Nice to see that former Rockets head coach Rudy Tomjanovich is doing well after retiring from coaching due to health problems. Among other things, he’s attending basketball games as a fan and a scout.
“Everybody likes to have some kind of purpose. When I was a coach, I loved this kind of stuff. I never got a chance. Even when I was scouting for (former Rockets coach) Bill Fitch, once in a while during the Tournament, I would go and watch games, but I never got a chance to do it like this. Now I have a history on players. I never had that luxury to have the time to see how guys have developed. This is fun.
“I’ve been doing 90 percent college. I did my first NBA game since I’ve been out. The people in the NBA arenas recognize coaches. The people around the arena were completely different. I loved going in (to college arenas) and nobody knew me, maybe one or two fans say, `Aren’t you a coach?’
“In the NBA arena, it was different. The officials checked in and saw me, Bennett Salvatore, Blane Reichelt and Marc Davis. And they were really good. (Mike) Dunleavy threw a balled up piece of paper at me. Glen Rice gave me a thumbs up. It was good.
“I just love basketball. There’s so many jobs around sports, around basketball. There’s so many people working in the arena, the stat people, the announcer. It’s a good job being around sports. The worst job of all is being head coach. Everybody else can go home after a game. There’s disappointment, yeah. But the head coach is spending the hours in agony, feeling the responsibility of turning the thing around.
Speaking as a partisan Rice Owls fan, I’d love to see Rudy T make an appearance or two at Autry Court. He wouldn’t get to be anonymous, but I think that’d be OK with him.
Given the results of tonight’s game, the Owls may not need him. Grrr.
Go Rice! Big win over Hawaii tonight.
I repeat, Grr. Home-cooking officials, maybe? Look at them free throws! 😉
I was there, and honestly, the refereeing wasn’t bad. Believe me when I say I’ve seen much, much worse. Hawaii took a lot of outside shots while Rice had more of an inside game, and Rice took several free throws at the end when Hawaii had to foul.
FWIW, according to the WAC Fan Forum, two of the refs were non-WAC refs who have a lot of postseason experience.
I don’t doubt it. I was laughing at the immediate response to the FT numbers from one of our local sports anchors: “We wuz robbed!” What the heck, tied for first with you guys ain’t bad, and there’s a tournament anyway.