Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe will review tape Tuesday on the conduct of Kansas State guard Denis Clemente on Saturday, associate basketball commissioner John Underwood said.
Beebe has been out of town but was scheduled to return to the office today. Underwood said he has already studied two incidents that ocurred in Saturday's game between the Wildcats and Kansas, but reserved comment and would not speculate on whether or not Clemente would face disciplinary action from either the Big 12 or K-State.
Clemente, who had already received a technical foul for a retaliatory elbow to the back of KU's Brady Morningstar, apparently delivered an intentional hand to the side of the head of guard Tyrel Reed with 31 seconds left. Reed was blocking out Clemente after the Wildcats guard had missed a free throw. K-State coach Frank Martin said the matter was being dealt with and conceded Clemente could miss a game. Kansas coach Bill Self said he had seen the incident but added, "I'm not going to comment on it at all." Clemente apologized to his teammates in the postgame locker room. As a sidelight, the editor and publisher of Powercat Illustrated and gopowercat.com.made accusations on a Sunday night TV sports show that players on the KU bench had directed racial insults toward Clemente. Self angrily denied that had happened and said, "“That flat-out (ticks) me off. That did not occur. That does bother me a lot that anybody would say something like that.” Martin addressed that question to the Kansas City Star. “I’ve heard that report,” he said. “I have a tough enough time knowing what’s going on with my bench to know what’s going on with their bench. But I have too much respect for Bill Self that if he knew something like that happened, he’d stand up and defuse that situation.” KU guard Sherron Collins told media members Monday that he and Clemente had joked around. “It was a lot of ‘Nice shot’ or pulling the jersey out of the shorts, but nothing, really,” Collins said. “I didn’t hear anything like that. The bench maybe hollered when they’d shoot the ball — ‘Miss it’ or something like that. Racial slurs, that’s not us. That’s not even in our character.--Mike Jones.
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