Ben McCollum rips Florida as 'sensitive' after Todd Golden confronts officials

Florida coach Todd Golden was livid with the officials in a March Madness Round of 32 game against Iowa following a controversial sequence. Players from both teams had to be separated following a contentious tie-up.

Golden sprinted out onto the floor after Iowa big man Alvaro Folgueiras appeared to take a swing — either at Florida big man Alex Condon or the held ball. He helped pull players out from a scrum, then gave the officials an earful.

Iowa coach Ben McCollum reacted during an in-game interview. He called Todd Golden and Florida “sensitive.”

“I don’t know. They were just going for the ball,” McCollum told sideline reporter AJ Ross. “Then, everybody got all sensitive. Then, their people got sensitive. We’re just trying to play ball. It’s whatever. We’ll compete. We’ll fight. We’ll see what happens.”

The result of all the choas and Todd Golden’s ire? Officials ruled a double technical foul.

Rules analyst Gene Steratore explained the call. He agreed with it.

“You know what, Tom and Danny, the fact that they had the held ball, which creates a dead ball situation, right?” Steratore said. “So now we’re in a dead ball situation. If we have physical activity between both players, again, without a punch directed to them, I think you are in a good place to say offsetting dead ball technical fouls.

“We’re in a dead ball scenario there, so I really think at this point as you said, Dan, you don’t think that there’s that punch thrown to the chest, you have something of that nature, this is probably the best result to put this game in somewhat of a calming fashion to get it back down and let’s go play basketball again.”

Iowa had quickly built its lead to 23-13 following the double technicals, but Florida seemed to be sparked in front of the friendly crowd in Tampa. As Todd Golden noted, his team just needed to make some more shots. Well, the Gators began to hit some shots and close the margin.

At the time of this writing, Iowa led 28-25 with 2:54 remaining in the first half. Florida was shooting just 33% from the floor.