The Pac-12 isn’t calling a foul on Ed Rush.
Rush, the Pac-12 coordinator of basketball officials, has been investigated by the conference for alleged comments he made regarding Arizona coach Sean Miller in meetings with Pac-12 referees.
CBSSports.com reported Rush, according to a source within the Pac-12 officiating group, informed a group of referees on March 14 during the Pac-12 Tournament he would give them $5,000 or a trip to Cancun if they “rang [Miller] up” (technical foul) or “ran him” (ejection). The next morning, according to one referee, Rush repeated officials should do the same in the semifinals against UCLA.
“He was emphatic about not dealing with [Miller],” the ref told the website. “He made that perfectly clear.”
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Rush did not commit any wrongdoing.
“We didn’t find anything that would be a fireable offense, a breach of ethics or integrity,” Scott said in an interview yesterday with ESPN Radio.
Referee Michael Irving, who sources confirmed was in the room with Rush that morning, hit Miller with a controversial technical with 4:37 left in the Pac-12 tournament semifinals against UCLA, which the Bruins won 66-64.
After the game, Miller entered the press conference still bewildered about a double-dribble call on his point guard Mark Lyons, claiming a Bruin had touched the ball before Lyons did, but he was even more upset about his technical, saying it was completely unwarranted and he had not said anything out of line. It was his first technical of the season.
Miller was fined $25,000 for confronting a referee after the game and acting inappropriately toward a Pac-12 official in a hallway of the arena.
“They don’t talk to me,” he said of the officials. “If I cuss and I’m out of control and I’ve been warned, shame on me. When I say, ‘He touched the ball, he touched the ball’ because I thought the two of them could have maybe gotten together and explained that, in fact, he did touch the ball.”
Rush was a longtime NBA official who was the NBA’s director of officiating from 1998-2003. He replaced Bill McCabe as the Pac-12’s supervisor of officials in 2012.
“He’s a bully,” the referee said of Rush. “We’re all afraid of him. He’s the most respected basketball officiating person on the West Coast and he’s been given all the juice.”