Pretty sure I've told this story on the board once or twice before, but in the Michigan game last year I had some pretty close seats with my Dad, and I was chewing on this one official pretty hard. In my defense, he was horrible. They were jacking up threes, we were pounding it down to Mbakwe, and they had way more free throw attempts than we did. I was really steaming. At the end of the game, down like three, Rodney went to the basket, was hacked, lost the ball, outlet to Morris who waited for a gopher to catch up and got an and-1 on almost no contact. I started yelling that the ref had been missing calls all game, then I said it was a travel on Morris (because it was), then I yelled "Donaghy!" I finished up with what I thought was a pretty good quip, "I thought the state of Michigan was broke, how can they afford to pay you?" This was during a timeout on the floor with like 15 seconds left or something. He came over and leaned over the scorers table and started pointing at me and just screaming at me, "Hey, you, yes you, you shut your mouth or you're out of here. You keep talking, and you'll be gone." I responded, "how much time is left" (as if I didn't mind getting tossed so late). He said "okay smart guy, you think you're so funny? One more word, and you're out of here." Everybody around me hated the ref and was throwing abuse his way as well, and were trying to get me to keep talking back to him, (and my dad, who's also a lawyer, was yelling something about "freedom of speech" to him). I just smiled and put my hands up, and he glared at me, and walked away. I'm glad I didn't go all the way and get tossed, because I didn't want anything bad to happen to the team just because I was mad. It still is pretty awesome that it happened. Maybe my intimidation was still in his mind and that's why we got this call.
