Top 90 Bobby Knight Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done the best way it can be done, and do it that way every time.”

— Bobby Knight

Featured in: Accountability Quotes, Dedication Quotes, Competition Quotes, Duty Quotes, Boss Quotes

2. “Discipline is knowing what to do. Knowing when to do it. Doing it to the best of your abilities. Doing it that way every single time.”

— Bobby Knight

Featured in: Discipline Quotes, Sports Quotes

3. “Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win.”

— Bobby Knight

4. “It is better to anticipate than to react.”

— Bobby Knight

5. “The will to succeed is important, but what’s more important is the will to prepare.”

— Bobby Knight

6. “Good basketball always starts with good defense!”

— Bobby Knight

7. “I don’t believe in luck, I believe in preparation.”

— Bobby Knight

8. “Don’t fight the rabbits. If you fight the rabbits, the elephants are going to kill you.”

— Bobby Knight

9. “Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.”

— Bobby Knight

10. “The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”

— Bobby Knight

11. “Victory favors the team making the fewest mistakes.”

— Bobby Knight

12. “In order to achieve to achieve positive results, one must work for them, not hope for them.”

— Bobby Knight

13. “BS is just what it stands for, an MS is More of the Same, and a PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper.”

— Bobby Knight

14. “A coach should never be afraid to ask questions of anyone he could learn from.”

— Bobby Knight

15. “Practice structure determines success.”

— Bobby Knight

16. “When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want they bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass!”

— Bobby Knight

17. “Everybody wants to be on a championship team, but nobody wants to come to practice.”

— Bobby Knight

18. “Your biggest opponent isn’t the other guy. It’s human nature.”

— Bobby Knight

19. “All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.”

— Bobby Knight

20. “People change over the years, and that changes situations for good and for bad.”

— Bobby Knight

21. “Basketball may have been invented in Massachusetts, but it was made for Indiana.”

— Bobby Knight

22. “As coaches we talk about two things: offense and defense. There is a third phase we neglect, which is more important. It’s conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense.”

— Bobby Knight

23. “You don’t play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.”

— Bobby Knight

24. “Everybody hears, but few listen.”

— Bobby Knight

25. “The biggest difficulty in getting to the top of the ladder is getting through the crowd at the bottom.”

— Bobby Knight

26. “I’ve always had an a$$-to-the-brain theory. When a player’s a$$ gets put on the bench, a message goes straight to the brain saying, Get me off of here.”

— Bobby Knight

27. “If the NBA were on channel 5 and a bunch of frogs making love were on channel 4, I’d watch the frogs, even if they were coming in fuzzy.”

— Bobby Knight

28. “You play ball against yourself; your opponent is your potential.”

— Bobby Knight

29. “I’ve never felt my job was to win basketball games – rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.”

— Bobby Knight

30. “Son, my name isn’t Knight to you, it’s Coach Knight or it’s Mr. Knight. I don’t call people by their last name and neither should you.”

— Bobby Knight

31. “Defense is all about helping. No one can guard a good dribbler, You have to walk kids through how to help and then how to help the helper.”

— Bobby Knight

32. “We should not have to push you to work hard, you should work hard because you want to be a great player.”

— Bobby Knight

33. “What is the best thing you can do in a close game? Drive to the basket and put pressure on the defense! Not jack up jump shots.”

— Bobby Knight

34. “A primary goal of teaching anything is the advantage that learning gives to people over their competitors who haven’t been as well taught.”

— Bobby Knight

35. “I sit and wonder why no one uses the shot fake. The shot fake, when used correctly, can eliminate a defender.”

— Bobby Knight

36. “A quick way for any player to make himself better is to think about what he himself doesn’t like to play against.”

— Bobby Knight

37. “I think that we as a people are always prone to think about, well, tomorrow will be a better day. Well, why will it be a better day? And I think the more that we believe in doing things better, doing the right thing rather than hoping that that’s going to happen, let’s make it happen.”

— Bobby Knight

38. “People want national championship banners. People want to talk about Indiana being competitive. How do we get there? We don’t get there with milk and cookies.”

— Bobby Knight

39. “Learn to do things right and then do them right every time.”

— Bobby Knight

40. “Perform drills that force your players to think.”

— Bobby Knight

41. “I was worried about losing until I looked down the floor and saw Dale Brown. Then I knew we had a chance.”

— Bobby Knight

42. “To be as good as it can be, a team has to buy into what you as the coach are doing. They have to feel you’re a part of them and they’re a part of you.”

— Bobby Knight

43. “The structure of your practice is the main reason for your success or lack of success as a coach.”

— Bobby Knight

44. “Players must be able to carry out simple instructions from the bench to the court. If they can’t, then they can’t play.”

— Bobby Knight

45. “Offense is not equal opportunity.”

— Bobby Knight

46. “Passing is your best weapon against man to man. Dribble penetration is your best weapon against zone.”

— Bobby Knight

47. “You remember when you were a kid growing up, and believed in Santa Claus? There’s not much difference between Santa Claus and me today, you know. We’re two overweight lovable guys that kids really enjoy.”

— Bobby Knight

48. “You are never going to be driven anywhere worthwhile, but you sure as hell drive yourself to a lot of great places. It is up to you to drive yourself there.”

— Bobby Knight

49. “I hate casual shooting. Every shot is preceded by working to get open and catch and shoot under game like conditions.”

— Bobby Knight

50. “There are times when my passion for basketball led me into confrontations that I could have handled a lot better. I’ve always been too confrontational, especially when I know I’m right.”

— Bobby Knight