Bobby Knight passes away at 83 years old. Apparently he was almost the Wisconsin head coach in 1968??

Let me preface this blog by saying that there are going to be quite a few videos of Bobby Knight and they all contain NSFW language. Don’t be a wuss, click on them and laugh away. The man was an artist with curse words:

He was 1 of 1. True to himself for better or worse. And look, let’s not act like EVERYTHING he said or did was something to emulate. But he is on the Mount Rushmore of college basketball coaches, and you could build a convincing case that he’s the greatest of all time. Just look at the overall record: 902-371. That’s insane.

Now one thing that I did not know about Bobby Knight before this morning was that he almost became the Badger basketball coach in 1968. Former Badger TV/radio analyst, Mike Lucas, had the story on his Twitter account last night:

NUTS. Verbal agreement in place, just don’t say anything until Bobby has the chance to tell Army that he’s taking a new job. Two Madison newspapers get a tip, report the story, and blow up the whole thing. Knight would coach three more seasons at Army before getting hired by Indiana in 1971. Crazy to think about how different the history of those two programs would look if a couple of Madison journalists hold the story for a day.

Anyway, RIP to an icon. There will literally never be another one like him, because in 2023 Bobby Knight would have been fired a week into the job for screaming at a kid with a huge NIL deal.

PS: Badgers opened their season with one of their ‘warm up’ games against a DIII opponent (this year, my alma mater, Point!) last night. I think this season is going to be a BIG bounce-back for Greg Gard and the boys. That starting lineup of Hepburn/Klesmit/Storr/Wahl/Crowl is legit GOOD. Essegian still coming off of the bench with McGee/Ilver and Nolan Winter. I think I saw them picked to finish 5th in the 14 team Big Ten, I wouldn’t be surprised with 3rd place or better.