The irony of all this aside, I'm very interested to know which Bobby Knight we're going to get here. Because this has the potential to be very interesting indeed. Despite all of his bluster and reputation for candor, Knight was never actually critical of opposing players or coaches; at least in public. Unless they were Dale Brown or Jim Boeheim. So my guess is that what we're going to see from Knight on ESPN is a lot of polite criticism, endless telestrator breakdowns, and a few war stories. And that would be a shame.

Because what we could get from him would be rants on how no one plays good defense anymore, how the game has been ruined by the shot clock and the three-point line, how coaches have become television personalities instead of teachers, and how all five UCLA starters travel every time they touch the ball.

San Francisco Bay Area residents may remember Brad Duggan, who coached City College of San Francisco for several years (Indiana center Dean Garrett played there) and had a brief broadcasting career with KTVU-TV. Duggan was a hard-nosed, old-school coach in the Knight mold, and was never afraid to embarrass a player or coach on the air for lack of fundamentals. If a team played horseshit defense or a coach didn't know what he was doing, Duggan wasn't afraid to point it out — he was the anti-Dickie V, I guess one could say — and it was glorious to watch. I can only imagine what he would say about Eddie Sutton at USF.

That's the kind of Knight that would have me glued to the TV, but alas, I don't think that's what we're going to get. We're probably going to see a kinder, gentler Bobby Knight ... old and dottering, perhaps even in danger of taking a tumble al la John Wooden. Why, when you see him with Greenberg and Golic this morning, he may even be petting a kitten. I hope he proves me wrong, but I think he's just going to be a big pussy.

UPDATE: Mike & Mike segment just ended. So far, I'm right.

Send A Question To Bob Knight! [ESPN]

Knight will be on hand for ESPN's wall-to-wall coverage of the major conference championships and continue through the NCAA title game - including working on ESPN's on-site set at the Final Four. He'll appear on pregame and postgame shows and on SportsCenter, says ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys, "and all the things we do tied to men's basketball."

All very well, but will this be the real Bobby Knight? Is he going to give his true opinion about Drexel's shitty-ass, gimmicky zone defense, or the way that Wake Forest doesn't run its offense worth a damn? Because he wouldn't last a week, but it would be fun.

Bob Knight Joining ESPN Studio Team [USA Today]

Bobby Knight's career was ...

• "Odd, unsettling and completely engrossing." — Sun Media

• "An overwhelming experience...simple even as it is devastating." — Antagony And Ecstasy

• "It's sublime — beautiful and ghastly at once. — New York Magazine

• "It's hardly surprising that the world seems to part itself for this quite possibly mad man, as he's put everything he has into this performance, this impressive shield of a façade that's both reassuring in its power and deeply frightening — both viewers of the film and other characters sharing the screen with him know full well that no living thing would want to be between him and something he desired." — Culture Cartel

• "An arresting, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing experience." — James Berardinelli

Now we are also left to wonder, now that basketball is over for him, what will Knight do with himself? It's impossible to imagine him signing autographs from a courtside seat at age 85, telling the story of how he perfected the motion offense for the fourteen thousandth time. No, it's much easier to imagine a broken, troubled soul; a drunken old man asleep in the middle of one of the lanes in his private bowling alley, a plate of half-eaten steak and a can of turpentine beside his head.

Then Neal Reid comes over for a visit, and Knight picks up a bowling pin or two ...

Exclusive: Knight Speaks About Retirement Decision [Lubbock Avalanche-Journal]
An Actual Feel Good Story About Mr. Knight [MSNBC]

According to many of the gathered media members, at least one of them shit their diaper.

• Ducks Fly Together! Malik Hairston (29 points) was unstoppable for Oregon who bested Arizona in Eugene for the second consecutive season. Without injured freshmen phenom Jerry Bayless the Wildcats didn't have enough firepower, or perimeter defense to handle the Ducks onslaught of jump shooting. Chase Budinger led all scorers with 30. The final of 84-74 left both teams with records of 10-4 (1-1).

• Jayhawks Rule Regular Season. Kansas remained unbeaten with an easy win over a Boston College team that looked completely out of sorts. Darnell Jackson had 25 and 9 with Darrell Arthur contributing 22 and 7. Al Skinner set the tone for the Eagles by opening his mouth really really wide to yell at people. Kansas sure looks great when you start to forget that Bill Self is pulling the strings.

• Models of Inconsistency. Texas beat another ranked team-although number 24 St. Mary's might not belong up there yet-continuing to confuse everybody who was sort of paying attention. The 81-62 win was their second straight after they dropped two in a row to Big 10 opponents Michigan State and Wisconsin. They've already beaten Tennessee and UCLA at Pauley Pavilion.

• I am incredibly distracted. My Pitt Panthers are just underway at Villanova (on ESPN Plus and 360) in one of today's two games pitting top 25 teams against each other. The other is the 7 pm contest between UNC and Clemson on Fox Sports. This is going to be a tough test for the 13th ranked Panthers who must move ahead without their two injured starters, Levance Fields and Mike Cook.

What is "sunt," you ask? Well, Isiah almost tells you, but backs off after looking at Coach Knight, who looks like he's about to rip his young protege's throat out. It's a highly entertaining video.

We think this might serve as a reminder of where Isiah got his world famous "bitch" mindset from. Many have ascribed it to the hardscrabble streets he grew up, but let us not forget where Isiah learned his coaching acumen. Of course, there's one main difference: Bob Knight can, you know, coach.

What Isiah Thomas Learned From Bobby Knight [The Big Lead]

"How'd you like to coach Terrell Owens?" Knight said. "Terrell Owens would have gotten me out of coaching a hell of a lot quicker than he got Parcells out of it."

For the record, we'd not only buy season tickets to Texas Tech basketball home games if Owens played there, we'd also be at every practice. No doubt the resulting carnage would one day be recreated a very special episode of CSI: Lubbock.

Knight Delivers Thoughts On Tuna's Retirement [Daily Torreador, via NBA Fanhouse]
TO Claims He Didn't Rip Parcells, Report Says [MSNBC]

It was my first year working at a real newspaper — the Peninsula Times-Tribune in Palo Alto, Ca., fresh out of high school. The sports editor, who had quite a sense of humor, figured he'd give me an easy assignment to start me off. "Bobby Knight is appearing at a basketball clinic," he said. "Go get an interview with him."

"Sure," I said, in my best Jimmy Olsen voice. I knew very little about Knight at the time, and had no idea that the assignment was our paper's version of a hazing incident. The clinic, at a local hotel, featured Jim Valvano and a few other coaches I now forget, but the highlight was Knight. While Valvano did his usual stand-up comedy set, Knight actually imparted useful information; I still recall his instructions on how to set a proper screen, and how to take a charge (useful here at Deadspin). When he was done, I positioned myself in the hall outside so as to intercept him. "Could I ask you a few questions, coach Knight?"

By all rights, I discovered later, they should have found me lounging head-first in restaurant dumpster outside. But Knight stopped and said, "OK." We talked for about 20 minutes — during which time Knight shooed off three or four others — and then I headed back to the office. "How did that interview go?" asked my editor, as other reporters snickered. "OK I guess," I replied. "But he only gave me 20 minutes." My editor immediately gave that kind of blank look your 2-year-old gets when you put him on the phone. "Wha? ..."

I can't explain any of it; just that my first story for a real newspaper was a rather lengthy, amicable interview with Bobby Knight. For another view, please enjoy the musings of Planet Haystack, a former Times-Tribune colleague who has had his own close encounters with The General. — RC

Nighty-Night, Knight [Planet Haystack]
Knight Is All-Time Wins Leader In Division I [USA Today]

• 3. Hey You Guys!. The Missouri men's basketball web site includes full-body profile photos of all of their players, many of them posing in dramatic, intimidating fashion. This one, of junior Nick Berardini, is not one of those.

• 4. Penny For Your Thoughts. Baylor's Djibril Abdoulaye Thiam, whose nickname is Penny, is from Dakar, Senegal. Both of his parents played for Senegalese national basketball teams.

• 5. Hail Ceasar. Iowa State senior guard Chris Ceasar, a health and human performance major, has a gospel hip-hop group called GIFTED (Going In Faith To Eternal Deliverance). Also, can anyone explain why the Iowa State Cyclones logo is a tornado with a Cardinal trapped in the vortex?

Tomorrow: The Big Ten

"Maybe now those people at Oklahoma understand what I was talking about," Knight told The Oklahoman for Thursday's editions. "Had Oklahoma forfeited that game against us like I suggested, they would have gotten far more positive publicity out of that than if they had gone to the Final Four that year. Now I guess the duck is swimming in the other pond. And you make sure they get this message. I want them to be that much more enamored with me over at that place."

Bob Knight's the best. Just to remind you, he loves golf too.

Knight Knows How OU Fans Feel About Forfeit [The Oklahoman]
Hey, Can I Get A Do-Over? [Deadspin]

From We Are The Postmen, the fine people who brought you the profane Bobby Knight golf instructional video from a few months back, here's another great one, with Coach doing a recruiting video for the Marines.

Yep: Plenty of "bite!"

Apparently This Is One Of Bob Knight's Running Gags [We Are The Postmen]
What Up, Knight? [Deadspin]