Rick Carlisle wore a red sweater during pregame warmups and introductions in honor of former Indiana University coach Bob Knight, who passed away earlier this week.
“A tribute to Coach Knight just a show of respect,” Carlisle said of the sweater, “for everything he’s meant, not only to IU and the state of Indiana, but just to basketball overall.”
The Pacers held a moment of silence before the game as well.
After the game, Carlisle shared a pair of his personal Bobby Knight stories. The first involving writing him a letter to try to be a part of the Olympic trials in 1984 when Knight what the USA’s coach.
“I think I wrote him a letter in ‘83 to try and get his attention to possibly get a shot at the Olympic trials,” Carlisle said. “He wrote me a personal letter back which I’ve kept to this day. I always thought that it was extremely classy thing to do. He didn’t even know me at the time.”
The second story was a time when Carlisle went to visit Knight in Bloomington for an Indiana University practice during the NBA lockout in 1999 along with another assistant on Larry Bird’s Pacers coaching staff.
“We had dinner with him in Bloomington,” Carlisle said. “It was one of the most interesting basketball discussions of my entire life. It was so awesome to hear this guy talk about the game. I learned an awful lot. You know I’m a student, a child of the pro game … but he was just simply an encyclopedia of knowledge of the game. So I was always appreciative of that opportunity as well.”
Quinn Buckner got emotional talking about his former coach on Wednesday’s broadcast.
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