CHICAGO -- Mike Davis was sitting alone for a few minutes before a reporter came over to talk to him. Another one slumbered over for another question or two.

But the attention was clearly on others -- coaches like Illinois' Bill Self, Michigan State's Tom Izzo and Iowa's Steve Alford.

This was the scene at the Big Ten's media day last Sunday where Davis was left largely alone, which to him actually signaled that he truly has the Indiana head coaching job.

"The biggest difference was when I walked in here and no one was at my table," Davis said. "That was great."

	Indiana sophomore Jared Jeffries can relax a little more this season, knowing his coach's job isn't riding on every shot he takes.

A year ago, the reserved and low-talking Davis found his life turned upside down. Within the span of a month, he went from defending Bob Knight in a news conference for an alleged confrontation between the Hall of Fame coach and a student over a greeting, to taking over the Indiana head coaching job on an interim basis after Knight was fired.

They didn't speak to each other once Knight was fired. The players nearly had a walkout in defense of Davis. He had to hire a staff. He had to put in plays and get through a brutal non-conference schedule with a rebuilding team.

And then he had to weather every game, wondering if he was going to be the "official" head coach. He got the gig after the Hoosiers won 21 games, reached the Big Ten tournament title game and bowed out in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament -- par for the course lately at Indiana.

"I look back sometimes and wonder how I got through it," Davis said. "One missed shot here or there and I'm not sitting here. Kirk (Haston) hit a big shot against Michigan State. He hit a big shot against Penn State and to beat Illinois in the Big Ten tournament. If we had lost those games, then I would probably be somewhere else."

Yet, it wasn't supposed to be strictly about wins and losses. The Indiana administration made it painfully clear last year that Davis would get the job if the program looked like it was running smoothly, not just whether or not it was winning games.

"But it's on the court where you're judged," Davis said. "People say it's about graduation rates, but you can graduate 99 percent of your players and they'll still get rid of you. You have to win and I had one year to do it. They weren't going to judge me on my team's improvement."

The beginning was the worst for Davis. The first game was against Pepperdine, a team known for pressing, trapping and a few funky defenses that makes preparing for them under then-coach Jan van Breda Kolff one of the toughest assignments of the season. This was Game One, which came with the added pressure that faced the Hoosiers after losing to the Waves in the first round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament.

Oh, and the game was at home on ESPN in the first round of the Preseason NIT.

The Hoosiers won, but the bumpy ride bottomed out with a poor performance in getting swept in New York at the Preseason NIT semifinals and consolation game. Losses to Kentucky and Iowa and former Hoosier Luke Recker during the season didn't help, but the Hoosiers were a scrappy bunch and ended up hanging around the top four of the league.

"Imagine getting the job a month before the season, no plays prepared and you're playing Pepperdine, which means we couldn't focus on the offense I wanted to run right away," Davis said. "We didn't have time to prepare."

That's not the case now.

"We're so far ahead of last year, it's not even funny," Davis said. "It's like January now."

	“	It's night and day different than last year. Coach isn't putting pressure on himself that this is his job and his team. Last year, he felt like that and I'm the type of person that tries to help and puts pressure on myself to do something. It feels like more than a year has past since all that stuff happened. Time erases a lot of things." ”
		— Jared Jeffries, Indiana sophomore forward

The offseason was good to Davis as he moved down to Bloomington from Indianapolis -- a commute that drained on him during the season. He spent the offseason racking up commitments from Marshall Strickland, Bracey Wright and Daryl Pegram, of which the first two are expected to be impact players. And he's got his core talent from a season ago back, even though he lost Haston a season early to the NBA.

Sophomore forward and Bloomington native Jared Jeffries returns after feeling the weight of the program on his shoulders throughout his freshman season. Joining him is Tom Coverdale, the point guard who defied athleticism by matching anyone in the Big Ten with his skills despite his limited quickness; defensive specialist Dane Fife; shooting guard Kyle Hornsby and lanky, but improving forward Jeffrey Newton. Add the arrival of quicker point, Donald Perry, and Indiana will have a different look in 2001-02.

"All last year, everybody was trying to focus on whether I would be here," Davis said. "In the beginning of the season it was Coach Knight and at the end it was me. Jared Jeffries and I are very close and he had a lot of pressure on him last year. He wanted to keep my job for me and then be the savior of Indiana basketball. He was only 18.

"He went through more than I did. I'm 40 years old. Some things I can handle and some I can't, but I knew what to do. He was struggling and he's just playing basketball."

Jeffries could have spent the summer with USA Basketball in Japan, but declined and said "a lot of the guys I knew who went wanted to come home early, and I knew I would be like that." Instead, he went to Florida for 15 days to work out with the Lakers' Tyronn Lue, the Pacers' Al Harrington and a few other NBA players. Jeffries is more cut, is playing a bit more inside and is making better decisions with the ball. He's not saying if he's leaving yet for the NBA, largely because he's pumped for this season.

"It's night and day different than last year," Jeffries said of the Hoosiers, Davis and himself. "Coach isn't putting pressure on himself that this is his job and his team. Last year, he felt like that and I'm the type of person that tries to help and puts pressure on myself to do something.

"It feels like more than a year has past since all that stuff happened. Time erases a lot of things. We're two or three months ahead of last year conditioning wise, we know the offense and we're running the same sets now that will help us."

Davis lost Jeffries' former high school teammate Sean May to North Carolina in this summer's recruiting battles, but he could get former Indiana signee and fellow Alabama native Kei Madison out of Okaloosa-Walton (Fla.) CC to complete the Hoosiers' 2002 recruiting class. This season, Indiana does have a tougher slate in November and December, but is better prepared.

Opening at Charlotte could be an 'L,' and playing teams like Texas or Gonzaga or St. John's in the Great Alaska Shootout won't be an easy chore. Neither will games at North Carolina, at Southern Illinois (the Hoosiers aren't home until Dec. 4 against Notre Dame), at Miami or against Kentucky in Indianapolis.

The Hoosiers won't likely challenge Illinois or Iowa for the Big Ten title, either. They'll likely be in a middle group with Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue and Minnesota for third through seventh and a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament. Davis and Jeffries will feel that pressure, but still nothing like they did a season ago when every shot and each game seemed like the program's future rested on the outcome.

"He's got the job and he's doing a great job," Jeffries said of Davis. "And because of that we're all more relaxed."

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.