Indiana basketball legend Bob Knight will be honored Friday with a new name on a stretch of Indiana State Road 45/46 near Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
A ceremony is set for 11 a.m. to designate the section between College Avenue and Fee Lane as Bob Knight Memorial Way. The roadway runs just north of Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium.
The event is open to the public, and organizers say fans are welcome to attend. It will be held near Fee Lane and the 45/46 Bypass, with parking available by the softball field.
The resolution came from Peggy Mayfield of Martinsville.
Knight died in 2023, but his place in Indiana basketball history has never been in doubt. He led the Hoosiers to national championships in 1976, 1981 and 1987, and he retired as the all-time wins leader in Division I men’s basketball.
His résumé at Indiana is staggering: three national titles, 11 Big Ten championships and the 1976 team that remains the last unbeaten NCAA champion. For many, Knight wasn’t just Indiana’s best coach. He was college basketball’s standard-bearer.
During his run in Bloomington from 1971 to 2000, Knight guided Indiana to 662 wins, 24 NCAA Tournaments, five Final Fours and a .735 winning percentage. He had 22 seasons with at least 20 victories.
He also turned around a program that had struggled before his arrival. In four of the six seasons leading up to his hiring, Indiana finished last in the Big Ten.
Knight’s teams piled up milestones that still stand out decades later. He remains the last coach to win a national title with a team that had no first-round NBA Draft picks. His teams once went 37-0 in Big Ten play.
One of his most memorable squads was the 1975 team. That group went unbeaten in conference play and won by an average of 22.8 points per game, with many believing it would have claimed the national championship if Scott May hadn’t broken his arm.
Knight’s influence stretched far beyond the IU sideline. He blended ideas from Henry Iba, Pete Newell and others to create the motion offense, a system that spread across college basketball and into high school gyms as well.
His coaching tree and circle of influence also reached the pro game. Several former players and even a manager went on to become NBA head coaches, and the IU manager program produced people who worked in basketball at many levels. Few coaches left a broader mark on the sport.
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