Keeping the Faith

One hour before the Hoosiers started their NCAA Tournament run against Utah two weeks ago, IU coach Mike Davis wasn't drawing up plays or lecturing his team. No, he was watching the New York Knicks play the Sacramento Kings on a television inside of Arco Arena in Sacramento, offering his description of the play to arena workers.\nLast year, Davis probably was doing something different before the NCAA Tournament. But this year, he has things in perspective.\nPastor Jeffrey Johnson of the Eastern Star Church in Indianapolis helped Davis get here by guiding Davis through the last two years. Johnson said the difference is like night and day. From last year to this year, Davis has grown into his role as the head coach at IU.\nThe self-doubt is gone.\n"You can tell in how he is on the bench, you can tell just by talking to him and you can tell by the press conferences," Johnson said. "He knows it's his job and he's good at it."\nDavis' growth was on display when the Hoosiers finished their pre-conference schedule at 7-5, disappointing to some even though it was against the third-toughest schedule in the nation and IU had played just twice at Assembly Hall.\nStill, the doubters didn't rattle Davis, who has never been a head coach anywhere else -- at any level. He counts this season as his first year as a head coach.\n"When they were 7-5, he didn't think anything about it," Johnson said. "He still thought they were going to win the Big Ten."\nThe Hoosiers did, sharing the conference title with Wisconsin, Ohio State and Illinois. Davis contends IU would have had that championship to itself if a right ankle sprain hadn't hobbled sophomore forward Jared Jeffries.\nAs improbable as any type of Big Ten title was at the end of December, Davis still believed.\n"Coach Davis, after the pre-conference schedule was over, said 'It's over. Now it's a whole new season,'" sophomore guard A.J. Moye said. "That's just coach. He's a positive guy, and that's what makes him the classy individual that he is."\nBut things weren't this way a season ago, when Davis was stepping into one of the biggest jobs in college basketball.\nThe Sunday after he was given the interim job in September of 2000, Davis went to the Eastern Star Church for the first time after seeing Johnson on television. Davis said he felt as if Johnson had been talking to him, and Davis needed somewhere to turn.\n"Hard times will take you out of your comfort zone, and when you're out of your comfort zone you need something to look to," Davis said. "I had to be strong, and I wasn't strong at the time."\nJohnson said he would call Davis last season just to give him somebody to talk to who didn't care what the Hoosiers' record was. Now the two talk maybe once a week, but last year Johnson saw Davis needed him.\nThe stress of following Bob Knight is constant, and at first, Davis had trouble dealing with it.\n"The stress is part of being here," Davis' wife, Tamilya, said. "We have never not been under stress. I really think that's just the way people are in Indiana. It's kind of like what Mike said -- you really don't know what they want."\nLast April, IU president Myles Brand saw past the first round exit from the NCAA Tournament, the 21-13 finish and the critical alumni that doubted Davis should be the coach. With the players behind him and the most wins by a first-year head coach in school history, Davis was awarded a four-year contract last April. \nThe job was his, and he began to put his stamp on IU basketball.\nHe did so by ignoring the critics. With his team getting ready for the Big Ten season in January, he told his players that the only allies they had were the people they saw around them on the floor.\n"Coach Davis brought us together as a unit," junior forward Jeff Newton said. "He told us that it was just us and the coaching staff. As long as we stick together and believed that we could do it, then we could do it."\nThe Hoosiers won four in a row to start the Big Ten season and didn't look back. IU learned how to win on the court while Davis' spiritual side started to rub off on his players off the court. He added a team chaplain and, as the season went on, church attendance rose from one or two to nearly the entire team.\nDavis said he never forced his players to pray or do anything religious. But it's obvious they have followed his cue.\n"He's really a role model to these young men who he coaches," Johnson said. "Even listening to Dane Fife and Jared Jeffries speak about the blessings of God. They realize life is bigger than basketball.\n"(Davis) isn't preaching to them, he's just living it. Some of it has got to rub off on them."\nThe roots of Davis' spirituality extend back to his grandfather, Reverend J.H. Thompson, who was a Baptist preacher when Davis was growing up in Alabama. It shows.\nThis year, he has been his own man. His 3-year old son, Antoine, is always around. Before every post-game press conference he thanks God for the opportunity he has to be the Hoosiers' head coach.\n"I know (God) is the reason I'm here," Davis says.\nAnd most obviously, Davis is almost always smiling. Even after losses at Michigan State and Illinois cost the Hoosiers an outright share of the conference title, Davis walked into the interview room smiling. Some rumbled that he shouldn't be smiling, but Davis is used to criticism. \nIn that way, he doesn't see much difference between the last two years. But now, he doesn't listen when people say the Hoosiers can't beat Duke or get to the Final Four. The Hoosiers have done both now that Davis is leading the way with some help from Johnson.\n"This year was the same way. We go 7-5 and everybody said, 'Well, he's not doing it,'" Davis said. "You have to stay faithful. We went through a lot last year. Just going through that, there's no way the Final Four can be more distracting.\n"I've never walked this path, but I've said from day one, when God's with you, you don't need experience"