Bobby Knight Quotes

I don't have to wait until the next morning to regret something I did that was kinda dumb.

Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to win.

Victory favors the team making the fewest mistakes.

We've gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking and that's why I'm glad I'm not coaching. You see we've got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation and he's still coaching. I really don't understand that.

You are never going to be driven anywhere worthwhile, but you sure as hell drive yourself to a lot of great places. It is up to you to drive yourself there.

Players must be able to carry out simple instructions from the bench to the court. If they can't, then they can't play

A quick way for any player to make himself better is to think about what he himself doesn't like to play against

The biggest difficulty in getting to the top of the ladder is getting through the crowd at the bottom.

When we're playing a good scoring center, we tell our team that it is not our defensive man's job to stop the center. It's the responsibility of our perimeter people to stop the ball from going inside.

People want national championship banners. People want to talk about Indiana being competitive. How do we get there? We don't get there with milk and cookies.

To be as good as it can be, a team has to buy into what you as the coach are doing. They have to feel you're a part of them and they're a part of you.

I think the ability to motivate might be interpreted as the ability to lead, or to show people their goals or, perhaps more important, what their potential is - as a person as well as a player. You've got to show players that being part of a team will carry over to the experience of becoming part of society.

You play ball against yourself; your opponent is your potential.

I've always felt that, you know, the Almighty has a lot of things to do other than help my basketball team.

If I came in to recruit your son, I would tell you, your wife, and your son, that I will be the most demanding coach your son can play for.

We just got our ass beat by a much better team. It happens once in a while. Does every team win every game?

The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare.

Basketball is a full court game, so every drill must be done full court.

Basketball may have been invented in Massachusetts, but it was made for Indiana.

In my dealings with the press, I was like the guy who goes into the cathouse and the madam gets him prepared and looks at him and says, "Who are you going to satisfy with that?" And he looks back at her and says, "Me." That's kind of my sense of humor at times.

I don't intend to retire.

The structure of your practice is the main reason for your success or lack of success as a coach

At one point, I said to the officials that you guys haven't called walking for 20 years, now you don't know what it is. When you call walking, you're about half right.

Everybody wants to be on a championship team, but nobody wants to come to practice.

Passing is your best weapon against man to man. Dribble penetration is your best weapon against zone.

There are times when my passion for basketball led me into confrontations that I could have handled a lot better. I've always been too confrontational, especially when I know I'm right.

As I've said, basketball has been, I think, a real cooperative venture. There have been a lot of people that have been involved in it: coaches, administrators - not recently - fans and nobody, nobody any more so than students over the years.

Discipline is knowing what to do. Knowing when to do it. Doing it to the best of your abilities. Doing it that way every single time.

I have as many good friends in the media as anybody in sports has. It's just that I probably have a hell of a lot more enemies than anybody else.

I'm not sure sports writing is an art.

I would rather be thought of as a teacher than a coach.

A primary goal of teaching anything is the advantage that learning gives to people over their competitors who haven't been as well taught.

I've never predicted anything. All I have ever said is, that we will do the very best we can.

Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.

Perform drills that force your players to think

If I were in charge I'd drug test all you sons of b****es, not just the athletes.

You don't play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.

If my primary purpose here at Indiana is to go out and win ballgames, I can probably do that as well as anybody can. I would just cheat, get some money from a lot of people around Indianapolis who want to run the operation that way, and just go out and get the best basketball players I can. Then we'd beat everybody.

When my time on earth is done and my activities here are past, I want them to bury me upside down, so my critics can kiss my ass.

Son, my name isn't Knight to you, it's coach Knight or it's Mr. Knight. I don't call people by their last name and neither should you.

Offense is not equal opportunity

All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.

Competitive drills enhance quickness.

I, fortunately, have never worried about irritating people.

What is the best thing you can do in a close game? Drive to the basket and put pressure on the defense! Not jack up jump shots

Offense at Indiana is not equal opportunity. Those players who shoot best are going to shoot most. It is important that every player know his offensive limitations. It is also important that a player know who the best shooter is on the team. When a passer has the option of passing to two players, I expect him to get the ball to the best shooter. I continually stop practice and ask players who the best shooter is and I expect them to know. It is important that you get the ball to your best shooter.

It is better to anticipate than to react.

BS is just what it stands for, an MS is More of the Same, and a PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper.