Crean and the new rule

[Sir Lawrence]

From Bob Wolfley's column in this morning's J/S:

Crean ready for new rules
Posted: Nov. 3, 2007
SportsDay



Bob Wolfley

   

This college basketball season, the NCAA is having referees monitor the sideline behavior of coaches more.

A point of emphasis will be ensuring that coaches stay in their boxes and off the floor. Refs will be listening for profanity.

A coach no longer will be warned the first time an official hears a profanity. The first use of profanity will result in a technical foul, a second use calls for an ejection.

Marquette coach Tom Crean thinks coaches will adjust to the new emphasis, in time.

"We'll see how it develops," said Crean, who is in his ninth season as coach of the Golden Eagles. "I'm not that worked up about it.

Crean expects that there will be a period of transition.

"I'm sure there will be a few incidents and there will be some squabbles like there is anywhere else," Crean said.

"Any time you try to legislate how a team is being coached by somebody else who is not coaching the team, I think that has a potential to be a problem," Crean said. "You certainly don't want the other coach trying to coach your team during the course of the game. Nor do you want the referee to be in that situation where he is constantly listening for what's going on inside the team. It's an emotional game."

Crean said he has rarely left the coach's box in the past to make a point to an official. He has left to make a point to his team.

"We are not playing in half-filled buildings," Crean said. "But as far as decorum and things addressed at referees, people making fools of themselves and being out on the floor - which I have been guilty of at times - I'm much better at staying in the box. I know that. That was a point of emphasis in the (Big East).

"But I've veered out on the floor sometimes," Crean said. "I'm more concerned about the facilities we go to where you might have two chairs out of the coaching box on your bench. Or you might have just a tiny area to work with on the sideline. It's not a profession where everyone just sits there and watches the action."

Full link here:  http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=682182