Ted Valentine on Mick Cronin confrontation: ‘I was totally wrong’

The confrontation between referee Ted Valentine and Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin on Saturday was pretty nasty. Both guys got in each others’ faces during the second half of Cincinnati’s game with UConn, yet somehow Cronin did not receive a technical. That’s because Valentine realizes he was an equal aggressor in the situation. In fact, Valentine admitted to Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis that he was “totally wrong” for his conduct.

“I was just totally wrong. I was out of place by walking into his space,” Valentine told Davis by phone on Sunday. “It was just one of those situations where I got caught up in the moment. I was out of bounds because I walked into his domain. That’s why I didn’t give him a technical because I knew I was wrong, and two wrongs don’t make a right. If it had been 15, 16 years ago, I never would have caught myself like that.”

I suppose the good news is Valentine admitted his mistake and that he was wrong. That was big of him, and for that reason it probably was fair that he didn’t give Cronin a tech. But that incident was pretty ugly. Any time a ref steps to a coach and a coach has to be restrained by his players it’s pretty bad.

Cincinnati wound up losing the game 51-45.