In the second half of Iowa's game at Michigan Thursday night, Hawkeye big man Aaron White was the recipient of an extremely dubious technical foul after this was classified as hanging on the rim:

Since White had been T'd up earlier in the game for taunting, the common thought was that his evening was done. Not so, apparently, as White's rim-hanging was deemed a "class B technical foul," which resulted in him being able to stay in the game.

Since pretty much nobody had any idea that there were differing levels of technical fouls in college hoops, let's get the breakdown from the NCAA rulebook:

(Men) CLASS A and CLASS B technical fouls.

A CLASS A technical foul involves unsportsmanlike conduct or behavior by a player, substitute,coach or bench personnel. A CLASS B technical foul is an infraction ofthe rules that neither involves contact with an opponent nor causes contactwith an opponent and falls below the limit of an unsportsmanlike act.Examples of CLASS A and CLASS B technical fouls shall include:

1. Unsportsmanlike conduct; using profanity, vulgarity, taunting, baiting (CLASS A)

2. Hanging on the ring, except when doing so to prevent an injury (CLASS B)

So there you go. It's sort of like if a foul tip counted as half a strike in baseball ... or something, I think.

No word on what a Class C technical is, but I hope it's something really obscure like "doing Brando's monologue from On the Waterfront while an opposing player shoots free throws." Or wearing pants.