Bob Knight returned to Indiana for the first time in 20 years on Saturday.

Knight, and the story of his firing, played a role in my reporting of the biggest story of my career.

When Knight was fired before the start of the 2000 season, there was an interview that ESPN (I believe) conducted with an Indiana player. I can't tell you who it is, and I couldn't find a clip on YouTube (if anyone has it, it's Galen Clavio). But I remember watching it in my apartment in Olean, N.Y., and I remember the reporter asking if the player if the team was going to play its games this season.

I don't know, the player said.

In March of 2003, the St. Bonaventure player eligibility scandal occurred. Mike Harrington and I were breaking stories. The night the scandal broke, after a long day of writing and reporting, I stopped back by my apartment. I put on the local news to catch up on what the Buffalo TV stations were reporting. Just before heading back to the newsroom, I saw a reporter — again, in my memory, it was from the now-defunct Empire Sports Network, but I can't say that for sure — say that the St. Bonaventure players were meeting.

At that moment, I flashed back to that interview with an Indiana player three years earlier.

"They're voting on whether or not they're playing the rest of the season." I thought to myself.

I had zero reporting at that point that anything was going on with the players. It was pure journalistic instinct. But I did the only thing to do - got in the car and drove to campus. I found nothing there, but within a few hours, I had heard that players were leaving campus. The boycott happened the next day. I had a head start on the story in part because of my instincts from watching that interview.

In part because of Bob Knight.

The journalistic lesson — you never know what you're going to remember. You never know what's going to stick in your memory, what's going to jog that memory, or when it's going to be useful. But when it happens, follow your instincts. Trust them.