Replacing any coach who has been at the helm of a top notch program for 30+ years is never easy, but at Indiana it is almost impossible. For former IU coach Mike Davis, that is exactly what he had to deal with once the Bob Knight era was over in Bloomington.
After being an assistant on Knight's staff for three years, Davis was elevated to the head coaching position, something Davis has later said he probably wasn't fully ready for. Part of that is due to the path he took to finding his first head coaching position. While it was an up-and-down tenure at IU, it's one he is extremely thankful and grateful for.
"Oh no. You always go from smaller to mid to high and I went high to mid to small and then back to mid. But I wouldn’t trade anything cause it made me work so hard and made me understand the big picture," Davis said on Indiana Sports Beat. "It helped me show the players what it's like to be at a big [school]."
Davis went 115-79 at Indiana but failed to make it to the NCAA Tournament in two of his final three years. Following a successful stop at UAB for six seasons, he took over a Texas Southern program in 2012 that had just three years with a winning record since 2000. Five of his six seasons, he turned in a winning record and also took the program to four trips to the NCAA Tournament, a place it hadn't been since 2003.
“It was great. I got a chance to coach players who maybe were on their second or third chance and didn’t get a lot of other opportunities anywhere else," Davis said of his time at Texas Southern. "They were pretty good basketball players and through my experience at IU and UAB, it gave me great experience to help them… the players I had at Texas Southern I understood and they understood me. I had some really good teams and players there."
Davis didn't stop there, however. For the last two seasons he has been at University of Detroit Mercy and while he has struggled, he has loved the journey he has been on and that includes being with his two sons, one as a player and the other an assistant coach.
"I may be the only coach in the country who has a son playing for him and a son working for him," Davis said. "It's been great to have both with me and it’s been great to see them develop."
While both sons played in college, Mike Davis Jr at IU and UAB and now Antoine at Detroit, both had different roles. For Antoine, he averaged 26.1 points per game as a freshman and 24.3 points a season ago. Putting up points has always been his specialty, but it hasn't always been easy.
"I’m really proud of what he’s [Antoine] done... it was really difficult because I was trying to get a lot of schools to recruit him but when you walk into the gym and see a kid 6-foot-1 and 140 pounds, not many people think much of you," Davis said. "Being in that IU environment and UAB, growing up and going on the road, sitting on the bench and in the locker room, that’s a big advantage to have.
"He only weighed 157 pounds last year, and I said, ‘imagine what you can do at like 175’. I'm just amazed and most of these players are like 30-40 pounds heavier. He's made a commitment to the weight room and right now he is around 163 [pounds], so hopefully he can get close to 10 more pounds the rest of the summer."
While his son is the best player on the roster heading into next year, it's shaping up to be the best team for Davis since taking over.
"We have a great recruiting class coming in and have a really good team. This is our best team and it’s just a shame that we may not have any fans," Davis said. "I’m really looking forward to it though.”
With many teams beginning practice on Monday, Davis said he has yet to do anything formal with his team. Not only does he not want to take a chance on one of them getting sick, he wants to make sure the right safety measures are in place before anyone gets back to campus.
"We haven’t had players on campus at all because I don’t really want to take a chance… I just want to make sure everyone is safe and healthy," Davis explained. "This is my opinion, I just really think we can play conference games and play teams we can take a bus ride too. Go the day of the game and come back. We can easily do stuff different than we did in the past… I think that is the approach we should have this season."
For the rest of the interview in its entirety, click on the tweet below.
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