Great news for those of you who watched Saturday's Syracuse-Duke rematch hoping to see Tony Greene officiate.
Bad news for the rest of us who were hoping the players would be the ones to determine which team would win the game.
Maybe Damino is just a more gracious loser, but he and I both agreed after
the last game that it's better for the refs not to call questionable fouls.
But I am sure he won't be complaining about being the beneficiary of the very controversial call that decided this game.
I have watched this play many times and I can come to only one conclusion: no call should have been made. While I agree that Hood had his feet set, but his body was still moving into Fair's path after Fair began the act of shooting.
So that's the technical explanation, the more correct one is this: as Mama Poop used to say, if you all (us kids) think someone else is my favorite, then I must be fair.
If no foul is called on that play, both coaches probably go nuts, meaning no call would be the fairest adjudication.
But the foul was called and Boeheim went nuts.
Obviously, the best thing for the team would be for Boeheim to have reacted in a less demonstrative way, preserving at least a small opportunity to win the game. But, I also think, after an atrocious call like that, the ref should have given Boeheim infinite leeway to express his displeasure, since the ball was out of play at that moment anyway.
But if nothing else, the incident provided some great fodder for our tag "pictures of Jim Boeheim making stupid faces."
Here's Coach Boeheim's postgame press conference:
I also want to make it very clear that I don't think the officials cost Syracuse the game. But I do think they cost Syracuse a chance to win the game. Even if it's tied 60-60 with 10 seconds left and Duke has the ball, Syracuse probably loses there 65 - 70% of the time. But I want to see the players have a chance to decide the game, not the officials.
4 comments:
I'm not complaining at all, and I think a no call was probably the correct call there. However, it was very close, and I absolutely disagree with Boeheim's ridiculous statement that it was the "worst call of the year." It was a very close call, and I have no problem with it going to the home team in that circumstance.
And as was pointed out on ESPN, the call didn't win the game for Duke - Boeheim's outrageous behavior did. Even if the Fair play was a no call, Duke has the ball with the score tied and 10 seconds left. So it's not like they stole an undeserved victory - they were in a position to win either way. And even if the call was at it was, with Duke barely hitting 50% of their free throws, Syracuse was likely to get the ball back with 10 seconds left and down by only 3. Duke was in the identical situation in the Dome and tied the game, sending it to overtime, and Syracuse easily could've done the same.
I think the ref was entirely right to toss Boeheim. If he had just barked about the call from the sidelines, 100% I'd give him lots of wiggle room. But he threw off his jacket, ran onto the court and was uncontrollably screaming in the ref's face. Contrast that, by the way, with Coach K's reaction to the questionable call on the Hood/Christmas play in Syracuse.
My overall thought is I hate when fans blame the refs for losing a close game, and I cannot stand the entirely false notion that Duke somehow gets all the calls. Syracuse and Duke are 2 outstanding teams that played 2 super close games, and they each won on their home courts. I think that result is entirely fair, and I don't want to take away from either team's win by blaming the refs.
Damino, I hope you saw the paragraph under Boeheim's press conference where I said Duke still had a very good shot of winning the game, even if there had been a no-call.
I also think Duke played a better game and I don't want to seem like I am blaming the refs, I'm just lamenting the fact that the refs robbed us of the chance to see the game through to a more satisfying conclusion.
My bad - I completely missed that last critical paragraph and thought the post had ended above that. Without that paragraph, it made it seem like you were arguing that Syracuse would have won if not for the refs, which is exactly not what you were saying. My fault and I agree with your overall thoughts otherwise, except that I blame Boeheim pretty harshly for reacting so poorly and think he had to be t'd up.
Refs are a very sensitive subject in the ACC, because fans of many middle/lower tier teams like NC State and MD often claim that Duke gets all the calls, and this Syracuse incident reinforces that narrative even if it's otherwise baseless. The fact is that good teams get fouled more frequently than their lesser competitors, and it's not some grand conspiracy when the Wolfpack commits more fouls than does a better Duke team.
from the tone of your first comment I figured you missed it. I see now how you skipped over it but I wanted to keep it last to button up the post.
I think things about teams and players and home court leading to favorable calls is very overrated false narrative.
I think this guy is just an over-officious jerk who should have let the game play on without his intervention.
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