Early in former college basketball coach Fran Fraschilla’s new career as a broadcaster, he proved he was ready for the move.

A few days before Christmas in 2003, Fraschilla was interviewing Texas Tech’s Bob Knight and Iowa’s Steve Alford in advance of their coaching against each other.

“There was a perception, Steve, when you went to Iowa, that you guys had drifted a little bit,” Fraschilla said. “How much was fact and how much was fiction?”

Knight jumped in with an expletive-laced scolding of Fraschilla.

“You know that is an absolute crock of (bleep),” Knight said. “You know, you (bleeping) people in the news media, all you (bleeps), dwell on some negative (bleep) like that. And I don’t know how Steve feels about it, but it just (bleeping) (ticks) me off. And you don’t have to bleep one single (bleeping) word of this.”

Fraschilla, ESPN’s lead analyst for Big 12 basketball who will be doing tonight’s Kansas University-Kansas State game in Manhattan, looked back on that blowup.

“As he’s answering the question, I’m feeling bad for him,” Fraschilla said. “I said to myself, ‘This is a SportsCenter moment right in front of my eyes.’ He went for 28 seconds, and as soon as he was done, I asked the next one. We were not doing an interview, we were getting sound bites for the show. The sad part about the whole thing was nobody ever saw his five unbelievable minutes of interview answers. Nobody saw him talking about Alford as a player, how he compared him to Michael Jordan as a leader, because once he jumped me, that was the story.”

What does Fraschilla think of Knight now?

“There is a lot about coach Knight I have come to learn that I like,” he said. “Other times, I marvel at how he can change personalities on a dime. Ultimately, because of all I know about him, I take all of his warts with all the good things he does that people don’t know about him. I think he’s a brilliant coach and, behind the scenes, a great humanitarian. Sometimes he does things and I think: I wish he wouldn’t have done that. He’s complicated. Like a lot of people who are successful, he has a lot of layers.”

Fraschilla analyzes a game the way he just analyzed the winningest coach in college basketball history: concisely, yet thoroughly.

Fraschilla on Kansas State: “Bob Huggins needed a place to land and continue his career, and Kansas State basketball needed a shot of adrenaline, and both parties got what they wanted. It should turn out to be a good marriage.”

Fraschilla said nobody should be nervous about another first-round NCAA Tournament exit for Kansas.

“This is a more seasoned, more talented, more hungry Kansas team,” Fraschilla said. “This is a great group for being so highly recruited. This is not a big-ego team. This is not a team that is full of itself. If anything, they don’t have the swagger they need to have. This is certainly not a bunch of jerks. If they stay focused, to me they could be heading toward an Elite Eight situation, and once you get to the Elite Eight, anything can happen.”