Last time we heard from BYU senior Jonathan Tavernari, he was in the middle of a Holy War skirmish between BYU and Utah. Not much has changed for the 6’6″ forward. Tavernari was guarding New Mexico star player Darington Hobson with 52 seconds left when the clock was stopped because of a timeout. Hobson was upset that Tavernari was playing him so closely and it appeared as if Hobson threw an elbow at Tavernari. The refs didn’t see anything wrong in the replay so the game played on. New Mexico won 83-81 but the hostility between the teams spilled over into the handshake lineup after the game. Check out this video of Steve Alford cussing at Jonathan Tavernari after the game via The Sporting Blog (warning: profanity):
While the video makes Alford out to be the bad guy, The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Tavernari went into New Mexico’s locker room after the game to apologize for his behavior. Moreover, “Alford told Tavernari that he initially was just trying to tell him that he had a heck of a career at BYU.” Sure sounds to me like Tavernari is the a-hole in this one, even if Alford is getting all the bad press. By the way, that’s a heck of a win for New Mexico. At 27-3, they’re likely headed for a three or four seed in the tourney and they’ve proven they can win anywhere.
