Keegan: Coaches make fine hypocrites

By Tom Keegan     Mar 7, 2007

College basketball coaches can be the funniest creatures on the planet sometimes. Their material is at its knee-slapping best when they bash the media for a tendency to center coverage on the players who score the most points.

The coaches’ punchline is downright hilarious, even without the benefit of verbal inflections. It’s delivered with a pen, not their voices. When they write the names of players on all-conference ballots, they tend to write the same names they gripe about sportswriters writing about.

The way Big 12 coaches voted on their all-conference teams offers a fine example. For example, media outlets that cover Kansas University basketball consistently and rightly heap praise upon junior guard Russell Robinson. He’s tough. He’s unselfish, and there really isn’t anything he doesn’t do well, now that he’s shooting better.

In Big 12 games, Robinson made 39 percent of his three-pointers, even though he always brings a pass-first mentality. His assist-to-turnover ratio was 2.4-to-1. He consistently delivered in the clutch and showed the ability to bring out the best in both backcourt partners, Mario Chalmers and Sherron Collins.

A check of the coaches’ cop-out, six-member first team reveals two Kansas players, Brandon Rush and Julian Wright. Chalmers was named to the third team. Darrell Arthur and Collins earned All-Big 12 honorable mention. Robinson? He wasn’t among the 25 Big 12 players to make one of those teams. Just the five leading scorers earned spots. Interesting.

And it’s not just the case with Kansas. Texas A&M’s top four scorers, the top three Texas scorers and the top two scorers from Kansas State, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech all were honored, as were the leading scorers from Colorado, Iowa State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Baylor’s Aaron Bruce leap-frogged higher-scoring teammates Kevin Rogers and Henry Dugat, making him the only Big 12 player to earn mention from the coaches when a higher-scoring teammate did not.

Coaches preach defense, teach defense, praise defense, and assign playing time based largely on defense, yet they vote offense.

Robinson did make the all-defensive team. So at least the coaches got it right in that regard, considering he is the Jayhawks’ best defender, ranking slightly ahead of Rush, who gets the nod over Chalmers, not always as effective playing the man with the ball as he is remarkable invading the passing lanes.

Wait a minute, no they didn’t. The coaches selected Chalmers, not Robinson, to share defensive player of the year honors with Oklahoma State’s Marcus Dove.

The Associated Press selected 23 players, and neither Robinson nor Arthur made the cut. Wright made the five-member first team, Rush the second team, Chalmers and Collins honorable mention.

The next time you turn on the radio and hear an assistant coach advocating outlawing box scores, just realize that without them, coaches might have a tough time filling out their all-conference ballots.

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