... is John Cheney a lifelong thug or a senile old jerk who just needs to go away?

http://www.sportsfanmagazine.com/content/view/1301/29/
http://espn.go.com/dickvitale/vcolumn050227chaney.html

FWIW Cheney's had a reputation forever for playing "hard" basketball, he's the poster child for the "cleaning up rough play" POEs over the years. Now imagine you are Nehemiah Gordon's dad, and you have to read in the papers how Cheney has announced to the world that *your* kid is nothing but a goon who gets his playing time under orders to go out there and hunt for heads.

Nice, eh?

I think a better conversation might be about the officiating in that game.

- Cheney declared before the game that he was gonna send somebody out to goon it up. The officials had to be aware of that, I would think. The "goon" that he did put in ended up with 5 fouls including several hard ones, and broke someone's arm. No intentional or flagrant fouls were called, no warnings to Cheney or the player were given, no nuthin'! This aspect of the story has kinda been ignored.

Thoughts?

The 5th foul, which was a two handed shove to the chect should definitely have been a flagrant foul. I can't understand why it wasn't called.

I also can't understand why Chaney isn't catching more crap for calling his player a goon.

Good point.

Kid comes in off the far end of the bench and acccumulates 5 hard fouls in 4 minutes. Someone's gotta take control of this, don't you think?

I'm just taking a break from watching the St. Joes/GW game on ESPN2. I haven't really seen anything that St. Joes does on screens that I thought was even remotely close to being dirty. As for contact, this game isn't even close to the Pitt/BC game that I watched last night. That one was physical as hell.

I've been thinking about the officiating aspect as well. I wonder if the officials maybe didn't know about the comments.

You would think that somebody from the A10 office would be smart enough to say "Hey, Cheney's threatening to send a goon out there because he thinks St. Joes is getting away with illegal screens". He made those comments in a conference call well before the game with all the league coaches and admins listening in, as I understand it. Somebody shoulda given the reffing crew a heads up-- "hey, guys,watch for illegal screens by St. Joes and watch for Temple players trying to blow through screens".

That part of the story seems to be buried, for some reason.

I didn't see the game, but it seems reasonable that the officials would notice that something is unusual. I mean, these guys couldn't have been oblivious. And from what I understand, Cheney had been pretty vocal about the screening thing throughout the entire game. It doesn't excuse the actions of Cheney in the least bit, but I imagine that those officials had a long conversation after the game, and probably a long phone call from their supervisor.

Yep. Probably saying they should have called a flagrant on the goon.

I don't get it, Dan
 

As you can see I never post, but now in 2 threads I still do not understand your beef here.

Chaney is a Hall-of-Fame coach who has had a career, both in terms of success and loyalty, that most can only envy. You seem to not be able to take choice C, "Frustrated Old Icon", and just move on.

There is a lot to discuss here (the reffing, the gooning, the screens, the punishments) but you start by throwing Molotovs at Chaney.

Dan, why are YOU so pissed?

Re: I don't get it, Dan
 

You may as well have replaced Chaney with Woody Hayes (another goon I forgot on my list) or Bob Knight here. A Hall of Fame coaching career doesn't excuse this crap. He may be a frustrated old icon, but he made a choice (with much forethought) that is inexcusable.
He should be fired for one of two reasons. Either he's too senile and crazy to continue, or he's really a thug that can't be trusted to coach.
Tell me what parent is going to want their kid to be a bench warmer for him after this?
My God, people are acting like he got a speeding ticket or something.

Careful calling the guy a goon. Someone might thinks that's racist or sexist or something.

Re: I don't get it, Dan
 

Careful, he might not be man enough to answer your question. That might take intellectual thought to come up with an answer. Not sure that is something many here have.

I said this in the other thread, so may as well say it here also...while what Chaney did was absolutely wrong, and the officials should have figgered things out sooner, why is there no backlash against the "goon" himself? That kid went out there and broke another player's arm...did he get suspended or anything? Chaney got his punishment - and will probably get more- but what about the Gordon kid?

Re: Re: I don't get it, Dan
 

And we would need to include you in that generalization, since you haven't added a whole helluvalot to any discussions here...