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View Full Version : Good article by Dennis Dodd about the cheap shots Griffin takes



Collier11
3/22/2009, 12:57 PM
Oklahoma's Griffin perseveres despite cheap shots
March 20, 2009
By Dennis Dodd
CBSSports.com Senior Writer

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Maybe the answer is for Blake Griffin to wear a cup. You know, the, uh, protective piece of equipment used by most baseball, hockey and football players. Oklahoma's superstar sophomore has been involved in variations of those sports anyway on a nightly basis. Why not?

Protect your manhood before proving it.

Apparently, a cup isn't the most popular -- or efficient -- device for college players who want to run free and easy. Still, if you thought that Friday night's arm-drag-and-a-toss assault on CBSSports.com's National Player of the Year was bad, you were only getting a glimpse.

This has been a season filled with cheap shots against Griffin. He took stitches after an elbow thrown by a Rice player. Utah guard Luka Drca tripped Griffin, earning Drca a two-game suspension from his coach Jim Boylen. There was a concussion suffered against Texas. USC's Leonard Washington broke the man code when he blasted Griffin in the package in the December.

Ladies, you have no idea.

"USC could be in the top five," said Blake's father, Tommy, who has seen it all, having coached his son in high school. "It could be the worst."

That there is even a list of Blake Griffin's greatest "hits" is troubling. For Griffin, for Oklahoma and the sport. Imagine the 6-feet-10, 250-pound force weighing his options after this season. It's a lot easier to opt for the NBA when hacks like Morgan State's Ameer Ali are trying to steal your livelihood.

Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel reacted Friday after having a night to absorb the latest cheap shot that occurred late in Oklahoma's 82-54 first-round victory. He didn't hold back.

"It was awful," Capel said. "That doesn't need to be in our game. One of the things it could do is not want to make elite players be in college long for fear of being hurt."

Blake's father actually spoke the words above last month while his son was in the process of recovering from the concussion that basically cost Oklahoma the Big 12 regular-season title. There has been more, a lot more, throughout the season. Michigan takes its, um, shot Saturday in a second-round game against the Sooners.

"I'm amazed at his demeanor, that he doesn't go after somebody," said former coach Pete Gillen, now an analyst for CBS College Sports. "He gets cheap shotted, he gets flipped, he gets bumped, he gets a concussion. He's Superman. You can't guard him. He's the best player in the country, it's not even close."

If you've watched Griffin play all season, the situation was long ago out of control. How did this happen and why did it happen? Imagine the outcry if a North Carolina or Duke player had been a victim. There would be a Congressional investigation. ESPN would do a prime-time special on it.

Don't come with Tyler Hansbrough. Compared to what Griffin has gone through, Psycho-T has been a media fabrication. There's tough and there is having to defend yourself against talentless hoops Ninjas. For whatever reason, with this player at this time, thugs have been allowed to roam free.

"I know he's a really difficult guy to officiate ...," said Capel, who played at Duke. "You have to be physical. When I played there were some guys ... [who] got some calls. You couldn't be real physical with [Tim] Duncan. [Wake Forest's] Randolph Childress scored 40 on us in the ACC tournament. The big reason is you couldn't [indicating slight touch]. That was a foul. He was kind of a made man because of what he had done."

Griffin would love to be a made man. It's hard to blame Big 12 officiating because the abuse has extended from the non-conference schedule through the NCAA tournament. And Griffin isn't the first physical player who has been bodied up by the opposition. He is the third consecutive National Player of the Year to come out of the Big 12, but a completely different one than the previous two.

"Michael Beasley and Kevin Durant were great players but they're not near as physical as Blake is," Griffin's brother, Taylor, said. "I can't imagine how hard it is to guard Blake."

So opponents have taken liberties. You'll see Griffin, a sophomore, in the pros before you see him retaliate. That's the way he was raised. Griffin might leave for the NBA anyway after this season, especially if the Sooners make a deep tournament run.

At least in the pros he'd get paid for taking abuse. There is no question he would be a lottery pick and be in a place where at least the players respect one another enough not to hit each other in the balls.

"That's why the kid needs to go pro," said Kermit Holmes, Griffin's AAU coach and current assistant at Lamar. "You need to go get paid to get it done. I don't remember Shaq being handled like this. Blake has a temper but he directs it in a different way."

Griffin chose his words carefully when asked if the blows would drive him to the NBA. In the middle of a run that could determine his athletic and financial future, he doesn't want to be perceived as a whiner. But anyone who follows college basketball knows there is an unprecedented attack going on.

"Whenever I do make the decision to go to the next level, I don't think it [cheap shots] will be like that," Griffin said. "Guys will be more talented ... You see guys like LeBron. He gets fouled hard but nobody tries to do anything like [they do to me]. They have respect and they're not going to do anything stupid to make themselves look bad."

Tommy Griffin drilled into his son's head long ago that the abuse he is taking is meant to get him off his game. Perhaps it's the old hockey strategy. Send a goon onto the ice to goad a more talented player into a penalty. If they both go to the penalty box, the goon's team prospers.

It works until someone gets punched in the nether region or requires stitches or becomes a WWE participant.

"You can't keep doing the same thing over and over again," Griffin's father said. "It's very difficult for a guy who is just 19 years old to continue taking abuse after abuse after abuse and nobody recognizes it."

Maybe there was some small consolation that Morgan State's Ali was ejected for the flagrant foul, but the damage was done. Griffin goes into the Michigan game with a bruised tailbone. It could have been worse. The concussion, largely considered to be unintentional, forced Griffin to miss the Kansas game. The Jayhawks took advantage winning in Norman and eventually winning the Big 12 by one game. That's how much Griffin has meant to the Sooners as they prepare for the Wolverines.

It's hard to determine what's more troubling, then, as the tournament moves on: The shots taken at Griffin or the reaction to them. Late Thursday, Ali was asked if there was any remorse about what he did.

"Nah," Ali said. "I'm not embarrassed."
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