The newest analytics statistic in college basketball should be a coach’s referee-baiting efficiency. The Pac-12 excels at that category, with sideline-stalkers to match or exceed any conference.
The analytics crew at Kenpom.com should get on it today.
In Arizona’s victory over Oregon State on Thursday, Beavers coach Wayne Tinkle did not sit down the entire game. He is the new and much dreaded model of the 40-Minute Man, coaches whose bench decorum, outbursts and tantrums have surely made gentlemen like John Wooden and Dean Smith turn over in their coaching graves.
Tinkle went on an extended rant at official Ryan McDaniel when the Beavers trailed 79-58 and Arizona had inserted subs to finish the game. A little bit much, right?
The Pac-12 is overloaded with 40-Minute Men. UCLA’s Mick Cronin is the worst, on his feet for 40 minutes, denigrating the product by denigrating the referees. Cronin is volcanic, and he has a lot of company: Washington State’s Kyle Smith is a 40-Minute Man, as are Cal’s Mark Fox, ASU’s Bobby Hurley and Oregon’s Dana Altman.
These 40-Minute Men give the old basketball term “40 Minutes of Hell” an entirely unwanted meaning. Aren’t they educators first, representing their universities? Do they not have an obligation to set an example of high character?
By comparison, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd is a picture of poise. If the Eagles had someone in mind when they sang “Peaceful, Easy Feeling,” it would’ve been Lloyd — or maybe his mentor, Gonzaga’s Mark Few.
The NBA long ago created legislation to force coaches to adhere to more stricter rules for bench decorum, yet the all-but-powerless NCAA allows the growth of 40-Minute Men, those whose limp excuses are that they must spend 40 minutes stomping and shouting on the sideline to (a) make sure they get a fair break from the referees or (b) to make sure they can be heard by their players for in-game instruction.
That’s absurd. When I sit courtside at McKale Center, it’s impossible to carry on a conversation with my colleagues, sitting 18 inches away. Yet the Cronins and Altmans spend 40 minutes bellowing unheeded instructions to their players that, on most occasions, can’t possibly be heard.
In Thursday’s loss at ASU, the Ducks’ players and coaches didn’t even leave a seat for Altman. He never uses it anyway.
From everything I’ve learned, Tinkle is a terrific human being away from the court. But once the refs hit the court it’s like a spell comes over many coaches. The referees are the enemy. And when 14,000 fans see that type of behavior, public confidence in officiating erodes in a heartbeat.
Compared to many of his Pac-12 counterparts, Tommy Lloyd is a quiet — and often seated — sideline presence.
Yes, that’s been part of the game for 100 years. The reason why it doesn’t change is because the NCAA has never enforced a bench decorum rule the way the NBA does.
Feuds with referees are real; they last for years. There is no better example than the Pac-12’s Michael Irving, who called a technical foul on Sean Miller late in Arizona’s 2013 Pac-12 Tournament loss to UCLA. It was the now-famous “He Touched The Ball!” game, after which Miller was fined $25,000 by the Pac-12.
Irving hasn’t worked a single Arizona game since.
Since Kenpom.com began keeping officiating analytics in 2016, Irving has worked 407 games, including 11 in the NCAA Tournament. But no Arizona game, not even with Lloyd as a head coach.
That’s unfortunate because, according to the Kenpom.com rankings, Irving is No. 41 referee in college basketball officiating, and the seventh-best in the Pac-12. He’s in a group with John Higgins, Tony Padilla, Chris Rastatter, Eric Curry, Dave Hall and Randy McCall.
Irving has been trusted enough to work this year’s Gonzaga-Alabama, Oregon-OSU, USC-UCLA and Utah-BYU games, but he hasn’t been assigned to work any of Arizona’s last 297 games.
All because of one call in the 2013 Pac-12 Tournament.
It’s Arizona that is the loser in the ancient Miller-vs.-Irving outburst. So far this year, Irving has officiated 23 games involving Pac-12 teams, including every school but Arizona. If you want the league’s best officials working your games, Irving is among the best.
But as Tinkle exhibited Thursday at McKale, outbursts from the sideline — whether spoken or gesticulated boorishly — are almost always tolerated. It’s a growing form of overcoaching that abounds in the Pac-12.
It ignores the example of the league’s most successful coaches of the last 50 years — Wooden, Ralph Miller Lute Olson, Mike Montgomery. True, all four of those men had their in-your-face moments with referees, but within reason and with more civility than hostility.
They coached more than they stalked.
As recently as 2009, the NCAA rules committee acted to enforce bench decorum, a policy that was meant to curb profanity, abusive language and excessive gestures to display annoyance. A policy that, in effect, would’ve prevented the 40-Minute Men from making a fool of themselves and their schools at Pac-12 arenas night after night.
