Top Coaches Win Ejections Very Quickly
There was a rash of coaching ejections recently, but what made the heave-hos so noteworthy was that two of them came in the game’s opening minutes.
Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun was the first of three high-profile coaches to go when he was ejected with 8:47 to go in what turned out be a 63-56 Huskies’ win over Providence.
Two days later, on Jan. 29, Gary Williams of Maryland was ejected 5:51 into the Terrapins’ 85-59 loss to Duke. The first technical was assessed for language, the second for leaving the coaching box.
“It’s really a bad feeling because you ask your players to work really hard and do a lot of things for the good of the team and obviously what I did wasn’t for the good of the team,” Williams said. “I feel bad but I also feel frustrated because of the situation.”
Two days after that, Minnesota’s Clem Haskins didn’t even make the first TV timeout, getting tossed 4 minutes into the Golden Gophers’ 95-82 loss to Indiana. He was ejected after he charged onto the court to protest an out-of-bounds call.
“It’s us against the world. That’s my attitude,” Haskins said. “We don’t expect to get any calls. We haven’t in my 12 years. We just go out and play the game as hard as we can. I lost my cool in the first half. I’m a fierce competitor. He called two quick ones. But again, that’s basketball. The officials have a job to do and I have a job to do as a coach to protect my team, my players, and that’s what I was fighting for. The referee didn’t quite see it that way.”
The same day, Haskins was ejected, Northwestern State’s J.D. Barnett was ejected from a loss to Nicholls State and St. Joseph’s assistant coach Monty Ross was ejected from a loss to St. Bonaventure.
Buzzing around
Antonio Grant’s consecutive recent game-winners for South Carolina had fans and media bringing up Keith Van Horn’s heroics of last season for Utah.
Grant had a tip-in with less than a second to play to give the Gamecocks a 74-72 win over Florida. In the next game, the redshirt freshman hit a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer to cap a 23-point comeback in a 67-65 victory over Cincinnati.
Van Horn started the close of his All-America season with buzzer-beaters in Utah’s Western Athletic Conference tournament wins over Southern Methodist in the quarterfinals and New Mexico in the semifinals.
Record streak
With UCLA’s 88-68 victory over Washington State on Jan. 29, the Bruins guaranteed themselves a winning season for the 50th straight year, an NCAA record.
The last losing season was 1947-48, when the Bruins were 12-13. The following year, John Wooden became head coach, and his first team went 22-7.
Who’s playing?
With the latest of this season’s player disciplines at Fresno State, reserves Demetrius Porter and Larry Abney are the only scholarship players on the Bulldogs roster not to have been suspended, ruled ineligible, enter rehab or quit.
Tremaine Fowlkes and Avondre Jones were suspended last Saturday for violating unspecified team rules, raising this season’s suspensions to nine.