Houston Coach Thinks ESPN Doctored Budinger Head-Smashing Video

It is Super Bowl week, so I guess ridiculous news is bound to make the airwaves; it just normally isn't in college basketball.

Unnecessary Roughness

Houston guard Aubrey Coleman steps on Arizona's Chase Budinger during a game Saturday. Coleman, who denies the act was intentional, was charged with a flagrant foul and was ejected from the game.
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Michael Ignatov, Arizona Daily Wildcat

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Jeff Haynes, AFP / Getty Images

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Tom Hauck, Getty Images

Photo courtesy of DailyWildcat.com

Yet that's what's happening. On Saturday, the Arizona Wildcats (Bear Down!) took down Tom Penders' Houston Cougars in overtime, but the real story came when Aubrey Coleman smashed his foot down on Chase Budinger's face, causing Budinger to jump up (like any normal human would do) and go after Coleman.

The video that was on "Sportscenter" is right here. Watch it. Take it in, because Penders is saying that ESPN doctored the video.

They doctored it up, they put this X-ray vision thing in as if Aubrey was looking down, which painted a very poor picture of what actually happened," Penders told the Houston Chronicle's Lance Zeirlein. "We have replays from the game where they went through the entire sequence and run them back in slow motion. Aubrey's eyes never do anything but look straight ahead and then upward towards the ceiling when he saw the official give the charge signal. ESPN made it look like he was looking down and I thought it was a total distortion. And I think it was intentional on their part because I worked there and I've seen them do this kind of thing and they can do a lot with television. They can doctor it up."

Penders went on to say that he even called Norby Williamson (Norby!) and left messages but nobody has returned the call.

At first I thought this was a little ridiculous by Penders, but if you watch the video you do see what he is talking about. Coleman looks straight ahead and even though I think he knew what he was doing, he never looked down, but the graphic they added sure makes it seem like he did. I guess the best view of the whole thing comes from this picture from The Daily Wildcat in Tucson, where his face is straight ahead. That picture basically proves Penders' point.