The Holy Land of Hoops

Look I know the missed calls go for and against all of our teams, and the home team and "star players" usually get the benefit of the doubt, that's the unfortunate nature of high level basketball. But has anyone else found the officiating to be woefully incompetent this season?

I'm going to give an example of a complete injustice on my Friars yesterday. This grand larceny was called a foul on Dunn.

http://www.gfycat.com/BewitchedDownrightChanticleer


Did the baseline official step in to correct the miscall? Did they take yet another unsolicited trip the monitor (several every game it seems)... nope.

I get the game moves fast and it can be difficult to make the right call but its astounding how bad they can be for all teams. And I wish they'd just call a game consistently. If you're going to call ticky tack on every play, which is painfully disruptive to the game so be it, but don't change several times throughout the game and then allow muggings....

My point in this thread other than ranting is that I was wondering if the Big East audits the officials, watches game tape or requires them to watch game tape. Not to ruin their careers but to help them improve?

Last week in the St. John's - Depaul game, the refs were so bad it was ridiculous. I think they were trying to figure out the basic rules as they went along.

Btw, here is where I am ignorant. Does the "clear path" rule exist in college basketball? I've never heard that it was adopted by the NCAA. There was an instance in the Depaul game where Pointer was called for a foul from behind on a break away. Refs reviewed the monitor and people on various boards said it was to see if it was a clear path foul. I've googled it but haven't found anything that says that rule exists in college basketball.

It just seems like they aren't consistent with what constitutes contact. I've seen Harrison and Pointer get crushed driving the lane and not get a call but on the other end it's like we're playing ACC ball with all the touch fouls. Also the refs start to ANTICIPATE fouls instead of calling them as they happen. I'm used to it by now but i'd rather they not happen at all. Oh and the T Harrison got against DePaul was so ridiculous that even the announcers said so. Harrison was fouled on a shot it didn't go in so he cursed at himself (not even looking at the ref) and the ref T'd him up saying he cursed at him! Why would the guy who got fouled curse at the ref? DePaul got 2 shots but from the original foul we got the ball. Before the inbounds could be made they called us on a touch foul and gave the ball back to DePaul. WTF?!?! haha The place was going nuts at that point.

I would like to see some younger guys officiating. The average age of the official appears to be 50+. And a lot of times they seem to just be half-assing it.

I haven't seen him at a SJU game but had Karl Hess called any of our games this season?

http://deadspin.com/acc-fires-karl-hess ... 1678524976

NJRedman wrote:I haven't seen him at a SJU game but had Karl Hess called any of our games this season?

http://deadspin.com/acc-fires-karl-hess ... 1678524976

I know X had him vs Georgetown at Cintas. He was awful.

1) The Refs have been more terrible than usual this year.

2) We really need to move to a system with a) full time refs b) review of ref performance c) refs not working so many games all of which would require d) refs being better paid.

3) One of the major pet peeves refs calling fouls from way out of position. Even worse when there's a ref with a better angle.

4) So many games are completely determined by the referees and how they decide to call the game. It'd be one thing if they were consistent with their calls and a team could adapt, but games are called completely differently half to half and on different ends of the court.

The fouls in general are way too soft. But that's the trend in college basketball, so what can we do? The big east tried to go to the 6 foul more aggressive format in the 1990's and it backfired (no teams in the final four from 1989 until 1996)

TheBall wrote:The fouls in general are way too soft. But that's the trend in college basketball, so what can we do? The big east tried to go to the 6 foul more aggressive format in the 1990's and it backfired (no teams in the final four from 1989 until 1996)

I would like them to move the entire NCAA to 6 fouls or even better, no disqualifications and just increase FTs to 3 starting at some point maybe 15 or 17 or 20. Maybe add 4 shots at some point.

TheBall wrote:The fouls in general are way too soft. But that's the trend in college basketball, so what can we do? The big east tried to go to the 6 foul more aggressive format in the 1990's and it backfired (no teams in the final four from 1989 until 1996)

But they aren't even consistent with the soft calls. Harrison has been beat to hell this year and when he legitimately goes down no call is made!

It's not even the calls but just how bad these guys are this season we've had the whistle blown the play dead as we were on fast breaks TWICE! The first time we get a steal are running down the court with no one in front of us and they blow the whistle because a player from the other team is down on the other end of the court. WHAT?!?! Then in another game same situation, we get a turnover and are on a fast break and the whistle blows. The refs say it was inadvertent. Are you kidding me? You accidentally blow the play dead on a fast break? BTW we then turned the ball over ourselves after the inbounds costing us a basket. It's like MLB a decade ago, we need to be pushing the younger guys to be calling these games. Look how old some of them are. They can't keep up and i've seen announcers call them out for being out of position and making bad calls Goitlieb took one of them to task for making a bad call out of position during the DePaul game.