EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Former Michigan State and NBA player Paul Davis apologized for verbally abusing an official at the Breslin Center and being removed from his seat during the 12th-ranked Spartans’ 80-51 victory over Southern California.
Davis addressed his actions with reporters and expressed remorse on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after an official pointed him out and asked him to be escorted away from his seat near the court.
“I'm up here to take accountability — to own it," he told reporters before coach Tom Izzo's news conference.
Davis said he apologized to official Jeffrey Anderson during a call on Tuesday.
“Short conversation, but an amazing conversation,” Davis said. “Amazing guy.”
Davis said he was sorry for being a distraction for Michigan State's players during their strong start this season and for taking away from USC's experience. Davis also apologized to Michigan State fans at the game, and watching on television, the university, along with parents and kids for not being a role model.
Davis called Izzo several hours after the game and wanted to publicly address his mistake.
“It kind of went global,” said Izzo, who coached Davis when he played for the Spartans 20 years ago.
With six-plus minutes left and the Spartans leading the Trojans 67-46, television cameras showed Izzo shouting across the court at Davis after the officials stopped the game.
“What are you doing?" Izzo screamed.
Izzo said after the game that Davis was one of his favorite guys.
“He’s always calling and doing things, but what he said, he should never say in the world,” Izzo said. "That ticked me off.”
The 41-year-old Davis played for Michigan State from 2002-06 and was a three-year starter. He had career averages of 13.2 points and seven rebounds, including 17.5 points and 9.1 rebounds his senior season.
“You're a basketball player when you're here, and you're an ambassador when you leave,” Davis said.
Davis played in the NBA with the Los Angeles Clippers from 2006-09 and the Washington Wizards in 2009-10.
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FILE - Michigan State coach Tom Izzo talks to Paul Davis during second half action of their NCAA basketball game against Wisconsin-Green Bay, Dec. 21, 2005, in Green Bay, Wis. Michigan State won 98-69. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer, File)
FILE - NCAA officials Matt Potter, left, Tim Clougherty, center, and Jeffrey Anderson, right, confer to decide whether Seton Hall's Angel Delgado committed a flagrant foul during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Creighton in Omaha, Neb., Jan. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)
FILE - Michigan State's Paul Davis, left, and Illinois' James Augustine fight for a rebound during the first half of a college basketball game, March 4, 2006, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis, File)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — A day after closing out the 2025 Holy Year, Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday opened a new phase of his pontificate by gathering the world’s cardinals to Rome and indicating some reform-minded priorities going forward.
For starters, Leo signalled an emphasis on more fully implementing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized and revolutionized the Catholic Church. He called the Vatican II teachings the “guiding star” of the church.
Leo told his weekly general audience that for the foreseeable future, he would devote his weekly catechism lessons to a rereading of key Vatican II documents, noting that the generation of bishops and theologians who had attended the meetings and crafted the reforms are dead.
“Therefore, while we hear the call not to let its prophecy fade, and to continue to seek ways and means to implement its insights, it will be important to get to know it again closely, and to do so not through hearsay or interpretations that have been given, but by rereading its documents and reflecting on their content,” he said. “Indeed, it is the magisterium that still constitutes the guiding star of the church’s journey today.”
Among other things, Vatican II allowed for use of the vernacular rather than Latin for Mass. It called for greater participation of lay faithful in the life of the church and revolutionized Catholic relations with Jews and people of other faiths.
Leo has also indicated a reform-minded agenda for his two-day meeting of cardinals, which gets under way Wednesday afternoon.
He called the consistory, as such meetings are known, to begin the day after he closed the 2025 Holy Year, suggesting that he too saw the end of the Jubilee as an opportunity to unofficially start his pontificate and look ahead to his own agenda.
Leo’s first few months as pope were dominated by fulfilling the intense Holy Year obligations of meeting with pilgrimage groups, celebrating special Jubilee audiences and Masses and wrapping up the outstanding matters of Pope Francis’ pontificate.
The Vatican said Leo's first consistory was aimed at “fostering common discernment and offering support and advice to the Holy Father in the exercise of his high and grave responsibility in the government of the universal church.”
It was a significant gesture, since Francis had relied not on consistories or the College of Cardinals as a whole to help him govern, but rather a small, hand-picked group of nine cardinals who met every few months at the Vatican.
Before the May conclave that elected Leo, cardinals had complained about Francis’ go-it-alone governing style, suggesting that Leo is responding to their requests to be consulted more about running the 1.4-billion strong church.
On the agenda is a discussion of two of Francis’ key reform documents: his original mission statement issued at the start of his pontificate, and the 2022 document that reformed the Vatican bureaucracy. Also being discussed is Francis' call for the church to be more “synodal,” or responsive to the needs of rank-and-file Catholics, and a discussion of the liturgy, according to Vatican News.
The last agenda item is believed to refer to divisions within the church over the old Latin Mass, which was celebrated before the Vatican II reforms allowed Mass in different languages, with the active participation of the faithful.
Francis had greatly restricted the celebration of the old Latin Mass, arguing its spread in recent years had created divisions in the church. But Francis’ crackdown fueled a strong conservative and traditionalist backlash against him, especially in the United States, which the Chicago-born Leo seems keen to try to pacify.
There are currently 245 cardinals, almost equally split between those who are under age 80 and voted in the conclave that elected Leo, and those who are older. The Vatican hasn’t said how many are expected to attend.
One senior cardinal, though, was listed prominently on Leo’s agenda of private audiences Wednesday: Cardinal Joseph Zen, the retired archbishop of Hong Kong. Zen, who turns 94 next week, was a fierce conservative critic of Francis, especially over the pope's outreach to China, and complained for years that the Argentine Jesuit wouldn’t receive him in private audience.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Pope Leo XIV meets Cardinals and Bishops at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
