FanHouse Pat Knight

The debate about which conference is the best basketball league usually heats up in December.

But the Big 12 coaches set fire to the debate early by staking claim as the best basketball conference Tuesday, some five months before the 2009-10 season begins. So the Big East, ACC, Pac-10 and SEC will have to just lineup for second best.

"I do think it's going to be the best with what we have retuning and the things that we've done in the last few years," Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon said during the Big 12 summer teleconference call Tuesday. "I've talked to some so-called experts out there and they think we are going to be the best league, too.

Note to Pat Knight: When you have the pedigree your father did, temper tantrums are endearing -- even lovable -- to some of your team's fans. When you are 2-10 in Big 12 play, however, tantrums are just annoying. They come off as childish gum-flapping.

Earlier this month, Knight had a nice little on-court tirade, and he followed it up this past Saturday with a technical foul and officiating complaints. He has now received a one-game suspension for said complaints. Apparently, though, he doesn't mind. He said as much after the game in his press conference.

We knew that Bobby Knight was good for some interesting motivational tactics during his coaching career. Apparently his son can do the same.

Pat Knight, who replaced his dad at Texas Tech, used a 12-year-old boy to help make a point to his basketball team.

Texas Tech was struggling to make layups against Stephen F. Austin to other night. So during a timeout, Knight looked in the crowd and welcomed a 12-year-old fan to join his team's huddle.

Knight asked the boy whether he could make layups. The boy said he could.

"I was just tired of having 18- or 21-year-olds miss layups that a 12-year-old could hit, so I brought a 12-year-old in to let them know that he could hit layups," Knight said. "He's 12 and he can hit layups, so why can't you when you're 18 to 21?"

The tactic seemed to work. Tech would start hitting their layups and pulled out a 69-55 win over SFA.

No word on if Kentucky's Billy Gillispie has offered the young man a scholarship.

Former Texas Tech and Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Monday night:

Why is he dressed like a referee? I don't really know, although he tried to make a joke about how easy becoming a ref would be, saying, "There are fat guys that referee, there are slow guys that referee, there are some who don't see well, there are a lot of them who don't know what the hell the rules are."

Leno replied, "But it's dangerous, you could get hit by a chair."

The guest on the show before Knight was Larry the Cable Guy. Knight referred to him as, "Larry the Cable Car."

When Knight said he thought his son, new Texas Tech coach Pat Knight, will get along with the press better than he did, Leno said, "I think Hitler got along better with the press than you did."

For a guy who often acts as though he hates nothing more than the media, Bob Knight spent an awful lot of time making media appearances during the week after he resigned as head coach at Texas Tech. I thought his interview on ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning was one of the more revealing:

Knight talked about the differences of players today and players from a few decades back, when Knight began his coaching career, and he said he missed the good old days of 1962, when he was a high school teacher and was permitted to paddle students who acted up.

"Think about that in schools today," Knight said. "That just doesn't happen. I think we've become such a lenient society and a society that not only accepts mediocrity in a lot of ways but condones mediocrity simply because you don't infringe on the rights of a student and you don't take a kid to task."

It's not exactly groundbreaking news, but Texas Tech forward Decensae White is no longer one of Bob Knight's players after a meeting with Knight today. Lest I simplify a possibly complicated issue, here's the skinny: White didn't like his playing time, and Knight's tact, and Knight agreed that things weren't working out and granted the player his release. Seems simple enough, eh? Not if White's father, David, has anything to say about it:

"It was one of these situations where I wanted the kid to go in and fight and stand up for himself, and it turned out he got his release. The feeling was mutual as far as Decensae's departure," White said Friday night via phone from Pacifica, Calif.

"My son said Coach Knight kept cutting him off when he tried to speak," White said. "He's holding him to a whole other level than his teammates.

"I forced my son to go to Texas Tech because I thought it would be good for him. There was God and then there was Coach Knight as far as I was concerned. I don't have that same opinion at all for him any more. I'm devastated."

"All I would like is to get my son out of Dodge without being the focus of any issue," White said. "There is more to be revealed later. Whatever is hid in the dark will come to the light."

The real story here is not that Bob Knight lost a player. Knight is who he is, and this happens when players don't respond to his method well. No, the real story is just how emphatic David White is about his son's quiet departure ... while at the same time making loud, ominous comments about it. Ah, coach-parent battles. They're always so much fun.