. I just can’t get him away from his typewriter in the press box.”

Bill Skowron, former first baseman for the New York Yankees and the Dodgers, made about $500,000 in 17 years in the majors. Were he playing today, he figures he’d be making about $1 million per season.

Still, Skowron says he doesn’t have anything against today’s players. Most of them, anyway. Well, some of them, maybe.

“I don’t begrudge the ballplayers,” Skowron said. “But when I see guys hitting .220 and all of a sudden they say they want to renegotiate their contracts--and the owners break down and give in to them--it tees me off. . . .

“I’m from the old school,” he said. “They say they make a lot of money and they’re bored. How can you be bored when you’re making half a million dollars a year?”

Maryland basketball Coach Lefty Driesell, who has 499 coaching victories, has had enough questions from reporters about No. 500.

“When we win 500, I’ll be glad to talk about it,” Driesell said. “I’m superstitious. I don’t like to talk about things before they happen, and No. 500 hasn’t happened yet. It’s not that big a deal.

“If you’re dumb enough to coach for 25 years, you’ll probably win 500 games. Winning 500 games just means you’ve been around a while.”

Then he added: “I feel like I could do it for 15 or 20 more years. But if we lose a few, I might want to quit next week.”

In one of the shortest matches ever, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch of West Germany and Czechoslovakia’s Helena Sukova won their third-round women’s doubles match in a tennis tournament in Delray Beach, Fla., Tuesday over Elise Burgin and JoAnne Russell after only one point was played. Russell suffered a recurring neck spasm and had to retire.

The official scorecard listed the time of the match as three seconds.

Coaches often call a star athlete “a thoroughbred,” and that’s what Kentucky basketball Coach Joe B. Hall must have had in mind when he said about his All-American, Kenny Walker:

“He’s like John Henry. He’ll always come through.”

Quotebook

CBS basketball analyst Billy Packer on the NCAA: “When the whole country, the fans and the media were calling for a national football playoff, they turned it down. Now, virtually nobody is calling for a preseason NIT and it gets passed.”