Aubrey Coleman Suspended, Offers Chase Budinger Apology

This past weekend we passed along the video and summary of the on-court incident between Houston's Aubrey Coleman, and Arizona's Chase Budinger. Conference USA has taken swift action against Coleman, but I'd hardly call it steep. He will sit out his team's game Wednesday against UTEP as he serves his one-game suspension.

The gray area in this issue most certainly has to be whether or not the stomping of Budinger's face by Coleman was intentional. I would hope that if it was clearly intentional to conference officials that he'd receive a much more harsh penalty than one game, although, we can't necessary confirm whether or not that is the case.

As it stands, though, Coleman will only be missing the one game. He also offered up an apology to Budinger, while maintaining the misstep was definitely an accidental one.

"I want to apologize to Chase Budinger for what happened Saturday night. I never meant to step on him," Coleman said in a statement issued by the school. "I have never been in an incident like this before, and I have nothing but respect for him as a great player.

"I love the game too much to do something like that intentionally. I want to say I am sorry from the bottom of my heart," Coleman said. "I know that God knows what is in my heart, but I am hopeful that Chase will understand and forgive."

Houston's also wanted to apologize for the incident.

"The University of Houston has always and will continue to uphold the highest levels of sportsmanship in every respect," Houston athletic director Dave Maggard said in a news release. "We apologize to the University of Arizona, its basketball team and to the Tucson community for what occurred Saturday evening. Aubrey will be suspended for Wednesday night's game, and we now consider the matter to be closed."

We'll see if everyone else thinks the matter will be closed after the one-game punishment.