Pat Riley hopes Heat coaching obligations won’t distract his NCAA scouting efforts

March 26th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

It was a pleasant surprise seeing Pat Riley in the stands of the Indiana-Penn State game in Happy Valley earlier this month. I’m sure he no doubt found Eric Gordon to be a poor man’s version of Dwyane Wade, with the missed shots, turnovers and general lack of control. (Although, they both get fouled a lot.) We all know Riley has forgone some of his coaching duties to scout a few college games, including the first games of the tournament this past weekend. Warranted, I guess. The future is now.

But at this point, it’s sort of comical how little he cares about coaching the team.

“The games are getting bigger,” he said. “The ones that I like are starting to play against each other, which is good. If that happens, then that’s the matchup you want to see.”

That could mean more lost time on the bench for Riley, who holds the dual role of team president. He already has missed three games while scouting, including two over the weekend, and could miss Thursday’s game at Detroit and Sunday’s game at Boston that are scheduled head-to-head against the tournament.

“If I have to miss ‘em, I’ll miss ‘em,” he said. “I don’t want to. I will try to get back. I will try to squeeze everything in Friday and Saturday if I can.”

This was exactly the attitude I had with every class last year in college. I tried to be there, but sometimes my sleeping/drinking/general malaise towards sitting in a lecture hall sometimes made me miss ‘em. Pat, trust me, this is a good philosophy. I graduated with a GPA somewhere between Joel Anothy’s rebounds and points per game.

{HT: Sports Frog.}