Mack Rhoades sounds off on Big 12 officiating from Baylor-Iowa State game

By
Michael Haag
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Mack Rhoades was named Baylor University’s Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics on July 13, 2016. Photo courtesy of Baylor Athletics

By Michael Haag | Sports Editor

Mack Rhoades, Baylor vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics, made a rare appearance in the Foster Pavilion postgame press conference room. Rhoades only does something like that when he has to.

Rhoades addressed the media regarding the officiating in No. 18 Baylor men’s basketball’s 70-68 win over No. 12 Iowa State on Saturday night. Head coach Scott Drew was ejected for the first time in his 21, going on 22-year, career at the 11:20 mark of the second half.

“For those of you that don’t know, I’m not somebody who calls the officials or calls the league after every game,” Rhoades said. “In fact, I never call when it comes to officiating. It’s always about hey, we need to play better, we need to execute better, we need to play tougher, all those things. But tonight was an embarrassment for this league.”

The Big 12 referee crew consisted of Jeb Hartness, Chance Moore and Christopher Merlo, and Rhoades said their officiating on Saturday was unacceptable. He said he’ll reach out to the conference tomorrow about how it needs to be better moving forward.

“Scott said it, we have the best basketball league in the country,” Rhoades said. “And the officiating tonight did not match that, period, end of story. This league needs to get better when we think about our officiating. And we have some great, great officials. But this particular crew tonight did not match the level of this game, and that shouldn’t happen in this league.”

The Bears held a comfortable 13-point lead with 13:17 left in the game, but the Cyclones went on a 20-0 run over the next 5:21, a stretch that included Drew’s ejection. Baylor was hit with eight fouls to Iowa State’s two leading to Drew being tossed. The Bears were called for 11 of the second half’s first 14 foul calls. Baylor wound up with 18 personal fouls in the second half and a season-high 26 for the game.

Drew was already assessed one technical foul at the 10:17 mark in the first half, so when he was awarded his second, he was ejected.

Drew said he and Rhoades watched the rest of the game from the locker room and that he told his assistants to go get the win without him. Drew added that Rhoades will take care of the rest with the Big 12 Conference.

“It’ll all be broken down,” Drew said. “It’ll all be sent into the league.”

Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger commended the Foster Pavilion atmosphere and said he has tons of respect for Baylor and Drew. But Otzelberger said he didn’t have an issue with Saturday’s officiating crew.

“I think we had a great officiating crew and I trust that everything that happened was the way it should have happened,” Otzelberger said. “So, I don’t have any issue that way. I just feel like we just came up a little short.”

Rhoades said he ultimately just wants to look out for Baylor.

“I’m going to fight for our program, I’m going to fight for our school, I’m going to fight for our coaches, I’m going to fight for our student-athletes,” Rhoades said. “I’ll be on the phone tomorrow.”

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark was ironically in attendance, sitting court-side for the first half of action. It’s unknown whether he left early or moved to a different section of the arena, as he wasn’t spotted court-side in the final 20 minutes of action when Drew’s ejection took place.

The Big 12 has a rule against coaches or athletic directors publicly speaking on officiating. Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt was fined $25,000 for comments made after a double-overtime football loss to Baylor in 2019. Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard was also hit with a $25,000 fine for what he said about officials after a football game in 2014.

Baylor (16-5, 5-3 Big 12) is now tied for third place in the Big 12 standings and will host No. 15 Texas Tech at 8 p.m. on Monday in the Foster Pavilion.

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