Toughness Overcomes Everything

March 12, 2001

SAN DIEGO (AP) - It is never quite his time, his team, his job.

It doesn't matter what Mike Davis accomplishes. It never seems to beenough.Following a legend is tough under the best of circumstances. Following BobKnight at Indiana has made cleaning up after Puffy Combs look easy.

Sunday should have been Davis' day. He didn't just pick up the piecesof ashattered basketball program, he made them fit. Davis took a team with noseniors, two returning starters and five first-year players to a 21-12record,the final game of the Big Ten tournament and a No. 4 seed in the NCAAbracket.All season long, Davis coached with a red-sweatered ghost perched over hisshoulder and whispers on every side of him that this game or that one wouldseal his fate. Sunday wasn't any different, with even network analystschimingin.

"I heard what Billy Packer said," Davis said, referring to the CBStelevision analyst who worked the Big Ten title game, a 63-61 thriller wonbyIowa. "I'm just happy he's not on the board of trustees.

"I've done a wonderful job with this basketball team under thecircumstances. This is the best seed we've had since 1993. One game is notgoing to hurt me. If so," he paused, "then I'll go somewhere next year."

Brave words aside, Davis' future at Indiana - or anywhere else for thatmatter - is hardly assured. Knight, who hired Davis as an assistant in 1997,won three national championships and lasted 29 seasons. He can pick up themessages on his answering machine and have his pick of a half-dozen jobs.

Davis can take the team he inherited deep into the NCAA tournament overthenext three weeks and won't likely know for some time after that whether hewillkeep the first and only college head coaching job he's ever had.

When the university's trustees slapped the label "interim" on Davis'office door, the only promise made was not to change a thing until theseasonwas over.

"I respect that," Davis said. "I think I should be the head coach herenext year, but I haven't asked them anything. Because they could have cameinwhen we were 2-3 and said, 'OK, we're going to go in a differentdirection."'

Davis almost made the decision for them. After a tough start, Indianalost aDec. 22 game to Kentucky, and the strain Davis was under became evident. Atapostgame news conference, he accused his players of quitting on him. Maybe,Davis went on, he "wasn't the man for the job."

The funny thing is his players always swore by him. They threatened toleaveen masse if Davis didn't get Knight's job. More impressive than that,though,they finally learned to play for him.

A bleak December stretch gave way to a bright stretch in January, whentheHoosiers upset then-No. 1 Michigan State and beat upstate rival Purdue.Afterblowing three sizable second-half leads in conference road games atWisconsin,Minnesota and Iowa, Indiana closed by winning nine of the last 12.

Players who answered every question about the differences betweenKnight andDavis by saying there were none worth mentioning, began noticing thedifferences themselves. Davis' defense was the same as his mentor's, but theoffense, while more structured, was less predictable.

Kirk Haston, the 6-foot-10 center who had attempted exactly two 3-pointshots in two seasons under Knight, heard Davis call his number in the huddleatthe end of the Michigan State game and knocked down the game-winner. Hisnumberwas called again at the end Sunday, but this time Iowa's Reggie EvansblockedHaston's last-second 3-point attempt.

"It was bittersweet," Haston said after the Hoosiers' No. 4 seedingtooksome of the sting out of the Iowa loss. "It made me realize we might as wellenjoy this, too. Hey, life goes on. You have to move on. You can't sit andpoutand dwell on a loss."

Davis should take those words to heart. Long after the Iowa loss, hewaswatching videotape, still stubbornly insisting that Haston had been fouled.Butsoon enough, Davis was ready to move on. He has his team peaking at therighttime, playing fearlessly at the time of year when Knight no longer couldcontrol the distractions or their emotions.

The Hoosiers haven't advanced past the second round of the NCAAtournamentthe last half-dozen years. But opening out West against Kent State, with theCincinnati-BYU winner lurking as a second-round opponent, gives Davis achanceto put even more distance between himself and the red-sweatered ghost. Thatwould let the board of trustees see what Davis has become - his own man.

"I think toughness overcomes everything. As a player at Alabama," hesaid,"I played extremely hard and I wanted to put my stamp on these guys. You cantalk about it and talk about it, but you have to put guys in a situationwherethey can grow and I put these guys in that situation every day in practice."