Coach Mike Davis: ‘100 times better than I was at Indiana’
INDIANAPOLIS – You could win a trivia contest by correctly answering this question:
Who was the last coach to beat Butler before the Bulldogs lost to Duke in college basketball’s 2010 national championship game?
Answer: Mike Davis.
Yes, that Mike Davis. The former Indiana University coach was at Alabama-Birmingham then, and his Blazers beat the Bulldogs 67-57 at Birmingham on Dec. 22, 2009. Afterward, he said: “They may not lose another game this year.”
Davis was prescient. Butler won its next 25 in a row.
Davis brought his Detroit Mercy Titans (0-3) to Hinkle Fieldhouse Nov. 12 for renewal of a Horizon League rivalry.
The Titans stayed close for much of the first half and got to within single digits within the last 10 minutes of the second before the Bulldogs won 84-63.
Still, Davis sounded energized as he spoke about taking over his fourth program. He took each of the previous three — Indiana, UAB, Texas Southern — to NCAA tournaments. Twelve coaches have taken four or more programs to the tournament.
“I love coaching more now than I’ve ever loved anything,” Davis said. “The key is, when you go in, to be excited. But when you go home afterward, you’re excited about the next day. That’s a telltale sign of being excited about what you’re doing.”
He said he didn’t feel good about asking players to do things he would not, and never mind about being 58. So he decided to “challenge myself.”
He arises as early as 4 a.m. and does 500 push-ups. He said recently he records his workouts on a notecard and has missed just one day since June 26. And each day starts with a cold shower.
“Now I get in there like it’s hot,” Davis said. “I can feel the energy go into my body as the water hits me.”
It will take more than energy to resurrect the once-proud Titans, who battled Butler for Midwestern Collegiate Conference supremacy in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Current Butler coach LaVall Jordan was MVP of the 2001 MCC tournament, won by the Bulldogs over Detroit 53-38.
Detroit was 12-44 in two seasons under former coach Bacari Alexander, not including a seven-game suspension imposed by the university.
Detroit needed players, and Davis collected 10 of them “in like a month.” Notable among them was his son, Antoine Davis, who was released from his letter of intent to Houston. Antoine scored 32 points last week in an 89-76 loss at Western Michigan and 30 then in an 8167 loss at Temple. He had 20 against Butler.
Coach Davis said Detroit has 13 new names on the roster since he was hired June 14. He is accustomed to new players, “but not this many late like this,” he said. He initially decided to stay at Texas Southern but changed his mind. Detroit athletics director Robert Vowels was Davis’ neighbor in Birmingham when Vowels was commissioner of the Southwest Athletic Conference.
“He’s the best fit possible,” Vowels said at the introductory news conference. “We believe that we found a coach that is experienced, who has integrity, has been successful, tough, determined, smart, creative, hardworking, confident and cares about his players.”
No one could have satisfactorily succeeded Bob Knight, who was fired in September 2000. Davis took the Hoosiers to the 2002 NCAA championship game, despite a 66-64 loss to Butler on Joel Cornette’s putback dunk, and lasted six seasons.
(Coincidentally, he coached six years each at UAB and Texas Southern.)
“I know I’m 100 times better than I was at Indiana,” Davis said.
He is an Alabama native but said his family considers Indiana a second home. Another son, Mike Davis Jr., who played high school basketball at Bloomington North, is on his staff.
Davis has been candid in saying he was not ready to be head coach at Indiana. “It should be your last job, not your first job,” he said. But he said, “Indiana was great for me,” and that he appreciated the opportunity there.
“I see things totally different than I did in the past,” Davis said. “And I understand what failure is now. When you’re young, you don’t want to fail. The failure is what makes you grow and what makes you better.
“I understand that now. When you truly understand that, it changes your mind-set about things.”