Andy Katz Unfairly Throws Rick Ray Under the Bus

We are a little over a week removed from the Rick Ray/Marshall Henderson confrontation/episode/yelling at each other event that drew a lot of attention. We joked around about it because honestly I didn’t think it would blow up like it did. And we held off on publishing anything else while others around the internet gave their takes – just letting it die off. But ESPN columnist/reporter Andy Katz decided to bring it back up today…and while he was at it throw Rick Ray under the bus.

Katz’ story was about how Marshall Henderson had grown up. How he had matured and was ready to lead the Ole Miss basketball team. Well that’s highly, highly debatable but I’ll let it lie. The issue I have is Katz’ intro…

"Marshall Henderson was heading back to his team’s bench last week, a victory over rival Mississippi State in hand, when Bulldogs Rick Ray yelled an obscenity at Henderson.The Bulldogs’ coach apologized. He was in the wrong, not Henderson."

Of course he didn’t include the .gif of Henderson strutting and talking smack to go with it. To the casual observer they’d have to assume Mr. Henderson was calmly walking back to the bench when out of nowhere Coach Ray yelled obscenities at him – Mr. Henderson was completely blind-sided by it.

Well that narrative Katz is using to put out his propaganda piece (I have no idea what inspired this other than maybe the Ole Miss SID leaving him 1,000 voice mails to do so) is completely false. You may have heard by now exactly what Henderson said to Ray: “get your goons off our mother-f—ing floor”.

Should Rick Ray have said “f— you” to Henderson? No way. Was it completely inappropriate? Absolutely. And Coach Ray apologized for that as he should have…

"I responded inappropriately to an Ole Miss player in our game, I reached out to coach Kennedy immediately to apologize and subsequently to the player too. There is no reason for a coach to ever have interaction with an opposing player, ever, regardless of the circumstances. I was more upset with our performance than the player. I was totally at fault."

That’s Coach Ray taking responsibility for his actions. Still no word from Ole Miss on taking responsibility for Henderson and his actions.

Marshall Henderson is a grown man. Just because he plays college basketball doesn’t mean he’s a kid. He’s not a teenager – he’s 23 years old….he’ll be 24 later this year. That’s a grown man.

I was married with a college degree and a corporate job when I was that age. I have a brother-in-law who had a full time job supporting his wife and one year old child at that age. Andy Katz even said himself Henderson “is all grown up”. It’s amazing this was necessary for an article – to declare a player who turned 23 five months ago is now grown up.

There was no excuse for Henderson’s antics at the end of that game. There was no excuse for Coach Ray’s either. And there’s no excuse for Andy Katz throwing Rick Ray under the bus for the lead in his story. He’s insinuating that Marshall Henderson is more mature than Rick Ray – that has to be the most asinine commentary in the entire sports universe.

Gregg Ellis, our basketball SID wasn’t too please with the story…

This story was so bad even Matt Stevens was offended by it…