Philly guy Pat Chambers’ criticism was hardly over the top.
By Peter Gleason
Is it possible the Big 10 is too Big 10 for its britches?
Why in the world would a governing body levy a $10,000 fine against a basketball coach for criticizing an official.
That’s just what the lords of the conference did yesterday when they reprimanded Penn State head coach Patrick Chambers and fined Penn State for an outburst about the officiating during a 76-73 loss to Maryland on Saturday night.
“That is the worst call that I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Chambers said on Saturday. “They’re pulling Jordan Dickerson down. First of all, time and score. He’s too young, he doesn’t have a feel for the game, he shouldn’t call that foul. That’s one.”
“Two is, he back cut. He went down the middle. He didn’t even use the screen and he got pulled down and they called a foul on him? It makes no sense. And if I didn’t complain Newbill would have gotten to the foul line because Trimble gets there 12 times and he’s a freshman and he’s on the road. It’s a joke. It’s a joke the way we’re officiated. It’s disappointing. And there was an elbow that they didn’t want to call that they should have called that normally get called against us. Frustrating, disappointing. But, we gotta take the refs out of the game, and we didn’t.”
Chambers is the Radnor-born, Philadelphia University grad who was a Jay Wright assistant at Villanova before taking over the Nits’ program in 2009. He’s got them at 15-11 after a fast start to this season, with the 23-2 Wisconsin Badgers coming in tonight.
