Texas Tech basketball: Bob Knight’s most memorable moments as a Red Raider

Knight throws a broken chair during Texas Tech press conference

Throughout his career, Knight’s post-game press conferences were must-see.  I remember him once saying that one of his players dribbled the ball like a “drunk chasing a donut rolling down a bumpy road”.

Win or lose, you never knew what was going to come out of the coach’s mouth.  But perhaps the greatest press conference of his time at Texas Tech involved a call-back to his most infamous in-game moment at Indiana.

Following a game in 2002, Knight was speaking when the chair he was sitting in broke.  He then picked the chair up and tossed it to the side in a demonstrable manner.

Knight then said, “That’s the furthest I’ve thrown a chair in a long time” a reference to the famous day in February of 1985 when he threw a chair across the floor after picking up a technical foul in a game against Purdue.  (You can see the press conference moment in the post below shared by David Collier of KAMC in Lubbock.)

Unfortunately, that is the first thing many people think of when Knight is brought up.  Though he won two national titles and a gold medal, and though he left the game as the winningest coach in NCAA history, and though he was one of the pioneers of the modern college game, that chair toss in 1985 is often the defining moment of his career.

Interestingly, while at Tech, Knight was rather subdued during games (at least by his standards).  He might have picked up only a handful of technical fouls as a Red Raider and there were never any in-game explosions that drew national attention.

His chair toss in Bloomington will forever be legendary in college basketball realms.  However, his chair toss in Lubbock, while much less notable, was classic Bob Knight as well as he poked fun at himself and displayed the sense of humor that made him endearing to multitudes of fans.