He'd heard about the guys at Indiana. Soft. Finesse players. Pretty boys. Didn't dive for loose balls. Didn't bang. Definitely didn't talk junk. Offseason runs at Assembly Hall were as quiet as a library. Sneakers squeaking, that's all you'd hear. But in the world according to Marco, that ain't basketball. The game is grimy. Loud. Warfare, baby. He thought about the contrast before he made his entrance. A smile creased his face. This would be an introduction for the ages.
He rolled through the doors three deep, his girl Derianne and his brother Thomas at his wings. That alone got everyone's attention. "Yo dude, this is July. It's an open gym. You're bringing fans?"
That was nothing. Marco stepped onto the court, and things really got wild. He didn't know a soul.
He'd heard of D.J. White because both are from Alabama, but for the most part he was playing with strangers. Didn't matter.
"Gimme the ball," he said with a scowl from the block, his defender sealed, left arm raised above his head. Catch. Drop step. Jam.
"Y'all can't see me," he yelled in his deep Southern accent. "I'm a man among boys out here."
The Hoosiers looked at one another, their faces crunched in "What the …?" expressions. Some giggled nervously. Some were flat-out scared. The new guy was bumping folks, throwing elbows, arguing calls and scoring basket after basket. After another dunk, he landed fashionably, then gave 'em a biceps flex. Besides his crew, there were maybe a handful of spectators in the cavernous arena. But he glared up into the midlevel seats, strutting as if the place were packed and it was Saturday afternoon on national TV.
"I remember it clearly," senior guard Marshall Strickland says of that summer day in 2004. "He came in and tried to take over our game."
That's Marco Killingsworth. He doesn't slide in unannounced, doesn't fit in seamlessly. There's not a "when in Rome …" bone in his 6'8'', 268-pound body. Marco takes over, and for that the Hoosiers, and coach Mike Davis in particular, have been grateful. Davis hasn't had a no-back-down guy since he replaced Bobby Knight five years ago, and, man, does he need one now.
In recruiting Killingsworth away from Auburn, Davis sold him on being the focal point of the offense in the post and a much-needed example of what rugged play can do for you. In short, he was counting on Marco to change the disposition of an entire team. It was a lot to ask, but Killingsworth has come through. Emboldened by their new leader, the new-look Hoosiers-for much of the season at least-have crashed the glass, refused to be pushed around, willingly hit the deck. Some even talked a little trash. "Our guys hadn't seen anyone like him, a guy who talked stuff but could back it up," Davis says.
That was all just a warmup. Now Davis needs something more from the fifth-year senior, who averages a team-high 18.3 points a game and 8.1 boards. The Hoosiers are losing their grasp on their first NCAA Tournament berth in three years, and recent meltdowns against UConn and Wisconsin and an at-home heartbreaker to Iowa have again raised the heat on the forever-embattled Davis. Message boards are jammed with calls for his firing, fans show up in black and chant "Bring back Bobby." It's obviously not good for team morale, not to mention the coach's mental health.
"It bothers us because everybody's behind Coach," says Killingsworth. "But I tell the guys that if we just keep competing, something good is going to happen, we're going to make the Tournament. We've just got to get things clicking again."
Davis snagged Killingsworth to help him win games. That he would need the cocky transfer to save his job for him wasn't part of the plan. Either way, though, he couldn't have chosen a better man for the role if he tried.
MARCO'S HARD. The pain was almost unbearable. After all, 17-year-old Tommy was 6'6'', 15-year-old Stevie was 6'8'' and Marco was a scrawny 9-year-old. Almost every day, those three, plus 10-year-old Thomas, were in the backyard of their Montgomery, Ala., home, ripping their grass court to shreds. The older Killingsworths didn't take it easy on their little brothers. They threw hip checks, dropped shoulders, swung elbows.
Marco spent so much time hitting the ground and bouncing back up that he could've been mistaken for the basketball. But he never cried. Not once. Oh, he wanted to. But mom Johnnie Maedivorced from Marco's dad and remarried when the boy was 6-would have unleashed her wrath on her two eldest if little Marco had come in tearyeyed. So the brothers struck a deal. Marco could play as long as he didn't cry.
"I got my butt whipped a lot," said Marco, who's just turned 24. "I wanted the respect of my brothers, so I fought through it."
By the time Marco started playing with kids his own age, he was battle-tough. After taking all his big brothers could dish out, he figured nobody could get to him. That's why he laughed in November when some analysts implied he'd be abused by Duke's Shelden Williams. He wound up bedeviling the All-ACC defender with 34 and 10 in an eight-point loss.
"I was thinking, Do you know who I've played against?" Marco says, harkening back to his SEC days. "Mario Austin, Udonis Haslem, Marcus Haislip-I played against them and got buckets. And people are hyping this little boy up?"
The Hoosiers have found that kind of attitude contagious. "He demands toughness," explains White, a sophomore who's missed all but five games with a broken left foot. "He's not going to play with soft guys, so we play harder than we did last year. He's got a swagger, so we've got a swagger."
MARCO'S A THINKER. He constantly sizes you up. He observes your body language, measures you. He was a psych major at Auburn, and that helps him determine who's scared and who's not, who's going to fight back and who's going to melt.
Early in a game, he'll deliver a bump with his shoulder. If you roll with his body and let him go through you without offering resistance, he makes the note: You're his for the rest of the game. Other times, he'll engage you in conversation over the course of a few possessions. Your backtalk will tell him if you're sharp or a blockhead. Once he's labeled you, he'll tell you what's coming. "I'm gonna catch it, spin right and go baseline on you."
If you're dumb enough to buy that, he'll fake right and spin left. If he thinks you think he's lying, he acts as promised. Either way, it's a bucket or a foul. As one NBA scout put it, "He really knows how to use his body, and does a good job of reading his defender." (For Chad Ford's take, see below.)
MARCO'S A WORKER. It was pitch black, both outside and inside, and Derianne was always afraid. "Are you sure we won't get in trouble?" she would ask. Marco always brushed off her fears like the big-time jock he was. Then he'd get back to jimmying the door of Auburn's Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum. Once in, he'd turn on the lights to the 10,500-seat arena and go to work. They did this almost every night for three years, usually after 10.
Auburn coach Cliff Ellis knew what his starting forward was up to. But Ellis' biggest fear was that Marco would wear himself out the night before games. "Sometimes, I'd have to tell him that he couldn't go," said Ellis, whose firing in 2004 led Marco to transfer to IU. "But all he wanted to do was shoot, shoot, shoot."
While Derianne jogged around the track, Marco made himself hit 10 shots from 10 different spots on the floor. She rebounded for him when she was done running, and then they hit the weight room. It was just the two of themand a night manager-alone in the huge arena, honing his skills.
Marco, who's got just 7% body fat, didn't leave his work ethic down south. Mark Wateska, the Hoosiers' strength-and-conditioning coach, was amazed the first time he found Marco and his 1991 Acura waiting for him in a dark, empty parking lot near Assembly Hall at 6:15 a.m. Now, it's just the start of another day.
MARCO HAS RESPONSIBILITIES. He always wears a sweatsuit. Nike, Adidas, whatever. Black, white, gray, blue, burgundy. He's got about 20 of them and accessorizes with a skullie or a baseball cap. Even on his wedding day, Marco kept his look. When he drove Derianne to the Monroe County Justice Building in Bloomington on Jan. 20, it was in all-black Adidas gear. She wore a red-and-black dress. Amoura Naomi, their then-5-week-old daughter, was in a pink outfit with matching headband. Afterward, Killingsworth went to practice and told Davis and his teammates, none of whom knew their star had been about to tie the knot.
"It'll keep the girls off me," says Marco, who was engaged for a year. "It'll keep me focused. The guys on the team all want to go out and kick it. I'm like, 'I'm going home to my family.'" Davis notices the difference. "I see a maturity in him that he didn't have when he got here," the coach says.
Marco might run things on the court, but it's 50-50 at the crib. You should see him feeding Amoura, or better yet, changing her diaper. He's not patient enough. Too many times he takes it off before she's done doing her thing.
You can just see how the little cutie has changed the big guy. He's still emotional on the court, but he's not flying off at the handle, getting into dustups or questioning the coaches' authority like he once did at Auburn. "Having a family shows he's responsible," one scout says.
It has also made him see the big picture. "A lot of little stuff that used to bother me doesn't get to me anymore," Marco says. "I used to get pissed off about the smallest junk-an argument with my girl, something petty at practice. Now I chill."
Sounds like a voice of reason.
And that's just the kind of voice the Hoosiers, players and fans alike, need to hear right now.