Jim Boeheim lost his marbles Saturday night, and I don’t really blame him.

Unfortunately for Boeheim, the rules of basketball are such that wacky actions and foul language of the sort he produced are subject to technical fouls and ejection. His reaction was in response to a questionable offensive foul call late in Saturday’s Syracuse-Duke game. The Blue Devils handed the previously No. 1 Orange their second straight loss, 66-60. Boeheim was ejected with 10 seconds left in the game with his team down by two points. And as Boeheim left the court, he took his team’s winning chances with him.

That’s kind of wrong, don’t you think? It seems that sports would be a lot more interesting if, instead of drawing a technical foul or a penalty, the coach could just be ejected much like a manager in baseball. The NFL, NHL and NBA should all change their rules so that officials can eject coaches without incurring some penalty for their team.

I am not advocating for coaches to behave more irrationally or act more disrespectful toward referees. I just know that if Boeheim had been ejected without penalty, Syracuse just might have stood a chance at winning that game. His ejection effectively removed all hope of winning from the Orange.

Penalties ought to be administered to players whenever they draw fouls for misbehavior, but that is only logical because they are the ones who are actually playing the game.

In baseball, traditionally managers are thrown out of games when a call is made against their team, and usually getting thrown out is a mental tactic employed to inspire a losing team in a tight situation, or to get the fans of that team on their feet. Some of the funniest YouTube videos out there are baseball managers getting hot under the collar and doing ridiculous things to get themselves ejected. There are zero on-field penalties for a coach’s ejection in baseball.

That said, winning without a coach is not necessarily an easy thing to do. Especially in a sport like basketball, having a coach sent to the locker room is not a simple thing to overcome. However, injecting another emotional aspect into the game is an interesting thing to do. With this fictitious rule in place for basketball games, coaches would be required to keep their cool for strategic reasons, and if they think it is an appropriate strategy, they can blow up at the officials.

Say Boeheim still gets ejected, but there is no technical foul assessed. Duke is given possession while up by two points. Syracuse stands a chance at getting a steal or forcing free throws, and if that one-and-one is missed, it has time to tie or win the game. Not great odds, no, but they are by no means as tough as the ones they dealt with after losing Boeheim to the locker room.

Assistant coaches ought to also be exempt from penalization, which might make for an interesting addition to any sporting event. The youngest assistant coach could be designated as the fall guy. Anytime a head coach is looking to blow off some steam at the refs late in the game and get his home crowd fired up, he sends out the lowest-ranking coach on the team’s totem pole. Said coach lights up the refs, gets tossed and leaves to thunderous applause and a potential momentum swing. It might not work every time, but it sure would make things interesting.

And what are sports if not interesting?

Peter is a freshman in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @pbaileywells22.