Redemption is not the word to describe what’s happened. For someone to be redeemed, there has to be repentance, and that's definitely not the case with Knight. Oh, he’s said he was sorry about one outburst or lapse in judgment from time to time, but he’s unapologetic about his career, about the controversy that marked his career in Indiana, and about the sheer nastiness that surrounded his departure from Bloomington.

Although Knight’s son and assistant coach, Pat, says his father has mellowed, it’s not as if the crusty old coach has been rehabilitated in the Texas Tech clinic. He may be less offensive, but he’s still the old-school, steel-driving basketball coach who figuratively drills fundamentals into his players, demanding that they play game the right way — the Knight way.

So call it a rebirth, the Bob Knight Renaissance.

Slide show   March 27 See images from the wins by Michigan State and North Carolina on Day 8 of the NCAA Tournament.

Give the credit to Lubbock, Texas, which, until Knight arrived there four years ago, was to college basketball what Montana is to hip-hop culture. In Indiana, basketball is like a religion, only not as frivolous. In Lubbock, it wasn’t even on the radar screen. In Lubbock, football — high school football — rules.

Knight’s family points out that west Texas is one of the last bastion’s where tough and crusty old people like Knight can still be heroes. They understand him out there, accept him, and admire him. He’s tougher than grilled saddle leather and almost as palatable, and that’s a good thing in west Texas.

Beyond that, the locals aren’t in love with basketball the way folks are in Indiana. Pat Knight says it’s a lot easier on the old man when people aren’t nit-picking his coaching. They’re just happy their team is competent, and don’t particularly care about the details of how they got that way. There’s only one newspaper in town, and the national press doesn’t get to Lubbock much, making Knight’s life even less stressful. Without anyone taking potshots at him, he doesn’t feel the need to fire back. And when he doesn’t do that, he doesn’t provoke a round of counterattacks and a continuing escalation of hostilities.

Pat also says that his father would be out of coaching if it weren’t for Texas Tech. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it’s likely that, had Indiana not shown him the door, he would have been goaded into becoming the next Woody Hayes.

Instead, surrounded by people who appreciate his many talents and haven’t been exposed to the dark side of Bob Knight, he’s becoming the best story out there.

It’s the story of an old coach who was declared irrelevant and run out of town, only to prove them all wrong,.

It’s the story of a man who can be beaten but not defeated.

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