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Former coach and current ESPN analyst Bob Knight is nothing if not a shill for any company that will pay him to endorse its product, and his latest is this Volkswagen commercial:

I have to say, it sucks, and it's a little embarrassing to watch Knight making a fool of himself like that. Awful Announcing says, "I'm all for people making as much money anyway they can, but this is a little ridiculous." And Sporting Blog says, "this new VW commercial featuring Knight is just not good. Like, at all." I agree. C'mon, Knight. You're better than that.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption today, and he had some interesting thoughts about his mentor, Bob Knight, who resigned -- but didn't retire -- this season:

"I still don't think he's through with coaching," Krzyzewski said. "I think he'll come back -- not that he's told me that, but he loves the game so much."

I think he'll return to coaching, too, but it's odd to think of Knight as someone who "loves the game so much," just because he never seems happy when he's in the process of coaching.

Krzyzewski also said he hopes Knight, in his work as an ESPN analyst during March Madness, spends time actually teaching the viewers about the game and its history. I'd love to see that, but I'd love it even more if Knight would answer legitimate questions from his co-workers.

Most people who are new on a job try to do their best to be helpful, but former Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight is not most people. So the news that Knight joining ESPN as a college basketball analyst does not mean Knight will answer ESPN's questions about the current situation at Indiana:

Appearing on Mike and Mike in the Morning, Knight gave a nonsense answer to Mike Greenberg's completely legitimate question about Knight's thoughts on the mess created by Kelvin Sampson. When Greenberg asked again, Knight said, "I appreciate very much your doggedness in this, but we're done with that subject."

And that was it. Which is ridiculous. ESPN should have told Knight that as long as he's cashing an ESPN paycheck, he needs to answer the questions that ESPN's hosts ask him. That would have made for some compelling TV and radio for ESPN's viewers and listeners. Instead, we got an exercise in time-wasting that concluded with Greenberg comparing Knight to his wife.

For a guy who often acts as though he hates nothing more than the media, Bob Knight spent an awful lot of time making media appearances during the week after he resigned as head coach at Texas Tech. I thought his interview on ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning was one of the more revealing:

Knight talked about the differences of players today and players from a few decades back, when Knight began his coaching career, and he said he missed the good old days of 1962, when he was a high school teacher and was permitted to paddle students who acted up.

"Think about that in schools today," Knight said. "That just doesn't happen. I think we've become such a lenient society and a society that not only accepts mediocrity in a lot of ways but condones mediocrity simply because you don't infringe on the rights of a student and you don't take a kid to task."