As we endeavor to understand how All-American sophomore guard Marcus Smart came to spend the last 24 hours as a talking point instead of a point guard, this is not a bad place to start. At a moment when Ford ought to have had the safety and well-being of his most important player foremost in his mind, Ford was focused on how to rescue the lost cause of defeating the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
Ford said this himself Sunday evening, as he discussed the Big 12’s decision to suspend Smart for the next three games for his altercation with a spectator near the conclusion of Tech’s victory late Saturday. Whether or not Ford witnessed Smart shoving one Jeff Orr, he’d have to have been blindfolded not to see a technical foul called — and Smart needing to be walk-shoved back to the OSU bench by a teammate. Though Ford removed Smart from the game, he did not ask that he be escorted to the locker room out of concern for an additional altercation that might result from a court storm.
He did not have this concern, he said, until the fans were on the floor. “I didn’t think much about it,” Ford said, “because I was still trying to figure out a way to win the game.”
Ford talked an awful lot about the need for Smart to learn from his actions at Texas Tech, but it’s rather a shame Smart had to go this far and have such a dramatic education shoved down his throat. If there are lessons to be learned, they ought to have been taught by his coaches, by Ford. But it appears Ford was too distracted with trying to win games.
What happened in the Tech game was the culmination of a pattern of Smart's growing frustration over the Cowboys’ recent struggles on the court, traced to the injury to senior center Michael Cobbins that damaged the Cowboys' balance and team defense. Smart both was playing and behaving on and around the court with an increased sense of desperation that was not in line with the persona he’d established for himself in his time as a college basketball player and prospect.
Smart was beloved — and described the ultimate leader and winner — by his coaches with the U.S. junior national team, from Florida’s Billy Donovan to Gonzaga’s Mark Few and on down the line. Ford said he knows what Smart stands for as a person. “Marcus is a young man who has been in the public eye for quite a bit,” Ford said in Sunday’s press conference. “I think we would all agree for the highest percentage of the time, he has conducted himself as a tremendous young man.”
Indeed, we probably would. But for the percentage of the time that contains the past three weeks, Smart has been out of character. His flopping was the first small alarm, but then came the kicked chair against West Virginia and the playing style that became more ragged and outlandish. Which is not to say it was predictable that Smart would go literally over the line separating the athletes from the spectators. It is to say that if lessons were to be taught, they could have occurred sooner and with demonstrably less drama.
It’s never much fun to look back at the “Crosstown Punchout” that developed between Xavier and Cincinnati near the end of their rivalry game in the 2011-12 season. But we can compare how Ford sat at the press conference podium after the Texas Tech game and declared that he did not know what occurred to Bearcats coach Mick Cronin’s direct, authoritative approach immediately after several of his players were involved in a benches-clearing brawl.
Cronin told he media he’d ordered the players to remove their uniforms and said they would not be returned “until they have a full understanding of where they go to school and what the university stands for and how lucky they are to even be there, let alone have a scholarship." He said he would gather with the school’s president and athletic director to determine who would be permitted to remain on the team. Look at what Cincinnati has become as a program since.
There was no hiding behind “I don’t know” until someone higher up was forced to impose the discipline — discipline that in Smart’s case became more severe, more embarrassing and more consequential for both Smart and the Cowboys as a team.
Ford referred several times to the notion Smart had made “a mistake.” For once in the case of an athlete being disciplined, the noun was a fit. Those athletes caught with marijuana or busted for DUI or driving someone else’s rented vehicle have only made the mistake of getting caught; they fully intended to trying to get away with those particular transgressions.
In Smart’s case, his intention was to get off the floor near the end zone stands, walk back to the court and complete the business of absorbing another frustrating loss. Instead when he heard an insult from an audience member — Orr said he called Smart “a piece of crap” and did not use any racial slur — Smart lost his temper and reacted as he did. That, folks, is a mistake.
For that, he will miss three important Big 12 games that might cost him a chance to end his college career in the NCAA Tournament. He will continue to be recycled through the highlight shows, and his altercation will be revived when he returns Feb. 22 for a second game against Texas Tech.
“It does not make last night's wrong a right, but when you're around somebody every day like I am, you know that he is a 'no, sir' and a 'yes, sir' type of guy who will do whatever you ask him to do and tries to uplift his teammates whenever he can, even when he's going through difficult situations,” Ford said. “He's done a lot of good. I get a little disappointed that some of that will get lost in all of this, but I told him that he can get that back by how he conducts himself, learning from this and moving forward.”
Smart is a fine young man. He made a mistake. He is being appropriately punished. The shame of it is, all this might have been avoided. It can be hard to learn when your teacher isn’t doing an effective job.
The more you see of Iowa's Gabriel Olaseni, the more there is to like
For the first two years, he was another big guy in practice, less experienced and accomplished than the others, and perhaps less promising. Gabriel Olaseni did not play much as a freshman, only a little more as a sophomore. With Iowa having so many frontcourt options on its roster, there was no particular reason to expect that would change in his third year with the Hawkeyes.
And after the first game of his junior season, that assumption seemed to be entirely accurate. He got in for 17 minutes against UNC Wilmington, lasting so long in part because the Hawkeyes won by 43 points. He tried eight shots in that game. He made one.
Saturday, Olaseni turned into his right shoulder from the right mid-post and stuck a 10-foot jumper right over a Michigan defender’s forehead. You know how hard that is to do, how fast and accurate the shooter’s release must be to make that work, how few high-level basketball players are skilled enough to attempt it?
This, part of an 85-67 Iowa rout of the No. 109 Wolverines, merely was the latest of the magical moments Olaseni has produced for the No. 17 Hawkeyes over the past month. He gradually has usurped the importance and playing time of the other two post players, senior Melsahn Basabe and sophomore Adam Woodbury. They remain essential contributors, but neither is the sort of game-changer Olaseni has become.
The other two start; Olaseni, who came to the U.S. from London to play in high school at Kansas’ Sunrise Christian Academy, still comes off the bench. For the past three games, though, he has played more minutes than either, and deservedly so. In Big Ten play, Olaseni has produced four double-figure scoring games, five games of six or more rebounds and five games with multiple blocks. And only once in all of that did he play more than 20 minutes.
Scott Dochterman of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids pointed out Olaseni largely was missing from the second halves of losses to Ohio State, Michigan State and Michigan, averaging about 6 minutes. And, indeed, it was notable to see Basabe on the floor toward the end of last Tuesday’s Ohio State loss, unable to make a serious impact on the game.
“I don’t think you can just break it down that way,” McCaffery said, according to the Gazette. “What kind of game is it? Who we’re playing against? What kind of lineup do they have on the floor? What’s the score? He’s played extremely well and, little-by-little, he’ll get more minutes.”
Few teams enjoy such a wealth of big men. In addition to those three, there are versatile forwards Aaron White and Jarrod Uthoff. But for Iowa to mount a February challenge in a Big Ten race currently confined to the Michigan schools, and a deep run in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments, “more” minutes for Olaseni eventually should mean “a lot.”
Memphis' Joe Jackson produces moment for the ages vs. Gonzaga
Whatever occurs from now until his college basketball career ends, and you can see that coming in the distance, Memphis guard Joe Jackson always will have this moment.
It will be in there with a couple of David Vaughn put-backs to get the Tigers to the Sweet 16, Penny Hardaway’s over-the-shoulder pass while seated on the floor against Marquette, with Andre Turner’s buzzer-beater against Boston College and with any number of Derrick Rose shake-and-bake maneuvers from the 2008 NCAA Tournament. People will talk about the night that little Joe, their Joe, celebrated his 22nd birthday by jumping from where he stands (6-1, allegedly) to where Przemek Karnowski stands (7-1, no doubt) and snuffed the Gonzaga big guy’s attempt to dunk from in front of the goal.
No. 23 Gonzaga led their non-conference game Saturday by 11 points at the time Jackson blocked that dunk. The No. 24 Tigers (18-5) gave up only 12 points and scored 29 in the nearly 14 minutes that remained and won, 60-54. It was the 100th victory in the careers of Jackson, guard Chris Crawford and walk-on Trey Draper.
“Joe’s block in the second half was the biggest play in the game from a confidence standpoint. It gave us the will to finish out the game,” Crawford said. “I always joke around with Joe about his height, but I think he showed us all something special with that play. Plays like that, show you how tough Joe Jackson can be.”
Jackson went to White Station High, just a few miles from the Memphis campus, and there he earned McDonald’s All-American honors by scoring 3,451 points, the second-best total in county history behind the legendary Bingo Smith (and ahead of Hardaway, Elliot Perry, Cedric Henderson and one or two others who could play).
Although he led Memphis to a Conference USA Tournament title as a freshman with a stirring performance in a road win at UTEP in the final game, his early career was a hot mess of pressure and expectation, much of which he placed upon himself. He nearly left the program midway through his sophomore year. But after meeting with Pastner and hearing what needed to be said, Jackson stayed. He now has a University of Memphis degree, three NCAA Tournament appearances on the way to four and 1,531 career points that place him 10th on the school’s career list with a legit shot at No. 6 Henderson, who has 1,697.
Jackson told Sporting News last year it would have been easier to go elsewhere, somewhere people didn’t expect him to be the guy who scored at will in high school. He eventually discovered, though, it would not have been better.
“It was just frustration. I was just a child trying to get out of the struggle,” Jackson said. “I didn’t leave. I stayed. Sometimes I look back on that and wish I’d never have done it, because it makes you look like you’re a crybaby or something like that. But it’s not even that.
“I tried to rush into the process, but you can’t rush into it. I’m trying to be great. I’m not trying to be just a mediocre ballplayer. So it’ll stress you out.”
There is more to come for Jackson, and perhaps bigger victories still. It’s hard to imagine he’ll ever producer a bigger moment, though. For an instant, he was 7 feet tall.
