Good morning West Texans and all you good, fine, friendly folks out there who wish you were . . .
5 Things
1. Baylor University has no code, no honor and has now officially exposed how they operate in the realm of college athletics. Winning matters more than anything else. Their handling of Brittney Griner’s criminal act in Lubbock has cost them any credibility they have moving forward. To say the things Kim Mulkey said Wednesday night about taking it seriously and then giving Griner only one game is a joke and should be viewed that way by fans and media alike. Anything they say and do will ring hollow with me from now on.
2. The Big 12 Conference and commissioner Dan Beebe also have no honor or code today. To blithely go along with the one-game suspension and even praise it is the utmost in abdication of responsibility. This of course is nothing new for the Big 12 “leadership”. The next time there is an instance of violence on the court in the Big 12 you can lay the accountability right at the feet of Beebe and his office. They seem to care more that the 6’8″ super-freshman makes headlines in the NCAA Tournament and generate money and exposure for the league than they do about fair-play. The Big 12 can now quit running those TV PSA’s about sportsmanship during the games by the way. They are meaningless.
3. I have many folks that I consider to be good people and good friends that surround the Baylor women’s basketball program. I hate for them that they get lumped in with this sad chapter. They are better people than those making the decisions.
4. It is a shame Kim Mulkey didn’t learn much from Marsha Sharp’s suspension of Lady Raider Plenette Pierson for a full year in 2001-2002 for doing much less than punching another player. Mulkey says that you shouldn’t define Griner by one act, but it is Griner that is defining who she is right now by her actions and Mulkey, Baylor and the Big 12 are affirming to Griner that it really isn’t a big deal. Sharp on the other hand sent a message to Pierson that Pierson accepted and grew from. Pierson would not have had a WNBA career or a trip the next year to the Elite Eight if Sharp had blindly allowed her to continue to self-destruct and destroy a team.
Mulkey on the other hand will enable Griner to continue down a path that won’t serve her or Baylor women’s basketball well in the near future. I am beginning to think that Griner will be the first two-and-done player in the Big 12 and will seek her employment in the WNBA after another tumultuous season next year. Heck even Kristy Curry, a coach with a job on the line, sat down sophomore Kierra Mallard for five games for having a bad attitude in a year where Curry really needed her. Curry wasn’t willing to compromise her values though to win. . .
5. Since Baylor and the Big 12 have abdicated their responsibility to police the game it is now up to others to do it. I call upon Lubbock County District Attorney Matt Powell to bring misdemeanor assault charges against Baylor’s Brittney Griner. Powell is charged with doing the right thing for the right reasons and this is a clear-cut case of a criminal act taking place in front of thousands of witnesses with video evidence, and resulting bodily harm. If the league can’t take care of this it is the moral responsibility of the District Attorney to do. After that Griner can face a jury of her peers and perhaps learn from that that her actions weren’t just wrong but criminal as well.
MORE LATER
HYATT
You act as if Barncastle did absolutely nothing. Brittney reacted to being thrown violently by “Saint” Barncastle and did not have a ref or player intervene until it was too late. The fact that while on the bench Barncastle was smiling after having her nose broken and joking about it with her teammates shows a little more than what the Lubbock media wants to report. Griner was 100% wrong in punching her, but you try being in the heat of the moment of a rough and physical game and then have someone intentionally throw you with the intent to land you on the ground. I bet you would want to protect yourself and maybe even hit that person. And by the way, it’s a two game suspension, more than Andrea Riley’s tirade in 2008 where she did stuff like this twice.
Hey, Matt – were you at the game? If not, did you watch the entire game on RaiderVision All Access? Are you a lip-reader?
If the answer to any of the above is “NO”, then you really need to stop talking out of your rectal cavity. Yes, you are entitled to your opinion. But, to formulate a fantasy scenario based on about 30 seconds of video is just idiotic. You cannot possibly know what Barncastle’s intent was.
If you watch the video a little closer, you’ll see that as Griner and Barncastle jockey for position, Griner reaches over Barncastle’s shoulder and tries to use her elbow to gain inside leverage on Barncastle. That is how their arms became locked together. When Barncastle tried to untangle her arm, she spun and yanked her arm away, thus causing Griner to stumble backwards. Who knew Barncastle was so strong?
Unless you are a lip-reader, you also cannot know whether Barncastle was indeed “joking” about the incident with her teammates. So now, anyone who manages a wry smile soon after such an incident is “joking” about it?
Barncastle was called for a foul on the play. That’s why there was a pause in play before Griner sucker-punched Barncastle. Barncastle left the game with one foul – that foul. Griner also left the game with only one foul. That alone demonstrates just how out of control the referees let the game get. The refs would let a foul (mugging) on a shot attempt go uncalled – but then immediately call a ticky-tack reach in foul on the other end.
It was ridiculous both ways – even though Tech did end up on the short end of the called fouls by 23-15.