Brad Stevens was in the building for one of Bob Knight’s most infamous moments.

It was Feb. 23, 1985. Assembly Hall. Another meeting in the intense intrastate college basketball rivalry between the Purdue Boilermakers and Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers. Stevens, then eight years old, made the trip to Bloomington with his father Mark, like they typically did a few times per year.

But this was anything but typical.

The clip has been watched millions of times, nearly four decades later. Five minutes into the game, the contentious Knight drew a technical foul arguing a foul. Moments later, as Purdue’s Steve Reid stepped to the free throw line, Knight turned around, picked up a red plastic chair from the bench and hurled it across the court in an incredible and iconic scene.

A young Stevens watched in amazement from several rows up.

“My dad always jokes that when I was eight years old and I saw him throwing the chair, he looked over at me and I was cheering him on,” Stevens told the Herald in an exclusive interview. “So maybe we were all a little bit into it.”

For Stevens, moments like that stick out when thinking about Knight, the legendary basketball coach with a mercurial personality who died Wednesday at age 83. But while many will remember Knight for his unpredictable temperament and wild tantrums, Knight meant so much more to Stevens, the native of Zionsville, Indiana, whose basketball life and love for the sport was shaped significantly by Indiana’s larger-than-life figure.

FILE – This Feb. 23, 1985, file photo shows Indiana coach Bob Knight winding up and pitching a chair across the floor during Indiana’s 72-63 loss to Purdue, in Bloomington, Ind. Tony Hinkle turned Butler’s pass-and-cut offense of the 1920s into a coaching textbook for generations. Bob Knight and Gene Keady added their own revisions following Hinkle’s forced retirement in 1970. Today, those three remain the gold standard of basketball innovation in Indiana, a state where successful coaches have spent more than a century testing novel concepts, breaking barriers and polishing philosophies before introducing them America.(AP Photo/File)

Long before he joined the Celtics as coach and then president of basketball operations, Stevens’ basketball foundation was set in Indiana. He was molded by watching Knight and his Indiana teams, which won three national championships and two during Stevens’ childhood. Stevens’ dad, an Indiana alum, took him to two or three games every season, usually sitting 20 or 30 rows up behind the bench. Stevens watched them play Gene Keady and Purdue. He saw the ‘Fab Five’ of Michigan come to Assembly.

Stevens soaked in every moment growing up in a basketball-obsessed region fostered by Knight and his program at Indiana.

“When I thought about basketball as a kid, it was Bob Knight, it was Indiana,” Stevens said. “It was a pretty special part of our upbringing. …

“Growing up there is just different, right? Because the high school, Friday and Saturday nights are so unique. … I don’t think that I would have been in this without growing up there and loving it there. Like it was just a special place, and (Knight) was probably the biggest figure in the state.”

Stevens was only four years old when Indiana won the national title in 1981, but he was locked in when the Hoosiers won it all in 1987, when Steve Alford hit seven 3-pointers and Keith Smart’s game-winner with seconds to go was the difference.

For a 10-year-old Stevens, that game became one of his first sources of film review.

“If there was a film that I started watching, it was that,” Stevens said. “My mom claims I watched the VHS tape a thousand times. I remember it vividly. … It’s just a super memory as a kid.”

FILE – Indiana coach Bob Knight gestures while instructing players, including Rick Calloway (20) and Daryl Thomas (24), during a win over UNLV in an NCAA men’s college basketball tournament semifinal March 30, 1987, in New Orleans. Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball, has died. He was 83. Knight’s family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night, Nov. 1, 2023, saying he was surrounded by family members at his home in Bloomington, Ind. (AP Photo/Bob Jordan, File)

Before he came to Boston, Stevens was an Indiana lifer. He starred at Zionsville Community High School. He played at DePauw University, a private college in Greencastle. Then he embarked on a coaching career that began at Butler.

Everywhere he went in the state, Knight’s fingerprints were apparent.

“Any of us that grew up in Indiana were either directly or indirectly influenced by Coach Knight because every coach wanted to run all of his stuff on both ends of the floor, that we played for in high school and every level,” Stevens said. “And then everybody that played would have probably walked down there to Bloomington or wherever they were from to play for the Hoosiers at that time.

“The influence across the state was remarkable. You could really tell a college coach’s influence when you go to a high school practice and they’re all running the same stuff.

“Nobody in the 90s in Indiana was running the set of pick and roll. Every screen was away from the ball and when you zoned, it was out of last resort, because everything else was hard, tough, man to man that has been drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled because that’s the way the best team in the state (played).”

In 2007, Stevens had a chance to meet Knight – as an opposing coach.

Stevens had just started his first season as the head coach at Butler after six seasons as an assistant. Knight, who had been fired at Indiana in 2000, was coaching at Texas Tech in what was ultimately his final season as a coach. The two teams met in the championship game of the Great Alaska Shootout, which Stevens’ 22nd-ranked Bulldogs won, 81-71.

But it was what happened before the game that struck a chord with the then-31-year-old Stevens.

“He walked down and shook the hand of every person on our staff and me, and told us how much he appreciated our team and the way our guys played,” Stevens recalled. “I say that because usually, it felt like he didn’t always do that. I think he knew where we were from. He knew that, like, we were in awe, right? And our players are in awe. So many of us dreamed of playing for him and to be there in that moment, to go against him and him to take the time to acknowledge, ‘Hey I like your team,’ meant a lot to our guys. It meant a lot to our staff.

“He was bigger than life.”

FILE – Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, left, argues a call with an NCAA official during a basketball game against Texas A&M in Lubbock, Texas, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. Knight earned his 900th career win in the 68-53 win over Texas A&M. Bob Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball has died. He was 83. Knight’s family made the announcement on social media Wednesday evening, Nov. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

Stevens didn’t develop a close relationship with Knight. He became closer with Knight’s son, Pat, who succeeded his father at Texas Tech and is now a scout with the Pacers. Stevens saw Knight a few more times, including at an event at Butler in 2011 when Knight came to the school to deliver a speech. Stevens, who was then coming off his second consecutive Final Four appearance, introduced Knight, who had kind words to share about him.

“Let me tell you, I’ve never seen a better coaching job than this young guy did and his staff to getting Butler to the position they were in by the end of the season,” Knight said to the crowd, per the Indianapolis Star.

It’s that side of Knight that Stevens likes to remember. Stevens’ wife Tracy was recently going through their old stuff when she found a letter that Stevens wrote to Knight after that Great Alaska Shootout game in 2007. Knight had sent a letter right back.

“It was really kind,” Stevens said. “Again, really complimenting our team. I think those things probably went unnoticed and probably weren’t made public. And so those are the things, when you’re in it, you get a chance to see a little bit more.”

For Stevens, it all went noticed. Knight’s influence on him was everlasting.

“I think that ultimately, he was as good of a basketball coach at seeing the game, at making simple adjustments,” Stevens said. “I think that one of the things that probably doesn’t get talked about enough, and one of my former assistants who played for him used to talk about, was just how simple he could be. He didn’t try to overcomplicate the game, and he knew when he had a good thing.

“He just was really impactful. I’m sure if you coach long enough, that people can have stories on you any which way, but I look at him as fondly as a person from impacting me and my basketball journey.”