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Knight's players give ultimatum

By Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 12, 2000

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The post-Bob Knight era at Indiana began Monday in a style one might expect from the Hall of Fame coach: an ultimatum.

Players demanded that assistant coaches Mike Davis and John Treloar be retained and that one of them be hired as interim coach. Otherwise, center Kirk Haston said, there would be "serious repercussions."

"I'd say we'd have several guys leave. I couldn't put a specific number, but several would leave," Haston said. Athletic director Clarence Doninger said he has asked Davis and Treloar to stay, although not necessarily as the interim coach. Doninger also said he already has received calls from "a number of people" -- whom he would not identify -- interested in the job.

Junior guard Dane Fife said he will transfer -- at Knight's urging -- "because there's no reason for me to be here with what's going on and how we've been treated."

Freshman swingman A.J. Moye said he likely would leave, too, and lashed out at university president Myles Brand, who fired Knight on Sunday for "a pattern of unacceptable behavior."

"I just feel like the whole administration, this whole school is screwed up, basically," Moye said "We were lied to, we were deceived and now it's over, all because people wanted coach out. They got their way. I hope they're happy."

Other players said they would wait to see what Doninger decides about a new coach.

"If things work out the way we want it, we'll stay," sophomore forward George Leach said. "We are ready to go if they don't meet our demands. Indiana will not have a team."

The NCAA requires a transfer athlete to complete two semesters before being eligible, meaning any IU player who transfers wouldn't play in the 2000-01 season. But a further penalty facing current Hoosiers is that if they transfer to a school that has already had 12 days of classes, they cannot count that semester as part of their two-semester penalty.

That means Fife and others would have to sit out until December 2001 before they could play at schools already 12 days into the current semester. And for Fife, that would leave him with only three semesters of eligibility remaining at that new school.

The only chance to escape that clause is for a waiver to be granted by the NCAA.

Knight's son, Pat, an assistant coach, said his father likely will coach somewhere else, and he would go with him.

"I'm out of here. I wouldn't stay in this place after the way they treated my father," Pat Knight said. "There's no way.

Davis said he has not decided what he will do, although he likely would not remain as an assistant. "The players would really have to convince me to stay here as an assistant coach," he said.

Doninger said the search for an interim coach would begin right away and a permanent coach not too long after that. "My best guess is you start thinking about the process even after you get the current coaching staff intact," Doninger said.

Isiah Thomas, who played for Knight at IU, said he wants to hire his former coach as an assistant with the Indiana Pacers. Thomas was hired as Pacers coach in July.

"You can write it, and I hope he accepts," Thomas said. "I look at the teams I have to beat. I look at Phil Jackson in Los Angeles and his relationship with Tex Winter. Coach Knight can be my Tex Winter."

When asked if Knight could relate to NBA players, Thomas said: "I think he's smart enough to relate to anybody."

- Information from ESPN.com was used in this report.

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