KFDM COOP Posted March 11, 2008 Report Posted March 11, 2008 Tubbs impressed with what Roc’s Cards pulled off Bob West column for Wednesday, March 12 The Port Arthur News Once upon a time you pushed Lamar University athletic director Billy Tubbs’ hot button by mentioning the word referee. Until the day he retired, Tubbs fought a running battle with the striped shirts as a head coach who won big at Lamar, Oklahoma and TCU. The best Billy versus the officials story has been told over and over but it never gets old. Fans at Oklahoma were irate at calls going against the Sooners in a game with Missouri, and began littering the floor with whatever was handy to throw. One of the officials stopped the game, went to Tubbs and demanded that he tell the fans to stop throwing things or a technical foul would be assessed on the Sooners. Billy, who obviously agreed with the fans, refused. The official then said he would assess a technical on him if Tubbs’ didn’t make the announcement. In light of being threatened, the irate Sooner boss stomped down to the scorer’s table, grabbed the microphone and said, “No matter how bad the officiating is, please don’t throw things on the floor.†A technical quickly followed. These days, however, Tubbs and the referees have a running love affair. Before every Lamar home game, the officiating crew for that night comes over and exchanges pleasantries with the AD. They shake hands and laugh and lie to each other. When the Cardinals played Texas-Arlington on Valentine’s Day, I was fully expecting that night’s trio of referees to present Billy with roses. Anyway, now that refs are not the hot-button issue they once were — Billy says the calls don’t look as bad as they used to — the best way to get Tubbs stirred up is to get him started on the NCAA selection process. He’s basically repulsed by bubble talk and the fact that middle of the pack teams from power conferences worm their way into the NCAA field. “The Big East is going to get eight teams in,†he snapped. “If you are eighth in your conference, why do you deserve to be playing for the national championship? If you don’t win more than half the games in your conference, why should you even be in the conversation? “But it’s become the American way to reward losing, so that’s what we’ve got. It used to be you had to win your conference to get in the NCAA. Now you can be like Syracuse, never leave home for a non-conference game, go 9-9 in an overrated conference and you are on the bubble.†Lamar, of course, was abused worse than any team in history by the NCAA tournament committee’s big dog mentality. Pat Foster’s 1983-84 team finished the regular season 25-4, with two of the losses by one point at Wichita State and Utah State. A third loss for the regular season SLC champs was by three points to Karl Malone and Louisiana Tech in the championship game of the SLC tourney. Those Cardinals, with basically the same team that had routed Alabama by 23 points in the NCAA the year before, reportedly had an RPI of 19. They deserved to be about an 8 seed. Instead they got the shaft, so a seventh or eight place team from a power conference could be in the field. Broken hearted, they wound up in the NIT. The current Cardinals don’t have to worry about that kind of snub. Although they are Southland co-champs, their RPI is 146. Their only chance to play in the NCAA is to win the league tourney that begins Thursday in Katy.
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