Conflict of interest is an interesting concept in the sense that the phrase is usually used only in situations that involve lots of cash. The phrase tends to cloud the real point of a dilemma.

Enter the newest March Madness controversy created by ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb after the Wisconsin/Indiana contest Monday.

“It’s obvious that there may not be a real clear-cut, a clear-cut bad call made on this particular play,” Gottlieb said Tuesday. At this point, Gottlieb is completely right, as his job involves questioning officials.

“Mike Davis obviously went nuts, but Rick Hartzell was the official who was in position and that conflict of interest, or at least the appearance of the conflict of interest, is apparent because Rick Hartzell is the athletic director at Northern Iowa.”

I was unaware that Northern Iowa and Indiana basketball had a connection. However, there is a curse word that is repeated during the month of March: bubble.

“Now if he’s the Athletic Director for a bubble team, why is he officiating a game involving another bubble team in a game that could cost Mike Davis his job and could definitely cost Indiana a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament?”

This was a stretch, but a point worth bringing up nonetheless. The Big Ten Conference immediately responded with a typical arrogant response.

“The Big Ten has communicated its extreme disappointment and concern to ESPN’s management relative to statements made by Gottlieb at the halftime of Thursday’s Purdue at Illinois basketball game on ESPN2. Neither statement should have been made, and in our view these statements represent an example of irresponsible sports `reporting.'”

Let me first point out that I bet the public relations employee who wrote this response for Big Ten commissioner Rich Falk has no clue what responsible reporting is.

Second of all, both members of the Hatfield and McCoy situation missed the train of objectivity on this matter.

The real question is if Hartzell should be officiating at all, Not that I’m trying to deny a man his legal right to a profession, but there could be a correlation made in any game Hartzell takes the floor in.

I cannot think of one legitimate reason why a member of a university’s athletic department should be in control of the action on the field, court or ice.

Plus, just out of curiosity, shouldn’t Hartzell be busy performing his duties as director of athletics at Northern Iowa rather than refereeing college basketball games.

Seems to me that the NCAA should be less concerned with broke college athletes fixing games when fans and members of the media can point out potential fixes going on with the zebras.

And for that matter, shouldn’t the Big Ten Conference be more concerned with solving the perceived problem and not an ESPN analyst’s comments?

Conflict of interest. What an interesting concept.

Matt Stevens is a junior journalism major. He can be reached at [email protected]