Expect The Unexpected At The PAC-10 Tournament

I had the opportunity Monday to host the annual PAC-10 Tournament Tip-off Luncheon put on by the LA Sports and Entertainment Commission.  For the past three years, the LASEC has invited various clients and business partners of the PAC-10 to take part in a Q & A with the head coaches from UCLA and USC as a way of setting up the annual conference tournament held at Staples Center.

This year was slightly different because USC will not be participating in the tourney.  So instead of Kevin O'Neill joining Ben Howland at the luncheon, FSN college basketball analyst Marques Johnson shared his thoughts about both this year's regular season and the upcoming tournament.

Marques once again shared his mantra for the season and applied it to this year's tournament:  Expect the unexpected!

Kevin O'Neill Fires Student Manager For Running His Mouth

Technical fouls for criticizing officials are about as common in college basketball as alley-oop dunks.  They happen all the time.

However, they are only supposed to be handed out to coaches, although players are often guilty of loose lips as well.  But under no circumstances whatsoever, should a student manager receive a technical foul for criticizing or yelling obscenities at referees.  I guess it's a little too late to tell that to USC graduate student Stan Holt, who not only got hit with a tech in the Trojans loss at Oregon, but may have cost USC a victory.

Trojans coach Kevin O'Neill, who can curse out an officiall as well as anyone, took the necessary immediate action by firing Holt after the game.

"The referee told me he was screaming obscenities at him," O'Neill said. "That's on me and that will be rectified. It already has been. He's gone. If somebody's getting a technical foul, it's going to be me."

I applaud O'Neill for wasting no time in doing the right thing.  Albeit, coaches are still given a little slack on the decorum tip, the behavior of fans at sporting events has been getting worse and worse the last several years... foxsportswest.com:  Zip The Lip