[Mr. Plow]

Rustshack discusses the officiating

I want to start this out by saying in no way were the officials the reason we lost. That being said it did have an impact. Also I didn't find a thread that this really fit in, and I know some people get mad when there are too many threads so if it is deemed it fits somewhere else then move it.

The officiating last night was pretty bad and if you don't think so then there are two reasons. Number one you don't understand basketball and number two you think it makes you superior because you don't criticize the officials. I have seen a decent amount of comments about the booing and such. I will start this off by talking about last year. If you don't think that last years game gave us the right to at least expect a fair game if not a favorable (getting the benefit of the doubt on 50/50 calls) then I don't know what to tell you. I would have been fine with an even game as long as Kansas didn't get obvious calls in their favor. Now why was the booing not fair. It was in response to Kansas calls and that should have been expected after last year.

The next thing I want to get to is Embiid. I want to start of by saying he is a freak and will be a great player in the NBA. I don't think there has been a better player in college since Durant. That being said he has a temper. The first flagrant call should have been a flagrant two. This is especially true since he got thrown out of the last game for a flagrant two. I don't get how you can forearm someone in the face and at the same time throw someone to the floor and only get a flagrant 1. There was also another play latter in the game where he poked someone in the face. I don't know if they looked at it or not, but due to the fact that he has a history of flagrant fouls in the last two I think that would be a flagrant 1. The next part about his game is that he is very physical. I don't think there were major problems with that but there were a few that I thought he should have been called for specifically the Sportscenter Top Ten play one. You can't watch that and say it was clean. It was an awesome block but that doesn't mean it wasn't a foul too. The last thing about his game which he will need to change to be successful at the next level is when he does his post moves I would guess the percentage is about 50% on the number of times he hooks around the defender. I know that others like Niang will get away with it some, but Embiid is obvious about it and it should be called.

I want to add a question for those that watched the game on tv. People have talked about the flagrant foul that the officials didn't want shown. My roommate said this was a different time then the flagrant on Embiid. He said it was on Wiggins. I was wondering which is the case as that was not shown.

Now we can get into the ticky tack stuff that you always have. I think Kansas got the benefit of the doubt more but maybe not. The one call that stands out of me was the one where Morris was called even though he couldn't play any better defense. Now we can debate these forever but we will never agree on those so I will leave it at that.


Now it comes to rebounding. I noticed it and talked about it after Oklahoma, but seeing it in person last night confirmed it. We will get position on box outs but are forced to go up one handed because we have to keep from being pushed completely out of the way by our opponents. This leads to the ball becoming a hot potato and allows the opponent to get the rebound or tip it out to a teammate. I don't expect this to always be called but it does need to be called sometimes. This is also where a lot of the complaining about the officials comes from the players. They are getting absolutely mauled and the officials will talk to them about not pushing on the other players. It happened a couple of times. There was one specifically after a timeout where the official was talking to Hogue and they didn't listen at all to him. Then the whole team gets mad and frustrated because you can't do anything.

I know that Hoiberg works the officials and he has done it a lot more this year. That being said I don't know what he needs to do, but it isn't working. Maybe we need to pull a Mangino or a Rhoads and call them out. It is utterly ridiculous that we are out physicalled and yet we can't play physical back.

I know this is a bit of a rant and such but it is beyond ridiculous. We can't always complain that it cost us the game. It didn't last night but that doesn't mean it wasn't bad. Think about it if the officiating was better we may have been able to play like absolute **** and still beat a Kansas team that played almost perfect minus the turnovers. That is why I am confident we are still a great team.