At the beginning of the game, a fiery Texas Tech coach Bob Knight was laying into John Higgins, the youngest referee on the crew, and calling over veteran Ted Hillary to complain about Higgins’ call.
For the last five minutes, when Stephen Vinson, Jeremy Case, Rodrick Stewart, Matt Kleinmann and Christian Moody were on the floor for the Jayhawks, Knight sat quietly and couldn’t wait for the torture session to end.
His team was that inferior to Kansas University in an 86-52 blowout loss Monday night in Allen Fieldhouse.
Afterward, Knight spoke outside the locker room for one minute and 28 seconds and did not make any of his players available to the media.
“We just got beat by a much, much better team that played very well,” Knight said. “We just never really were able to do very much with them. I think this should be a very simple thing. They’re a much better team than we are, and they played better.”
The first of two questions put to Knight: What was the most impressive thing about Kansas?
“They’ve got good personnel,” Knight said. “They’re really well coached, and they’ve got a really quick pace to the way the play, which is good. Not just up and down the floor, but in the halfcourt. They are aggressive. This is a very good team when it plays well, and I think it played well tonight.”
The second and final question put to Knight: How much of a factor was Kansas’ size advantage?
“They got 55 rebounds, and we got 28,” Knight said. “I would think that, well, not necessarily size, but quickness. Quickness is more important to them. Their big kids are mobile. They move well. It’s a team that’s been coached very well, and they get the most out of themselves, and there’s a lot to get there, OK?”
Knight then turned around and walked back through the door that leads to the visiting locker room in Allen Fieldhouse.
His duties on a night he soon would like to forget were over.
His victory total remained frozen at 865 on a night his 343rd loss was added to the record.
On this night, it seemed like every bit of 19 years since Knight won his third and final national title at Indiana.
