Hope to see more of this

[BigTime]

A beautiful play

 

[DenverSooner]

I did not get to watch the game. There were three fouls on that play. How many were called. The two on Woodard were not too bad but two different guys got him

 

[skyvue]

I did not get to watch the game. There were three fouls on that play. How many were called. The two on Woodard were not too bad but two different guys got him

No fouls were called on that play.

 

[DenverSooner]

I assumed that and was simply commenting on the foul argument in this thread. Thomas was so clearly fouled it is absurd it want called. You can't miss a block hit the goys body and swat down on his shoulder.

 

[SoonerinNC]

We certainly didn't get the breaks on the fouls. typical away game. Still should have won. Still have a way to go but I think we will be better than #18.

 

[DenverSooner]

Outside of the Oregon football game, I am pretty much in the camp of those that believe it is never the officials fault that you lose. With that said the Football team was cheated by the Pac 12 Officials on the field and Gordon Reese in the replay booth.

 

[skyvue]

Outside of the Oregon football game, I am pretty much in the camp of those that believe it is never the officials fault that you lose. With that said the Football team was cheated by the Pac 12 Officials on the field and Gordon Reese in the replay booth.

There's a difference between claiming it's the officials' fault your team lost and merely acknowledging that the officiating was a negative factor in the game, an obstacle to be overcome. The former absolves the losing team of its role in losing the game, which I agree is almost never justified; the latter merely acknowledges that bad officiating can sometimes play a role in the way a game plays out.

In basketball, it is sheer denial to pretend that officiating, which varies greatly from official to official, crew to crew, game to game and even stretch to stretch in individual games, never unduly impacts a game.

And generally those who like to pretend that officiating doesn't play a role seem to take a special pride in puffing out their chests and calling out those fans who might cite the poor officiating. It seems to make them feel like tough guys, I guess, to blame the players and/or coaches rather than the officials. Often, though, there's plenty of blame to go around and the officials fully deserve to come in for their share of it.

That was certainly the case in the Creighton game, in my opinion.

All that said, if I were a coach, I'd rarely, if ever, mention the officiating to my players (or the press) because there's little to be gained from it. The players should focus on what they need to do to improve and the press will just paint the coach as a cry-baby.

But I don't believe for a second that most, if not all, coaches, don't at least occasionally bemoan in private the one-sided officiating they were saddled with in a loss (or acknowledge, when it applies, that they got a break from the officials on a given night).

 

[SoonerNorm]

When I start seeing fans say, "boy, we got every call tonight and the other team really got screwed", then I might listen to them when it comes to the refs. But, when we only hear complaints about officiating when we lose, it carries zero weight with me.

 

[skyvue]

When I start seeing fans say, "boy, we got every call tonight and the other team really got screwed", then I might listen to them when it comes to the refs. But, when we only hear complaints about officiating when we lose, it carries zero weight with me.

One generally only hear complaints about anything when we lose. That's human nature, and if you're waiting for that to change, you'll be waiting a good long while.

And I would point out that comments on the officiating were coming fast and frequent during the Creighton game, even when we had the lead. If it's ok to question the officiating as it's happening (and it must surely be, as there were a great many posters doing just that), why is it not ok for a fan (not a coach) to mention it after the game?

 

[SoonerinNC]

I just thought as the game was going on that we had a lot of ticky-tack fouls called on us that were not being called on Creighton. I didn't see much of that down the stretch.

Typical away officiating particularly in that environment. Officials are intimidated by the crowd particularly one a loud one over 20,000. Coaches work them as well. Digger Phelps was the best I ever saw at that. I saw Notre Dame play live a couple of times and I couldn't believe he wasn't T's up. A friend explained that Digger did it with body language rather than words. I looked like he was on their back the whole game but I guess if he wasn't saying much there wasn't much the officials could do. If you don't think officials can't be intimidated just watch the coaches on the sideline. They are not doing what they do for exercise.

Iowa State had refined it to an art form, booing on every call that doesn't go their way.

 

[skyvue]

Typical away officiating particularly in that environment. Officials are intimidated by the crowd particularly one a loud one over 20,000. Coaches work them as well.

But that's a point I made in another post (might have been in this thread, not sure): Basketball's the only sport where it's just accepted that the officiating's going to be biased toward the home team. That would never fly in football ("What are you going to do -- the visiting team always gets flagged for more holding calls than the home team...") or baseball ("Yeah, the ump's strike zone was wider for the home pitchers, but ain't that always the case?"). If the game was being called unevenly in favor of the home team in those sports, it would not just be shrugged off.