Prelude to a chair: 1:52 - First Indiana foul: Blab isn't quite straight up and goes forward into Mitchell. You can see Mitchell's body get redirected by the contact. Questionable call, maybe not a call in the modern game, but it makes sense to me to call it. 2:49 - That turnover couldn't have helped Knight's mood. 3:24 - Second Indiana foul: Thomas turns Bullock's body with the defensive move. Subtle, not much of a foul, but a foul. A cheapie for sure. 3:48 - Simple up and under move. Knight probably was frustrated with Blab biting on that. 4:08 - That's a huge cheer for that dunk. Charged atmosphere. 4:31 - Third Indiana foul and the second on Blab. Again, not a lot of contact, but Blab is moving and has his body on him to hinder his motion. You don't see defense played like this in the modern game, but again, it's a foul. 5:22 - Contact on Blab as he tries to go up. Probably should have been called. Also couldn't have helped Knight's mood. 5:46 - Nice shot by Lewis. Alford didn't fight through the screen hard enough. 6:05 - For some reason, the shot clock never started on this possession. Thomas takes a questionable jumper early in the (non-operational) timer with a double-team bearing down on him. 6:25 - Reed is wide open here. As frustrated as Knight is with the officiating, he's probably just as frustrated with his own team's play. 6:45 - First Purdue foul. Pretty obvious that Bullock gets Blab. 8:05 - Fourth Indiana foul. Thomas goes for the double-team and leaves Mitchell wide open. Alford goes to box out Lewis but is a split-second too late and undercuts him. Tough luck foul as much as anything, but you've gotta call it. 12:56 - Blab actually with a good recovery on defense. 13:09 - Nice pass by Blab. Smith off the window. You don't see that anymore. I had a gym teacher who used to point out that you actually have a slightly better angle at the hoop when you go off glass. It's a lost art. Indiana is starting to get some momentum back. 13:33 - Fifth Indiana foul. It shattered what little momentum Indiana was building and is the foul that started the whole thing. Knight and a number of the Hoosiers wanted a jump ball, but no one ever had control of it. Honestly, I would have called it on Alford for going through on his way to the ball, but you can also make the case Simmons started to pull Atkinson off the ball first. There's an element of "everyone's trying too hard" with all of what happens with Indiana here. That may be a side effect of a coach willing to relentlessly punish you for every mistake. 13:50 - As the broadcast indicates, referee London Bradley is the one to call the foul, but Knight goes to a different official, Fred Jaspers asking why it wasn't called. Of course Jaspers doesn't have an answer. He didn't make the call, nor was he close enough to have any say in it, as he not only came off the baseline into the lane but was screened altogether. The third official, Phil Bova, had no way of seeing anything, either, from the other side of the floor. Knight pleads his case to Jaspers and finishes. After all the demonstrativeness from both the Hoosiers and Knight, Bova's ready to restart the game and he does so quickly. 14:04 - Sixth Indiana foul. Purdue does inbound the ball quickly and Thomas, who's been having an iffy game thus far, quickly commits his second foul. He reacts, in part because he and the crowd are still reeling from the previous play, as well as because he has to know things aren't going well and his hothead coach isn't going to be happy. Jasper is the ref that makes the call and it's understandable. Bradley is screened along the baseline from seeing the contact through Bullock as Bullock is being fouled. Again, a cheapie, but it's a foul. 14:21 - We catch the tail end of Knight giving Jasper an earful. He finishes his thought, walks away, and has a final comment that probably is of a personal nature. A Sports Illustrated article merely said he "cursed audibly." In 1985, that's enough. 14:31 - If there's any mistake Jasper makes here, it's calling the T and not going back to at least talk to Knight and try to calm him down. It's a double-edged sword. Knight's angry and it's entirely possible with a personality as combustible as Knight that going back to him only makes him angrier and prompts him into a second T on that alone. However, by NOT going back to talk to him, Knight feels like he's not being heard. My understanding is one of the explanations Knight gave, beyond frustration, is that he simply couldn't get the officials' attention to get an explanation for some of the things that had happened, going back to the non-call on what he thought was the jump ball. This has all happened in less than a minute real time. 14:32 - Knight keeps on shouting toward Jasper and gets no response in return. He turns toward Bradley and also doesn't get any response. Officials nowadays are trained to at least talk with coaches in this situation. Here, Knight's just shouting into the din. 14:45 - Knight's finally had enough and, well, you know what happens. Even after the chair flies, none of the refs still come to Knight, though at this stage, they're probably avoiding him somewhat out of fear. 15:13 - You see Knight actually point to the spot of the non-jump ball call and make the jump ball motion again. This reinforces the idea he's still hot about that and doesn't understand why that happened. However, the damage has been done with the flying chair and Jasper is now off to get AD Ralph Floyd. 15:27 - Jasper keeps an impressive amount of cool here. He makes it clear what happened in very simple terms and goes to the table. 16:03 - While Floyd is trying to just get a full handle on the situation, Knight comes barging back in to get his final words in. Note that he's still pointing to the spot on the floor with the non-jump ball call, though again, he's not talking to the right guy (Bova). 16:09 - Knight finally gets a hold of Bradley's ear. I think we see "jump ball" from what we can read from Knight's lips. It might be for the best that we can't read Knight's lips for the last of his words. Whatever he does say to finish his thoughts to Bradley, Bradley starts to mutter things in what appears to be a miffed way as Jasper comes over to defuse the situation. Knowing what we know about Knight, you have to wonder, though we certainly can't say for sure what exactly it was he said. From here, it's all pretty elementary as Purdue was the better team both before and after the incident, though they were a little rattled for a while. Long story short: Keep your composure. Sometimes things don't go your way. To quote my favorite coach of the current moment, "win anyway."
Also Knight was really frustrated going into the game as IU was a preseason top five team and was really struggling in the Bug Ten. It was a case of one thing building on another and it didn’t take much to set Knight off.
I was at the game. Really tough season for all that year. Unfortunate this incident was blown up into more than it was. Others have thrown things for sure in games.
Prelude to a chair:
1:52 - First Indiana foul: Blab isn't quite straight up and goes forward into Mitchell. You can see Mitchell's body get redirected by the contact. Questionable call, maybe not a call in the modern game, but it makes sense to me to call it.
2:49 - That turnover couldn't have helped Knight's mood.
3:24 - Second Indiana foul: Thomas turns Bullock's body with the defensive move. Subtle, not much of a foul, but a foul. A cheapie for sure.
3:48 - Simple up and under move. Knight probably was frustrated with Blab biting on that.
4:08 - That's a huge cheer for that dunk. Charged atmosphere.
4:31 - Third Indiana foul and the second on Blab. Again, not a lot of contact, but Blab is moving and has his body on him to hinder his motion. You don't see defense played like this in the modern game, but again, it's a foul.
5:22 - Contact on Blab as he tries to go up. Probably should have been called. Also couldn't have helped Knight's mood.
5:46 - Nice shot by Lewis. Alford didn't fight through the screen hard enough.
6:05 - For some reason, the shot clock never started on this possession. Thomas takes a questionable jumper early in the (non-operational) timer with a double-team bearing down on him.
6:25 - Reed is wide open here. As frustrated as Knight is with the officiating, he's probably just as frustrated with his own team's play.
6:45 - First Purdue foul. Pretty obvious that Bullock gets Blab.
8:05 - Fourth Indiana foul. Thomas goes for the double-team and leaves Mitchell wide open. Alford goes to box out Lewis but is a split-second too late and undercuts him. Tough luck foul as much as anything, but you've gotta call it.
12:56 - Blab actually with a good recovery on defense.
13:09 - Nice pass by Blab. Smith off the window. You don't see that anymore. I had a gym teacher who used to point out that you actually have a slightly better angle at the hoop when you go off glass. It's a lost art. Indiana is starting to get some momentum back.
13:33 - Fifth Indiana foul. It shattered what little momentum Indiana was building and is the foul that started the whole thing. Knight and a number of the Hoosiers wanted a jump ball, but no one ever had control of it. Honestly, I would have called it on Alford for going through on his way to the ball, but you can also make the case Simmons started to pull Atkinson off the ball first. There's an element of "everyone's trying too hard" with all of what happens with Indiana here. That may be a side effect of a coach willing to relentlessly punish you for every mistake.
13:50 - As the broadcast indicates, referee London Bradley is the one to call the foul, but Knight goes to a different official, Fred Jaspers asking why it wasn't called. Of course Jaspers doesn't have an answer. He didn't make the call, nor was he close enough to have any say in it, as he not only came off the baseline into the lane but was screened altogether. The third official, Phil Bova, had no way of seeing anything, either, from the other side of the floor. Knight pleads his case to Jaspers and finishes. After all the demonstrativeness from both the Hoosiers and Knight, Bova's ready to restart the game and he does so quickly.
14:04 - Sixth Indiana foul. Purdue does inbound the ball quickly and Thomas, who's been having an iffy game thus far, quickly commits his second foul. He reacts, in part because he and the crowd are still reeling from the previous play, as well as because he has to know things aren't going well and his hothead coach isn't going to be happy. Jasper is the ref that makes the call and it's understandable. Bradley is screened along the baseline from seeing the contact through Bullock as Bullock is being fouled. Again, a cheapie, but it's a foul.
14:21 - We catch the tail end of Knight giving Jasper an earful. He finishes his thought, walks away, and has a final comment that probably is of a personal nature. A Sports Illustrated article merely said he "cursed audibly." In 1985, that's enough.
14:31 - If there's any mistake Jasper makes here, it's calling the T and not going back to at least talk to Knight and try to calm him down. It's a double-edged sword. Knight's angry and it's entirely possible with a personality as combustible as Knight that going back to him only makes him angrier and prompts him into a second T on that alone. However, by NOT going back to talk to him, Knight feels like he's not being heard. My understanding is one of the explanations Knight gave, beyond frustration, is that he simply couldn't get the officials' attention to get an explanation for some of the things that had happened, going back to the non-call on what he thought was the jump ball. This has all happened in less than a minute real time.
14:32 - Knight keeps on shouting toward Jasper and gets no response in return. He turns toward Bradley and also doesn't get any response. Officials nowadays are trained to at least talk with coaches in this situation. Here, Knight's just shouting into the din.
14:45 - Knight's finally had enough and, well, you know what happens. Even after the chair flies, none of the refs still come to Knight, though at this stage, they're probably avoiding him somewhat out of fear.
15:13 - You see Knight actually point to the spot of the non-jump ball call and make the jump ball motion again. This reinforces the idea he's still hot about that and doesn't understand why that happened. However, the damage has been done with the flying chair and Jasper is now off to get AD Ralph Floyd.
15:27 - Jasper keeps an impressive amount of cool here. He makes it clear what happened in very simple terms and goes to the table.
16:03 - While Floyd is trying to just get a full handle on the situation, Knight comes barging back in to get his final words in. Note that he's still pointing to the spot on the floor with the non-jump ball call, though again, he's not talking to the right guy (Bova).
16:09 - Knight finally gets a hold of Bradley's ear. I think we see "jump ball" from what we can read from Knight's lips. It might be for the best that we can't read Knight's lips for the last of his words. Whatever he does say to finish his thoughts to Bradley, Bradley starts to mutter things in what appears to be a miffed way as Jasper comes over to defuse the situation. Knowing what we know about Knight, you have to wonder, though we certainly can't say for sure what exactly it was he said.
From here, it's all pretty elementary as Purdue was the better team both before and after the incident, though they were a little rattled for a while.
Long story short: Keep your composure. Sometimes things don't go your way. To quote my favorite coach of the current moment, "win anyway."
Also Knight was really frustrated going into the game as IU was a preseason top five team and was really struggling in the Bug Ten. It was a case of one thing building on another and it didn’t take much to set Knight off.
I was at the game. Really tough season for all that year. Unfortunate this incident was blown up into more than it was. Others have thrown things for sure in games.
It’s amazing, watching these old videos, to see how absolutely AWFUL Phil Bova was as an official.
A delicious victory for the Boilers
14:46 14:47 there goes the chair
in ALL honesty as of december of 99 i pretty much really really HATE purdue and iu
GREAT game! :-)