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| | Sunday, September 10 Iowa confident Alford not leaving for Hoosiers | |||||
| By Wayne Drehs ESPN.com Iowa athletics director Bob Bowlsby said Sunday he is "100 percent confident" that coach Steve Alford, a former star at Indiana, will not leave the Hawkeyes to replace Bob Knight. Alford, who led Indiana to a national championship in 1987 and is one of the program's most popular former players, has long been rumored as a successor to Knight since beginning his coaching career in 1991. There is no clause in Alford's contract with Iowa limiting such a move, but he has long said he has no intentions of leaving Iowa City. Bowlsby echoed those statements Sunday. "My confidence is 100 percent," Bowlsby said. "We have made commitments to him and he's made commitments to us. I don't think there's anything to worry about. I can't characterize it any better than that." Alford released a statement Sunday night in reaction to Knight's firing. "As a former student-athlete at Indiana University, and former player for coach Knight, it saddens me to see one of the greatest eras of college basketball end this way," Alford said. "Since I was in third grade, attending coach Knight's basketball camps, I have always seen Indiana University and coach Knight as one in the same. I'm very appreciative of all the influences that coach Knight has had on my life as well as my basketball career." Alford, who won a gold medal under Knight in 1984, spent four seasons in the NBA before becoming a head coach at tiny Manchester (Ind.) College. After turning around programs at Manchester and Southwest Missouri State, he accepted the Iowa job in March of 1999. He went 14-16 last year, his first at Iowa. "There is no need to be looking anywhere else," Alford said at the time of his hiring. "This is where I would like to call home for a long, long time. I have no aspirations of looking anywhere else or moving anywhere else. It's exciting to be where you want to be. This is the place, quite frankly, I hope we retire. The community is what we're all about." | ALSO SEE Indiana removes Knight as coach Forde: Knight was so gifted, so flawed Bilas: Knight was his own worst enemy Users react: Knight out at Indiana | |||||