A Petty Penny

 

“You could visibly see guys with their fists balled, talking trash to our guys. It was almost like a standoff.”

Those are the words from Memphis men's basketball coach, Anfernee Hardaway after his team was beaten on their homecourt by Tennessee, 102-92.  Does the first year COLLEGE head coach not realize that this isn't the high school or AAU level?  This game was broadcasted on ESPN, and I'm sure if the situation Coach Hardaway described in his post-game press conference had actually happened, the broadcasters for the network would have said something on air about it.

What actually happened was the on-court leaders of the Tennessee basketball team came over to the Memphis side of the court following a timeout to get Jordan Bone away from Memphis guard Alex Lomax.  Bone and Lomax had both just been given a technical foul along with Memphis Jeremiah Martin.

Jordan Bone said he should have kept his head cool when Lomax began trash talking him right before the timeout was called, and deserved his technical foul.  However, Hardaway sees it differently, "Alex is a kid that’s not gonna talk trash, so obviously Jordan Bone said something to him disrespectfully.  He protected himself by, you know, saying something back."

Really Anfernee?  The video footage clearly shows Lomax say something to Bone, which causes the Volunteers junior guard to then get in the freshman's face and start the verbal confrontation.  Hardaway said, "If you just watch the film I’m not making anything up. We even had it on the phone."  Everyone has watched the film, Anfernee, and you are the only one who sees it your way.

It would have been nice if that is where this blog post stopped.  But thanks to Anfernee Hardaway's press conference on Tuesday, there is now more to this story:

On Monday, Tennessee coach, Rick Barnes said on Vol Calls, the referees were calling the game closely and to the letter of the law.  He just wished that there was a rule in place for flopping.  Vol fans know that Barnes was saying it tongue in cheek since he is very light hearted on the call in show.  But apparently Anfernee Hardaway didn't like the comments, "No matter how he’s trying to make things seem, and I think it's kind of low class how he’s trying to downgrade my guys for flopping and all that. Man, come on, give me a break."

Coach Hardaway wasn't finished. “As a coach you’re going to try to teach charges, you’re going to try to teach to be smart," he said. "We were smaller. They played a physical game, and we knew that and the calls just didn’t go our way. As far as flopping, that’s not something that we teach. We don’t even understand that term but he seems to be focusing on the wrong thing, man. He’s blessed to have the No. 3 team in the country and he should be happy with that. And we will see each other again, for sure.”

To me, it sounds like Anfernee Hardaway is focusing on the wrong thing.  He is trying to keep his team and his name in the media by trying to start a war of words with Rick Barnes.  All he is doing is sounding petty and immature.  If he wants to talk about low class, maybe he should take a long, hard look in the mirror.  Coach Hardaway, you are at the University of Memphis now, not Memphis East High School.  You should try to emulate how Rick Barnes is on and off the court, instead of sounding like a petty high school coach.

Note:  In this blog, I refused to call Anfernee Hardaway by his nickname.  What little respect I had for him as a player when I used to call him "Penny" Hardaway is gone.