Posted: Tuesday January 21, 2003 2:15 PM
Updated: Tuesday January 21, 2003 6:25 PM
I'm not too old to remember a time when I played youth sports and was strictly forbidden from saying anything to a referee or umpire. To do otherwise was to commit the unpardonable sin of "bad sportsmanship." Maybe I'm just becoming a fuddy-duddy, but I don't think we have enough good sports in sports anymore, which is why it's disconcerting to see college basketball coaches behaving so badly these days.
Turn on the tube any night of the week and you see guys like Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson sprinting onto the floor at the end of close games. You see Jim Harrick, Mark Gottfried and Gary Williams having to be restrained by their assistants. You hear Pete Gillen and Craig Esherick railing in press conferences against the physical defense played on their prized power forwards, with nary a mention that those same prized players might be getting away with extra contact as well. And, of course, at any moment of any game, you see coaches jawing at refs from the sidelines.
Yes, refs blow calls. Does that mean every coach is being screwed every time out? This defies logic: If a ref is shortchanging one coach, he must be favoring the other. Yet in the entire history of basketball, never has a coach said, "Man, those zebras were really trying to help us out there."
I'm not saying coaches should never be allowed to argue calls, but those instances should be the exception, not the rule. Getting on the refs for long stretches isn't just unsportsmanlike, it's inherently dishonest. Coaches often will argue even when they know the call was correct, because they believe it will influence the next call the official makes. Sitting on press row, I frequently hear coaches whining unabated through entire games. It's no wonder so many of them eventually blow a gasket at the end. That's just a natural extension of what had been going on for the previous two hours.
Some refs are good at what they do, some are bad. Some are good guys, some are jerks. Most, I believe, are trying to do a competent job in a difficult environment at low pay. So maybe it's not enough to assess technical fouls, fines or suspensions when coaches get out of hand. I say we send them all to their rooms.
Other Hoop Thoughts
I'm going to step off the UConn and Notre Dame bandwagons for just one week and say that Syracuse could well end up being Pittsburgh's biggest challenger for the Big East title. Freshman Gerry McNamara, a natural shooting guard, has progressed in impressive fashion at the point, which means the team is less dependent on Billy Edelin taking over the offense now that his NCAA suspension is over. Also, I like that Hakim Warrick is starting to assert himself offensively, which takes pressure off Carmelo Anthony.
Speaking of Anthony, I know he's the prohibitive favorite to be national freshman of the year, but I predict North Carolina's Rashad McCants will give Anthony a run for his money over the next six weeks.
I think it's fair to say that Minnesota's Rick Rickert has been a bit of a disappointment.
Interesting race for player of the year going on in the Big Ten between Illinois' Brian Cook and Indiana's Jeffrey Newton. Right now I'd give the edge to Cook, but Newton certainly got the best of their matchup last weekend.
There is no way Duke will get to the Final Four, much less win a national championship, without some sort of inside scoring presence. The Blue Devils don't need the points and rebounds so much as they need someone to keep defenses honest, creating the type of inside-outside passing that yields open 3-pointers. Shelden Williams was supposed to give Duke that presence, but so far he has been a nonentity.
When I watch freshmen Allan Ray and Randy Foye in action for Villanova, I see the type of backcourt that eventually takes teams deep into March.
All those lists of the nation's best freshmen should include this pair of widebodies, Boston College's Craig Smith and Wake Forest's Eric Williams. When did freshmen get to be this big, anyway?
Texas' T.J. Ford passes the ball to guys who don't even know they're open. Also, any NBA scout who worries that the 5-foot-10 Ford is too short to play in the league should check out his vertical leap sometime. The kid is nasty.
For a guy who used to be an assistant under Rick Pitino, N.C. State's Herb Sendek sure runs a boring offense.
Arizona freshman Hassan Adams reminds me a lot of former Michigan State star Jason Richardson, only Adams is a better shooter than Richardson was at this stage.
One of my favorite images of the season was Oklahoma's Hollis Price barking at Sampson, telling his coach to put him back in late in the second half against Oklahoma State. Sampson quickly, and wisely, obliged. Price has been playing like a national player of the year candidate the last few weeks.
Alabama is going through some growing pains right now as Mark Gottfried tries to guide the team from relying on Terrance Meade and Earnest Shelton for outside scoring to leaning on Emmett Thomas and freshman Kennedy Winston. I'm not saying it can't be done, but that's not the kind of change you want to be making in late January.
Jeff Graves is getting some quality minutes at Kansas while Wayne Simien is out. The Jayhawks don't need much out of Graves, just for him to rebound, defend and not hurt the team when he has the ball in his hands. Assuming he responds well (he had 13 boards against Kansas State), his emergence could give KU just enough depth to challenge for the title.
I must take issue again with people (most notably Dick Vitale) who argue that the 5/8 rule is unfair. Holding teams to five scholarships in one year and eight within a two-year period is perfectly reasonable considering schools are only allowed to have 13 players on scholarship at one time. Most schools don't even use the full allotment of 13 scholarships as it is. The purpose of the 5/8 rule was to prevent coaches from forcing kids to transfer simply because they weren't good enough. And I don't want to hear about teams that lose a lot of underclassmen to the NBA. I think Arizona, Duke, Florida and Michigan State are doing just fine.
I gave Kentucky's Chuck Hayes some love a couple weeks back when I put him on my All-Glue team, so I thought I'd pass along his line from the Wildcats' pasting of Notre Dame last Saturday: 17 points, 16 rebounds, five assists. Not bad for a stick figure.
It's long past due for Georgetown to build a quality arena of its own. The MCI Center is no home court.
Georgia's Harrick has to be the only major-college head coach who plays golf on game days.
Sports Illustrated staff writer Seth Davis covers college basketball for the magazine. Hoop Thoughts appears Tuesdays during the regular season on CNNSI.com.
