Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
Paulus was, only in the loosest of senses, going for the ball. He was slapping down with the intent of preventing an easy layup for Costner. I'm sure Paulus HOPED he would get all ball, but his intent (and thus the force with which he swatted) was to prevent the bucket in whatever means necessary. If that meant a hard foul across the arms, so be it. The fact that Paulus hit Costner in the head (which is far from where the ball was) indicates that he wasn't being very discriminate in his effort. It is my personal belief that he was fully expecting to commit a hard foul there - if he got lucky and got all ball, so much the better. If not, well, mission still accomplished.

I agree it's not an identical situation. But trust me; fans of State (and UNC, etc) would view that as an egregious foul by Paulus. And I'd actually agree with them. It was much more physical in nature and intent than what Spears did. The only thing worse about what Spears did was that it wasn't at any point within the rules. But just because what Paulus did could be construed as an attempt at a legal play doesn't change the fact that he had a disregard for the well-being of the opposing player as a result of his actions (similar to Spears).

My main point isn't to equate the two. It's to state that what Spears did wasn't that bad. He committed a foul in preventing Henderson from getting to the spot. Henderson sold the foul by falling down. It wasn't thuggish - it was just bad (and lazy) basketball. There's a difference between thuggish play and poor play. Washington's kick to the face of Melchionni was thuggish. If Washington intentionally undercut Nelson, that's thuggish. But what Spears did wasn't thuggish - it was lazy. That's the difference.
Thanks for analysis. Guess I'd prefer to have both of them called intentional.