Posted on Sun, Jan. 27, 2008

NOTEBOOK

SEC referees not as bad as fans think

HEAD OF OFFICIALS SAYS RECENT CALLS WERE MOSTLY CORRECT

By Jerry Tipton

HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

Jerry Tipton

The referee was correct to call Kentucky's Derrick Jasper for an intentional foul on Tennessee's Ramar Smith in Tuesday night's game.

The referees were correct to ignore the collision between Florida's Nick Calathes and UK's Ramel Bradley last weekend.

Shot blocking can be difficult to judge, but some contact is permissible. So perhaps UK fans and talk show hosts misplaced their bellyaching about Mississippi State center Jarvis Varnado's 10 blocks against the Cats.

Trained as a referee, Southeastern Conference coordinator of men's officials Gerald Boudreaux calls 'em as he sees 'em. And that's how he saw the recent calls that inflamed the always highly inflammable UK fans.

Let's take those calls one at a time.

• Despite UK fans' appeal for justice, Jasper's position behind Smith made the intentional foul the proper call in Tuesday's game.

"Even though he sticks his hand in there to try to play the ball, because of the fact he is behind, that should be an intentional foul," said Boudreaux, who attended the Kentucky-Tennessee game.

Boudreaux participated in an NCAA conference call the morning of the game. During that call, the NCAA noted the renewed emphasis on calling intentional fouls on such plays in hopes of preventing injury.

"It was not anything hard," Boudreaux said of Jasper's contact with Smith. "Nothing flagrant. But in a number of situations where the defense is behind, any contact can jeopardize the safety of the shooter."

Generally, fans mistakenly believe going for the ball excuses such contact or that the "severity of the contact" determines whether it's an intentional foul, Boudreaux said. Not true.

A defender can contest the shot from the side, but not from behind.

So what advice would Boudreaux give the defender stuck in Jasper's position? "If I don't catch up, I need to let him go," he said.

• Bradley probably was none too happy after being called for charging into Florida's Walter Hodge last weekend. Then Calathes came into the area and Bradley ended up off his feet and on the floor.

Aggrieved UK fans wanted Calathes called for a foul.

"I saw accidental contact after the play was over," Boudreaux said. "(Calathes) lost his balance and fell into the Kentucky player. ... It was during a dead ball. It was clearly not intentional, not one of those head butts. It was one of those momentum things. He couldn't stop."

Bradley swiped away Calathes' offer of a helping hand. Boudreaux saw frustration.

"When you get put on your butt, you don't know where it came from," he said. "You just know you're on your butt."

• It came down to judgment call on Varnado."I wish it was easy to explain it," Boudreaux said of the contact on blocked shots. "Philosophically, we'd like the big men to play. Not to gain an advantage, but blocked shots are a part of the game.

Basically, it's a judgment call. Some contact is permissible. How much and where on the body must be judged quickly.

"I have a thing about ticky-tack fouls," Boudreaux said.

Refs are accountable

Whether coaches, players or fans agree with the calls, Gerald Boudreaux wants it known that the referees are held accountable.

Referees receive a DVD of each game they work. Referees are asked to mark particular calls as correct, incorrect or inconclusive.

An observer attends each game. Referees participate in a 30-minute conference call every other week to talk about calls. Attendance is mandatory and checked.

Calls are judged. Calls in the final minutes or seconds of games are judged separately. The SEC doesn't have a pass/fail standard that must be met, but Boudreaux suggested that the league wants "about 94 percent" of the calls to be correct.

In his three years as the SEC coordinator of men's officials, Boudreaux has fired 14 referees.

"I don't say that as bragging," he said. "There is accountability. If guys don't cut it, they don't stay."

Bench decorum

Going into this weekend, no SEC game had had a referee call a technical foul because a coach left the coaching box. This met with approval of the league coaches.

Gerald Boudreaux, the league's coordinator of men's basketball officials, also applauded. He had noted some "negativity" during the pre-conference portion of the schedule. There had been such technicals, most notably on Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl for having not much more than a toe outside the box. "I tell my assistants: If I wander, to remind me of where I am," Pearl said. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, when I'm out of the box, it's to coach."

That kind of zero-tolerance is not the standard Boudreaux seeks.

"We're not looking to make drastic changes," he said. "I've always said to our (referees), you have to apply common sense."

Boudreaux cites an important distinction between "talk" and "communication" between referees and coaches. Basically, communication is good. It involves a referee providing an explanation or clarification. Talk is bad. It involves a coach complaining or lobbying.

Boudreaux acknowledged his concern when the NCAA emphasized bench decorum this season. He feared it would disrupt his efforts to create better communication between SEC coaches and referees.

"There just needs to be a level of communication," said Florida Coach Billy Donovan, who's no fan of the rule. "That's the most important thing."

Donovan voiced unease about a rule that might lessen the enthusiasm surrounding college basketball.

Donovan, and one of his coaching disciples, John Pelphrey of Arkansas, expressed reservations about the emphasis on bench decorum dividing a referee's attention between the coaching box and the play on the court.

"I'm much, much more concerned about them getting the play right on the court," Donovan said.

Added Pelphrey: "I like it when all eyes are just focused on the court."

Boudreaux noted "some merit" to the point made by Donovan and Pelphrey.

"We're emphasizing to the officials: the most important thing is the game," Boudreaux said. "We need to put our concentration on the floor and the players."

Arkansas-type effort

When Arkansas' team landed at 12:45 a.m. last Sunday after losing at Georgia 82-69, the Razorbacks didn't head home to go to bed. Instead the Razorbacks headed to Walton Arena to practice.

Arkansas Coach (and former UK player) John Pelphrey got the players back on the court at 1:30 a.m. and had them practice for about an hour.

"I thought we needed it," Pelphrey told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "We lost."

The way the Razorbacks lost at Georgia probably had more to do with the early-morning Sunday practice.

Georgia led the entire second half and was ahead by as many as 19 points while Arkansas played with a lack of intensity.

"It's not like we went down there and had a slugfest and lost a close game at the end. That's not what happened," Pelphrey said. "I didn't feel like we gave an Arkansas-type effort."

Pelphrey originally had planned to give the team Sunday off, but changed his mind and let the players know about the 1:30 a.m. practice when the team met in the airport terminal after landing.

"My thought process was we need to get better and that (effort in the Georgia game) was unacceptable," Pelphrey said. "We can all make excuses. None of them are good enough.

"The bottom line is Georgia wanted the game, they played better than we did, and as much respect as I have for the SEC and as much respect as I have for the talent level in our locker room and as much respect as I have for Arkansas, I just felt like we needed to do something so we understood that effort wasn't good enough."

Pelphrey said the Razorbacks practiced well Sunday morning.

"We may have practiced better than we played," he said.

'Word of encouragement'

UK women's coach Matthew Mitchell could hardly have been more down after his team lost to Xavier earlier this season. The women defended well but lost because they made only 11 percent of their second-half shots.

"The kids looked like they had very, very little confidence," Mitchell said. "We missed layups and free throws."

At this gloomy moment, a visitor offered some timely support. UK men's coach Billy Gillispie walked across the hall to tell Mitchell to hang in there.

"I just thought it was a real generous thing for a coach to do," said Mitchell, who noted that Gillispie had his own dragons to slay. "To have someone you respect so much come by and give a word of encouragement. 'Keep plugging.'

"It's good to know the guy in that office is supportive of us."

Gillispie has attended several of the women's games.

"I thought it was a great, great thing for me," Mitchell said, "because he's one of the people in town I'd listen to at that point in time."

The women have lost only one game since Xavier. And Mitchell reciprocated by offering Gillispie congratulations after the men beat Vanderbilt.

Lofton lauded

Former Arkansas guard Pat Bradley saluted the player who broke his SEC record for career three-pointers.

When Tennessee guard Chris Lofton made five three-pointers at Kentucky last week, he broke Bradley's record of 366. Bradley played for the Hogs from 1995-1999.

"I'm glad I got a chance to see it, and it came against a good team," said Bradley, who watched the Tennessee-Kentucky game on ESPN. "I felt good for Lofton."

Bradley, who lives in Little Rock and is a radio talk show host, had mixed emotions.

"You never want to be No. 2," he said. "The only thing I'd want to change is it's one thing to get your record broken. But he's just going to destroy it, smash it."

In a bit of reflective glory, Lofton's record-breaking shooting revived Bradley's name. Bradley received text messages, phone calls and e-mails from family and friends.

"They were almost apologizing," he said. "Like this was the only thing I had to live for."

Bradley met Lofton last fall at SEC Basketball Media Days.

"I asked him, 'How does it feel to be approaching the most hallowed record in NCAA sports?'" Bradley said with a laugh to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "He said he didn't realize it was so important. We had a lot of fun with it."

In a telephone interview, Bradley mentioned how Lofton came across as a "soft-spoken kid." During their conversation in October, Bradley passed along some tongue-in-cheek advice.

"My advice was take it to the hole," Bradley said. "Everybody knows you can shoot it."

Bradley hit 366 of 915 three-point attempts (40 percent) for the Razorbacks. Lofton, the pride of Maysville, had made 367 of 869 (42.2 percent) for the Vols going into this weekend.

Academic achievement

Last week's note about UK athletic teams and their academic achievement in the fall semester flipped Tony Neely's "on" switch. Neely, who serves as publicist for the football team, made an important point: Even though the footballers' grade-point average ranked last among UK teams, they had academic achievements.

Neely pointed out:

• All 119 Wildcats who were eligible at the start of the season also earned eligibility for the Music City Bowl.

• UK's football team ranked second on the 2007 SEC Academic Honor Roll with 26 players, just one behind league-leading Vanderbilt.

• UK had two Academic All-Americans, Jacob Tamme and Tim Masthay. That tied for the most in the nation. The rest of the SEC, combined, had one.

• UK has had a first-team Academic All-American for three straight seasons, the first time in school history that has been accomplished.

'Perennial powers'

Although Florida Coach Billy Donovan always defers to Kentucky's tradition, Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl apparently sees parity when it comes to SEC basketball dynasties.

When speaking of the balance in the league this season, Pearl noted Florida and Kentucky as "two perennial powers."

Florida, which won the last two national championships, will be a factor in the race. So will Kentucky, Pearl said.

Pearl also referred to Donovan as "the No. 1 coach in our game. Billy Donovan is at the top of our profession."

Pearl saluted Kentucky as having "plenty of talent" and now getting healthier.

Crank calls

Crank calls disrupted at least two coaches' teleconferences last week. First, crank calls were made to an SEC women's coaches' teleconference. Obscene references were made.

Later in the week, crank calls were made to a Big East coaches' teleconference.

The SEC is attempting to tighten security by changing the pass code needed to join its teleconferences.

This disruption caused one wiseguy to lament a society where coaches cannot dissemble and obfuscate in a professional atmosphere.

Recruiting ...

Rest assured that UK Coach Billy Gillispie is searching for a big man to play with Patrick Patterson next season.

One possible recruit is Josh Harrellson, a player at Southwestern Illinois College. Harrellson is a 6-9, 280-pound player at the junior college. The team took an 18-1 record into this weekend's play. Harrellson originally signed to play at Western Illinois before going to junior college.

"At this time Kentucky has just looked at Josh as a potential player," Southwestern Illinois Coach Jay Harrington wrote in an e-mail. "He is a non-recruitable athlete because Western Illinois University will not release him from the national letter of intent. Therefore they have not and cannot talk to him, but they can talk to me. I have talked to many high majors and mid-majors about him. He may have to stay in our program for two years because of the non-release."

Such schools as West Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma State, Washington State, Tennessee, Minnesota and Purdue have made plans to watch Southwestern Illinois play in the near future, Harrington said.

Happy birthday

To UK forward Perry Stevenson. He turned 21 on Wednesday.

His contributions to Kentucky's victory over Tennessee on Tuesday "just started my birthday celebration, I guess," he said.

Stevenson celebrated the victory and his birthday by enjoying a late dinner with a couple friends after the game.

"It was kind of late," he said before adding, "But I still made it to class on Wednesday."