Davis slays Goliath

Hoosiers coach puts critics to shame once and for all

His team having just stunned No. 1 Duke in thrilling fashion, no one would have blamed Indiana coach Mike Davis if, following the final buzzer, he'd walked up to counterpart Mike Krzyzewski, extended his hand, then quickly pulled it back in one of those "I-think-I'll-fix-my-hair-instead" maneuvers.

Only a day before at the customary pregame press conference -- one where coaches routinely go out of their way to sing the praises of their upcoming adversary -- Krzyzewski chose instead to heap credit on a certain longtime friend and mentor who happened to be Davis' immediate predecessor in Bloomington.

"[Indiana] is a great program because of what [Bob] Knight did there," the Duke coach said. "He set the standard, and it's a high bar. Everyone benefits from that at Indiana University."

Krzyzewski was hardly the first to offer an obligatory reminder that the man whose firing opened up a job for Davis happens to be a living legend who won three national titles. Davis has heard about it every day of his first two seasons at the helm of the Hoosiers, most often from Indiana fans themselves.

To those noted critics, if they do actually remain, allow me to offer this bit of advice:

Get yourself to Wal-Mart, buy a black sweater, put your home on the market and move to frickin' Lubbock, Texas. Because it's been 15 years since Bob Knight accomplished anything on IU's behalf even remotely approaching the magnitude of what Davis did Thursday night.

Every tourney has its big upsets. But only a few have big upsets.

UConn over Duke in 2000, Arizona over Kansas in 1997 and Duke over UNLV in '91 were big upsets.

So was this one.

The Hoosiers were a long shot from the day the brackets were announced. They had no one besides Jared Jeffries who could strike fear in an opponent like Duke. And that remained the case throughout a first half that looked very much like boys playing against men.

What transpired over the next 20 minutes seemed amazing at the time, seems amazing even now and will probably seem amazing for as long as the game is remembered.

There was 6-foot-3 reserve A.J. Moye soaring to stuff the 6-9 Carlos Boozer. There was the ever-unheralded Jarrad Odle sneaking into the lane and up to the glass time and again for lay-ins.

And then there was Jeffries, the best player on the floor on a night when the undisputed national player of the year, Jason Williams, was lined up on the other side.

The result was astonishing, but hardly unexplainable. It was merely a microcosm of what Indiana's been doing for two seasons now, outshooting and outscrapping an opponent with more speed and athleticism despite the fact that their coach, supposedly, can't coach.

The coaching profession is a pressure cooker even when you don't have to replace an exiled legend. It's shown on Davis plenty the past two seasons, usually in the form of candid postgame monologues that painted a picture that the world was against him.

That honesty was there again Thursday night. And this time, the paranoia had been replaced with pleasure.

"I hope now that people know I can coach," joked Davis.

No worries, coach. To any who still somehow don't, we'll provide a little help.

Black sweaters, aisle seven.

 

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