One man’s aggressive hand-check is another man’s ticky-tack foul. That has never been more true than in the Big Ten this season, where the NCAA rules committee’s new emphasis on reducing rough play has come home to roost.
With No. 17 Wisconsin set to visit East Lansing on Saturday for a rematch of last year’s bruising NCAA semifinal with Michigan State, everybody will be watching the referees. They’ll also be watching MSU coach Tom Izzo and acting Wisconsin coach Brad Soderberg, trying to gauge their reactions to what happens on the court.
Last year’s 53-41 Spartans win at the Final Four in Indianapolis is widely considered to have precipitated this year’s attempted crackdown. Michigan State led the Badgers 19-17 at halftime before pulling away. Soderberg is convinced the reaction to that game played a role in former coach Dick Bennett’s decision to retire this year.
Soderberg and Izzo believe the NCAA is trying to fix something that didn’t need fixing, but they disagree on the impact the committee’s new emphasis has had.
“I think it’s ridiculous how it’s being administered,” said Izzo, whose team’s 23-game winning streak was stopped Sunday by Indiana. “I don’t think officials have done a bad job, but I hope the media and TV and the fans realize the best players are not going to be playing the whole game and that the games are going to last forever. The touch stuff that’s being demanded to be called to me is ridiculous.”
Soderberg, though, said his team appears to be benefiting from the new policy.
“I do agree that the Final Four game was kind of the centerpiece of the decision to make hand-checking a point of emphasis,” Soderberg said. “I don’t agree that that assessment was correct, but the ironic thing is I think it has helped us because as soon as the verdict came down we spent a lot of time working with the guys on defending with our hands off and not showing any indication we’re fouling. Now that the verdict has come down we can live with it and I think we’re better defensively because of it.”
Soderberg wasn’t pleased by the effect the policy had on Bennett, however.
“In my opinion, ” he said, “the overall reason for his retirement was the cumulative effect of 35 years of coaching. I don’t think it was any one thing but I do think that that contributed. I think there was some real distaste that those comments came out in his most glorious moment. Our goal was to keep the score down and I think he took some of that personally.”
No guts, no glory: Interim coach Mike Davis said he had zero interest in taking Michigan State to overtime Sunday. When the Hoosiers called a timeout with 8.3 seconds to go and the Spartans leading by two points, Davis went for the win instead of the tie. Kirk Haston’s three-pointer over Zach Randolph at the buzzer gave Indiana the 59-58 upset.
“I told [Kyle] Hornsby `if you’re open, shoot it and if not look for Kirk on the fade and Kirk will be open to shoot it,'” said Davis. “If we missed the shot we missed the shot and our guys would be feeling good about themselves because we would have lost to the No. 1 team in the country by two points. In overtime, maybe they [Hoosiers] celebrate and we lose by 10 or 15 and that takes away from everything we had done up to that point.”
