My Two Cents: Penn State's Micah Shrewsberry Has a Point on Inconsistent Big Ten Officiating
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — It's a rite of passage during the Big Ten basketball season for everyone to rag on the referees. Everyone does it. Coaches? Check. Players? Check, check. Fans? Right or wrong, practically every last one of them.
Indiana coach Mike Woodson got pretty upset last Thursday at Iowa, first over a ridiculous delay of game technical on Jordan Geronimo and then, near the end of the game, when a technical was rescinded. He had harsh words for Iowa coach Fran McCaffery for storming toward Indiana's bench, but he was more upset that the officials didn't do anything about it and he complained loudly to the Big Ten office afterward.
We haven't heard a peep from the offices in Chicago since then, though.
Then on Sunday, Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry had reached his limit with Big Ten referees, too. After letting a lead slip away against Purdue while losing 76-63, he had had enough and went off in his postgame press conference.
It was a doozy, too, from the second-year Penn State coach who was an assistant at Purdue beforehand.
“There were a thousand points I was trying to make,” Shrewsberry said when asked about his animated conversations with the referees. “I don’t know. You get frustrated after a while. This isn’t a one-time thing. This is an every time thing. I know I haven’t been here long, and I haven’t done anything in my career to earn any kind of goodwill from the officials, but we shot three free throws. I know they only shot seven, but it was a really physical game. The game didn’t warrant 10 free throws by both teams. Both teams were out there fouling.
"If we want to be the best league in the country, then we need our officials to be the best in the country.”
Shrewsberry said he's often disrespected. He said one official last week didn't know his name. "Call me by the right name," Shrewsberry said, shaking his head. He also felt that the crew doing Sunday's game treated him "like I don't understand the game."
"They are good officials, but, I don't know, I’m frustrated. Because it’s not just today. It's every day, it's every game, every time we step out there. People guard us the same exact way. It's not OK, unless you just want us to lose.
"This might hurt me when we [play] Indiana, because somebody’s feelings are hurt because I’m saying this. But I’m going to fight for my guys always.''
Shrewsberry, who's still very close with Purdue coach Matt Painter, didn't want to make it sound like he was taking anything away from Purdue. His rant was all about the officials, 100 percent.
"This has nothing to do with Purdue. Purdue kicked our asses. That was all them,'' Shrewsberry said. "But I get frustrated. I’m going to fight for my guys. I’m always going to fight for my guys and if I've got to get a [technical foul], I’m going to get a tech. If I've got to get kicked out, I've got to get kicked out. I am going to fight for my guys. I’m going to fight for this program to get some frickin' respect."
Penn State is 11-5 overall and 2-3 in the Big Ten. They lost twice last week — to Michigan and Purdue — snapping a five-game winning streak. They've played well for long stretches in games, and then things turn on a dime. They haven't been able to finish, and he thinks the officiating might have something to do with that.
Shrewsberry did bring up ramifications, and the first check on that is on Wednesday, when his Nittany Lions host Indiana, who's no longer a top-25 team for the first time all year after losses to Iowa and Northwestern. The Hoosiers are 10-5 and just 1-3 in the Big Ten.
There's going to be plenty of frustration on Wednesday night in Happy Valley, on both sidelines. And that's going to make for a very interesting night.
Shrewsberry has some valid points. There should never be a time when a Big Ten official doesn't know his name, not after a year and a half as a head coach in the most popular college basketball league in America. That's part of game preparation for any official. You know the coach's name, the top players' names, the captains at least.
I used to referee high school basketball in Florida between my media careers, and that was always part of my prep work for a game. Know the coach, know which players could be talked you if things were slipping out of control. That's a must.
It's also no coincidence that Courtney Green was officiating both games in question. He's not on my list of best Big Ten refs, not even close. Others would agree.
Green was the one who called the technical foul on Geronimo in Indiana's game at Iowa, and that was totally uncalled for. That happens in games all the time, where a player will flip a wayward ball back to the official. That should have a warning at most.
The Big Ten is a tough, physical league and it is hard to officiate. But the guys who do league games, they need to be better. And that starts, certainly, with at least knowing the names of the guys coaching the game.
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