Davis can’t escape shadow of Knight

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Mike Davis has five mostly successful seasons under his belt. But little has changed for Indiana’s embattled coach.

He still finds himself on the hot seat, the target of boosters who think Indiana needs a better coach. He continues to endure comparisons to predecessor Bob Knight and to expect the dreaded job security question in almost every interview.

The interminable audition shows no sign of ending as the Hoosiers perch precariously on the NCAA Tournament bubble, a year after their first losing season in more than three decades.

“I go out and try to do my job and I get tired of defending myself,” Davis said. “When we beat someone that’s really good, it’s always because that guy had a bad game or that guy got into foul trouble. When you line them up, you still have to come out and play.”

The criticism started soon after Davis stepped in as coach following Knight’s firing in 2000.

After an 88-74 loss to Kentucky in December 2000 – as the interim coach – Davis questioned whether he was the right man to lead Indiana. When Davis led the Hoosiers to the national championship game in 2002, some supporters bristled when he acknowledged a desire to coach in the NBA.

Yet Davis has a resume most schools would crave.

His teams have won nearly 60 percent of their games and averaged nearly 20 wins per season. He’s been to the Final Four, won a conference title, upset the nation’s No. 1 ranked teams in 2001 and 2002 and has done his best coaching in March, when he is 18-10.

In his first five seasons, Knight was 125-20 with one national title. Davis is 96-66 after Indiana’s 71-55 loss to Minnesota on Friday in the Big Ten tournament. In his final five years, Knight went 104-55 and won just two NCAA Tournament games.

Former Indiana athletic director Clarence Doninger said the comparisons between Knight, who had previous head coaching experience, and Davis, who did not, are inevitable.

“Whenever you replace a coach who has been the best, whether it’s John Wooden or Bob Knight, very seldom is that first new coach accepted,” Doninger said. “It’s always that way. It’s not just Mike Davis.”

That’s little comfort to Davis, a soft-spoken Alabama native.

When the Hoosiers played Ball State in late December, the rumor was boosters were ready to buy out Davis’ contract, which runs through 2007-08. At Iowa, many speculated favorite son Steve Alford, a former Hoosiers star who now coaches the Hawkeyes, was ready to restore Indiana to prominence. And now many say Davis should be fired if the 15-13 Hoosiers fail to make the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year.

That decision belongs to first-year athletic director Rick Greenspan, who already has replaced Gerry DiNardo as coach of the beleaguered football program and is looking for a new women’s basketball coach after Kathi Bennett resigned last week.

Greenspan may be looking at Davis differently. He said all season that he was looking for steady progress from a team that has relied a great deal on freshmen.

“You expect a young team to get better during the course of the year, and I think the last four or five weeks this team has played really well,” he said. “I’m really encouraged by the learning curve.”

Since starting 2-6, with losses to four top-20 teams – North Carolina, Kentucky, defending national champion Connecticut and Charlotte – the Hoosiers have gone 13-7. The team is averaging about 70 points a game over its last nine games, and star Bracey Wright has a strong supporting cast in freshmen D.J. White and Robert Vaden and sophomores Roderick Wilmont and Pat Ewing Jr.

Davis’ colleagues believe he has made amazing progress with a team picked to finish near the bottom of the Big Ten.

“What people don’t understand is that schedule didn’t just hurt him early but he did it with freshmen and sophomores, and that’s damaging to those kids,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “To get those kids to bounce back like this, he deserves, and his kids deserve, a lot of credit.”

Bob Gibbons, a recruiting analyst for rivals.com, said Davis has done better than most people realize. He produced two of the nation’s top recruiting classes in the past three years, in part a result of the Final Four run.

“I think he’s been much maligned as a recruiter when, in fact, he’s done a really good job,” Gibbons said. “I think they’re just a really young team, and this kid they signed for next year, Deonta Vaughn, I think is exactly the missing element the Hoosiers need in their program.”