LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Bob Knight doesn't like one-and-done players, conference tournaments or guys who run afoul of NCAA rules.
That should make for a spirited 2013 college basketball season. Look who just joined Knight on ESPN's team of college hoops analysts – Bruce Pearl and Jalen Rose, two guys with college legacies stained by NCAA issues.
I look forward to hearing Knight work his thoughts on Pearl, the former Tennessee coach, and Rose, the Michigan Fab Fiver, into his basic stump speech about what ails college sports now that those two are his teammates. You know the speech. Knight dusts it off several times a year to blast John Calipari's recruiting philosophy and to hiss at Indiana University for the way the school fired Knight a dozen years ago.
Knight has never balked at playing the role of the conscience of college basketball. That can be a good thing. College sports need more voices that matter.
He has the stature and intellect to inspire debate on difficult subjects. He's a Hall of Fame coach who operated within the NCAA rules and leaned hard on his players to ensure they left Bloomington with diplomas and career paths outside basketball.
But the problem for Knight, as it is for most commentators, comes in the selection of his foils.
Calipari and Kentucky never leave the rotation, even though Knight has been wrong in his criticism of the performance of the academic work of UK players. Knight's position against IU is simply a good, old-fashioned grudge – and, at 71, Knight remains the Ryan Lochte of grudge-holding.
Pearl is precisely the kind of coach Knight would have howled about during his time at Indiana – a sweet-talking media darling who gabbed his way onto the wrong side of NCAA rules.
Pearl has moved to television because he can't re-paint his face, bare his chest and return to the sidelines – at least not for two more seasons. He has only completed the first of the three-season penalty that NCAA awarded him for A) breaking an NCAA recruiting rule at Tennessee and B) then lying to NCAA investigators about it.
He sat out last season, working for another company based in Knoxville and appearing on a radio talk show.
Everybody deserves a second chance. ESPN believes that Pearl deserves this second chance – as one of Bob Knight's teammates.
I wouldn't expect Knight and Pearl to appear on the same set in Bristol, Conn. I would expect that Knight would have an issue working for a company that is about to make a star out of a coach who can't work in Division I basketball for two more seasons. At least I'd like to know if he has an issue.
Trust me, Pearl will be a star, more of a star than the other coach ESPN hired – former Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, who arrives as a specialist on the NIT selection process.
Pearl is funny, uninhibited and insightful. Knight, Digger Phelps (71), Dick Vitale (73) and Bill Raftery (69) can't go forever. For Pearl, this is a grand opportunity.
Ditto for Rose, who has already proven his TV skills on ESPN's NBA telecasts. Rose will bring an edgier Midwestern voice while replacing the ACC-centric views of Hubert Davis on the network's popular Saturday Game Day shows. Rose is not afraid of tough topics. I'm sure he'd love to engage Knight, who was no fan of the Fab Five.
Rose, for the record, was never implicated in any of the shenanigans that occurred at Michigan two decades ago. But Rose was the second-most popular face of the Fab Five team that just completed an NCAA mandated 10-year disassociation from the program.
That ban is over. Another ban is not. You won't see four banners that the Fab Five won hanging in Crisler Arena. School administrators still will not allow it.
Rose isn't happy about that. Now he has a platform to air his grievance, right next to Bruce Pearl – and Bob Knight.
Copyright 2012 WDRB News. All Rights Reserved.
Bob Knight's new teammates at ESPN include former Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl and Fab Fiver Jalen Rose.
