vivid_dude wrote:Chicagojay, you may be the best poster on this message board. I love the content and perspective you bring. It’s informative, interesting and locked in.
But you complain about the refs ALL THE TIME! And the complaining is so biased and far from being objective, it’s difficult to take seriously. The point is you need to adjust your expectations on the game as it has changed. It is more physical. CU is the beneficiary of this in many instances. Kalk set a lot of moving screens, if you follow the letter of the law. Baylor and Trey commit traveling violations a bunch, if you follow the letter of the law. For whatever reason, “let ‘em play” is how college officials have evolved (or devolved, if you don’t like it).
Just go with the flow, man!! It ain’t changing. When I watch other fanbases cry incessantly about officiating, as a Jays fan, I can’t really say much because this board is proof that we are as guilty, if not moreso, than many of them.
Thanks for the kind words - I appreciate your posts a lot also, and you make valid points about complaining about the refs. All fan bases do that, it's true, and while we have games where we just don't play well and lose - it happens and we had a few of those last year. But it's a problem for us when we get the extremes.
I think part of why Creighton fans focus on it is that the way the refs call the game determines how teams can play. We (like SD State) are somewhat dependent upon the refs calling a game that doesn't hurt our style - calling 20+ fouls is a good way to make sure SD State and Tennessee lost the last 2 years, while calling 10 or fewer on our opponents isn't an instant loss for us (we've learned to play that way), it does make our margin for error much smaller and we'd better shoot really well (as I said before the Tennessee game).
In the NCAA tourney the last 2 years, I think we got the extremes in terms of calls in the 2 games we lost, and it's a question about whether or not we beat the other teams outside of those 2 and that particular way those games were called or if it just comes down to some bad luck and that we need to get to that point in the tournament enough to have the odds favor us with a NC State game instead of Tennessee, for instance. I'm not sure that we could have gotten a worse draw than those 2 teams with the refs calling the game the way they did - I would have rather played UConn on a neutral court with a middle of the road number of whistles either year, at least then it comes down to us playing our style of game and making shots or not making them
True that it's been moving to be more physical (as some commenters said, NCAA more physical than the NBA now) I hope the trend doesn't continue as it produces an ugly brand of basketball and while Mac can coach a slowdown/defensive style (Eric Coleman was a heckuva good player for Northern Iowa and I liked watching him in the MVC tourneys), I'd rather we be able to move the ball without being so much grabbing and hacking every time down the court
FWIW
I had a problem with Dante and his screens versus Kalk because while the refs mostly let moving screens go, his were among the most blatant I've seen all year (kind of like a TE blocking) - I think even Jacob had issues with that example.