Coach Knight Sends His Regards

In the first round of March Madness, Texas Tech blew out Niagara University 84–52 at the United Center, cruising into the second round. Speaking about Xu Ling's performance after the game, Red Raiders head coach Bob Knight showered him with the highest praise. It was the cherry on top for Xu Ling, who had capped his tournament debut with an impressive stat line of 25 points, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists. Watching from courtside, Chicago Bulls general manager John Paxson pulled no punches: "Eli is unequivocally on a different level. Watching him play brings me back to the days of sharing the court with Michael. You know, he really is just that good." As player of the game, Xu Ling had to get used to being swarmed by microphones and television cameras wherever he walked. It was once the kind of attention he had dreamed of, but now that he had virtually locked up a spot as a lottery pick, these endless outside distractions were beginning to wear on him. Still, if he wanted to play professional basketball, this was a rite of passage he simply had to endure. Xu Ling noticed that alongside the American press, a substantial contingent of Chinese reporters had gathered as well. At this point, the Chinese basketball world could no longer ignore his presence. Xu Ling had an extremely strong chance of entering the NBA this year as a lottery pick alongside Guangdong Hongyuan's Yi Jianlian, which would be a monumental milestone for Chinese sports. The only complication was that Xu Ling was originally from Hong Kong. Theoretically speaking, if he were to represent a regional basketball association, it should be the Special Administrative Region. But given the SAR team's competitive level, they wouldn't even cut it in the domestic National Games. What was the point of dropping an NBA lottery talent into a squad like that? Would the future see humiliating headlines about Xu Ling failing to lead Hong Kong out of the FIBA Asia Championship group stage? If Xu Ling had merely been an elite Asian player, domestic fans might have simply felt it was a bit of a shame for him to play for Hong Kong. But with the 2008 Beijing Olympics fast approaching on home soil, the national team needed every possible reinforcement. Short of naturalizing foreign talent, any addition capable of helping the men's national team make history had to be seriously considered. Consequently, Chinese media outlets had practically lined up to interview Xu Ling in recent days. They started by testing the waters, deliberately speaking in Mandarin, only to find that Xu Ling was not only fluent, but spoke with a slight southern accent. When a reporter asked if he was willing to play for the mainland, he simply smiled. "Why wouldn't I be? Representing the national team is my dream." That very same day, Duke University—placed in the same region as Texas Tech—battled Villanova right down to the final second, clinching victory on a buzzer-beater to set up a second-round clash with TTU. The matchup sent the media into an absolute frenzy. Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski shared a clear and documented history as mentor and protégé. Coach K was the most accomplished of all Knight's former disciples—perhaps even surpassing his teacher. Yet how could a fiercely proud man ever accept being outdone by his former pupil? Especially someone as sensitive and unforgiving as Knight, for whom the slightest spark could set off an explosion. The media had long since noted that Coach Knight and Coach K had not publicly shared a warm moment in years. Back in the 1980s, whenever they crossed paths on the court, they would shower each other with praise. Coach K had once famously remarked, "A game between Coach and me would just turn into forty ways of saying 'I love you.'" Affection like that had vanished without a trace. At some point, Knight stopped speaking of the protégé who had once made him proud, and Coach K grew guarded whenever discussing his relationship with Knight. When Coach K was asked how it felt to face Knight in March Madness after all these years, he answered mildly, "I just hope we can put on a great game. That's all I could ask for." Knight's response to the same topic was distinctly chilly. "It won't be any different," Knight snapped back at a reporter. "What do you expect to happen between two men whose combined age is over a hundred years old?" Something had clearly broken between them; that much was obvious to everyone. Behind closed doors, the assistant coaches reminded the players that they had to approach the upcoming clash against Duke with the intensity of a national championship game. "Duke is the one team Coach refuses to lose to!" Chris Beard told them. "Why?" Martin Zeno asked. "Isn't Coach his mentor? Aren't they friends?" Beard had joined the staff only after Knight arrived at TTU, so he didn't know the full history. He simply replied, "It's precisely because they're friends that Coach wants to win this game more than anything." Aside from Xu Ling, the other players didn't dwell on it. To Xu Ling's mind, however, if they truly were friends—or even close friends, as their shared history suggested—wouldn't Duke be the one team Knight could stomach losing to in March Madness? Two days later. The United Center was buzzing with even more energy tonight than in the opening round, because two heavyweight programs were colliding on the hardwood. There was Texas Tech, led by Xu Ling, and Duke, boasting a roster stacked with NBA prospects. Furthermore, far more NBA front-office executives were in attendance than two days before. John Paxson was back in his seat. Alongside him was Billy Knight of the Atlanta Hawks. There was also Seattle SuperSonics general manager Sam Presti, as well as Minnesota Timberwolves general manager Kevin McHale. The common denominator among these franchises was that every single one of them would be participating in the NBA draft lottery in a few months. Each of them was a realistic candidate to select Xu Ling. Every move Xu Ling made on the court tugged at the heartstrings of the gathered executives. On the sideline, Bob Knight stood with a grim expression, his hawkish gaze locked on the distant Duke bench where his former protégé stood. The floodgates of memory swung wide, and buried history rushed back like a tidal wave. It was the spring of 1992, and Indiana University was set to square off against Duke in the national semifinals at the Minneapolis Metrodome. Krzyzewski had just guided Duke to their fifth consecutive Final Four, their sixth appearance in seven years. The last coach to halt Coach K's tournament run had been none other than his West Point mentor, Bob Knight. In the 1987 Sweet Sixteen, Knight had personally knocked his prized pupil's squad out of the tournament. Back then, their bond was still genuine—during the 1986 Final Four in Dallas, Knight had proudly pinned a "Go Duke" button to his chest, cheering openly for his protégé. By April 1992, however, Duke had eclipsed Indiana as college basketball's premier powerhouse, and Krzyzewski had surpassed Knight in Final Four appearances. Coach K was widely hailed as a paragon of collegiate athletics, while Knight was increasingly treated as a cautionary tale. Right before their 1992 Final Four showdown, Knight came across a preview article written by Curry Kirkpatrick in *Sports Illustrated*. It contained a paragraph that hit him like a slap in the face: In 1987, Indiana had defeated Duke in the Midwest Regional semifinals—a game one of Krzyzewski's friends described as a "divorce" between the two coaches, born of Krzyzewski's burning desire to shed the perception that he couldn't survive outside Knight's shadow. Ever since, Coach K had seized every opportunity to emphasize the vast differences between them, all while striving to maintain an amicable relationship with Knight—a task considerably harder than teaching dozens of trophy engravers how to spell his last name. Knight's eyes had flared with fury, and in that blinding rage, he made up his mind. He clipped the passage from the magazine, scribbled a note, and handed it to a mutual friend with strict instructions to deliver it to Coach K after the game. Duke went on to defeat Indiana to advance to the national title game, but this time there were no congratulations from Knight, no warm embrace, not even eye contact. What Krzyzewski ultimately received was that magazine clipping, accompanied by a handwritten note that practically burned through the paper: *It's easy to divorce yourself from me, but don't ever forget who put you where you are.* That was the end of Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski's relationship. In the years that followed, Krzyzewski went on to capture two more national championships, while everything Knight had built crumbled around him. Fired from Indiana, he had settled for a modest existence at TTU. The protégé who had betrayed him was universally revered as the greatest coach in modern NCAA history, while he was treated like a moldering relic tucked away in an unheralded program. Yet here they were, crossing paths on the March Madness stage once again. And this time, Texas Tech was the favorite. A blue-chip prospect of Xu Ling's caliber, ranked near the top of NBA mock drafts, was the type of talent Duke routinely landed—yet tonight, he wore the scarlet and black of the Red Raiders. Before the opening tip, Knight slapped Xu Ling on the back. "Kill every last one of them tonight! Don't show any mercy!" Xu Ling asked, "Does that include Coach K?" "If he steps onto the floor, yes." Xu Ling couldn't help but chuckle. What kind of relationship was this? No matter how you looked at it, there wasn't an ounce of love left between the two men. Mentor and protégé? *Tweet!* The referee blew his whistle and tossed the ball into the air. Duke's white big man Josh McRoberts controlled the tip. Duke starting guard Greg Paulus secured the ball and was just about to push up the court when Xu Ling flashed into his field of vision. Before Paulus could even react, the ball was stripped clean from his grasp. Xu Ling snatched it up, streaked into the frontcourt on a solo fast break, hit the defender with a devastating crossover to shake him off, and exploded into the paint before rising high for a thundering one-handed slam. *BOOM!* Amid the deafening roar of the crowd, Xu Ling turned toward the Duke bench. Just when everyone thought he was finally giving in to acknowledge the adoring fans, he looked toward Coach K and said, "Your mentor, Coach Knight, asked me to send his regards."