Leading Off - A Push and a Shove in Cal Basketball - NYTimes.com Is it ever O.K. for a college coach to shove a player? At first, Cal Coach Mike Montgomery thought it was smart strategy to push his star Allen Crabbe, who was having a lackluster game against U.S.C. on Sunday. After the contact, Crabbe got his game in gear and led the Golden Bears to a 76-68 victory. Worked, didn't it? Montgomery said at a news conference after the game. Tim Kawakami, a columnist for The San Jose Mercury-News, was taken aback by the coach's attitude. Montgomery may well have been feeling pressure to improve the team's performance - Cal is a maybe for the N.C.A.A. tournament next month - and that "brings out the best in players and coaches, and sometimes it brings out the worst," Kawakami wrote. Last night, it brought out the best in Crabbe, and the worst in Montgomery. On Tuesday, Montgomery hit the contrition button. "It's obvious I made a mistake," he said, as Jon Crumpacker writes at The San Francisco Chronicle, and added: "In 30-plus years of coaching, it never happened before. It's something I deeply regret. It's not going to happen again. Bruce Jenkins of The Chronicle thinks Montgomery's remarks - delivered live and in person - were a good thing in a season in which Morehead State Coach Sean Woods also gained a measure of notoriety for shoving one of his players in a televised game. "Whatever the residue of Montgomery's tantrum, it was good to hear and see him speak from the heart on this subject Tuesday," Jenkins writes. When one's reputation is at stake, a few choice and sincere words travel infinitely further than a written statement. Dave Kindred, on the other hand, says that this kind of shove is no big deal, and that it diverts attention from the real problems in college sports. Writing at Sports on Earth, he says that "if the N.C.A.A. were an honorable association truly respecting the athletes as students, the players would have four-year scholarships, not one-year revocable-at-a-coach's-whim deals. They'd have five or six years to graduate, like most students. They'd have money waiting for them upon graduation in the form of a trust fund holding their fair share of the monies earned by their teams. And, Kindred concludes: "So however indignant the Cal athletic director wants to sound, whatever penalty the Pac-12 might bring down on Montgomery, the real-world truth is they're glad when these brouhahas come along. They're diversions that take our minds off the real abuses of college athletes. By the way, that same N.C.A.A. has found that the University of Miami is guilty of the dreaded "lack of institutional control" for problems in its basketball and football programs. In a game played without any coach-player dust-ups - Indiana at Michigan State on Tuesday - Victor Oladipo of the victorious Hoosiers was the clear standout. Robert Mays at Grantland was impressed: "A lot of basketball players who spend their time slapping the floor and flailing around are considered 'active,' but I can't remember watching a college player whose activity is so consistently useful. Oladipo's hands are always around the ball. If he's not taking it away from his man, he's getting in a passing lane, or blocking a shot, or tipping a rebound. Bob Kravitz of The Indianapolis Star writes that the game underscores just how good Indiana, the preseason No. 1, really is. But, he says, as Coach Tom Crean "will remind his players a thousand times in the weeks to come, there's still a long, long way to go." Better a reminder than a shove.