Worst Officiated Game I've Seen

cowboysooner

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We didn't lose due to officiating and I'm not alleging a bias in the officiating, just that it was easily the worst officiated game I've ever seen at any level. The officials should be ashamed.

Virtually every judgment call (charge/block) was plainly called wrong. They didn't allow any player, on either team, to own their space vertically.

There must have been a half a dozen times when someone would start a break away with a dribble and just get tackled by a defender, who would just jump in front of the dribbler and/or just grab them. We offended on a couple of these situations, but were mostly victimized by an unwillingness to call blatant violations.

Ok, that's my rant.

Now as to the game, we just got out toughed and didn't play very smart.

I didn't think we turned the ball over too many times like sone have said. I think we just missed a few too many free throws (so did ucla) and way too many crib shots and layups. And of course, they dominated us on the glass like we were grade school girls.

Normally, when an opponent puts a shot up, Sherri will have some of her girls get out and start going to the other end. This is ok if your interior girls are getting rebounds, but as billy tubbs remarked a couple of times, when you are being dominated on the glass, you really need to quit worrying about fast breaks and send all five girls to the glass.

From my perspective, we just didn't aggressively block out or block out at all, for that matter. They would put a shot up and we would turn and look up to watch to see what was going to happen, instead of putting their rear ends on people as they were letting the ball out of their hands on the first shot. All the way to the grade school level, basketball coaches will have their kids do a simple drill where the ball goes up on the rim and nobody is allowed to catch or even attempt to catch the ball, the person just blocks out and works on keeping the offensive player from having access to the ball.

If you are blocking out, you should be able to get the ball off the floor and not have to go "up".

On the bright side, I dont' think I have ever seen a team so obliterated on the glass lose by only 6 points. I still can't figure out how we stayed close, it is nothing short of amazing.

Also, rebounding is pure coaching. No talent required. Sherri will get the girls working on it and we can and I think we will improve.

Key play of the game, was the bone headed play by Jaz with 30 seconds. YOu just play good defense and absolutely can't foul there. The shot clock had 15 seconds on it and so if we stop them and get the rebound, with only being 2 down, we can win or tie with the last shot. By the way, Jaz wasn't the only one that was brain dead. AE was trying to foul the entire defensive possession and did commit at least 5 fouls that were not called. The entire defensive possession was like something out of the twilight zone.
 
I don't ever like to see a rebound hit the floor. I do agree that blocking out is the key. It is simply, move your butt in position when the shot goes in the air and display good technique by keeping the opponent behind you. However, when the ball comes off the rim, I would like to see 2-3 of our girls jumping high off the floor to grab it.

I sure hope that Sherri goes back to rebounding 101 every day in practice for the next week or two as they obviously haven't got it yet.
 
I wonder if we still have those bubbles that Sampson used to put on the rims. We need the work. I have to disagree with the turnovers though; with the way we were manhandled inside, we still only lost by 6; if we cut out a few of the unforced errors, we probably win IMO. Some were due to the physical game the refs allowed, but there were quite a few that were just silly; lazy passes, not coming to the ball, not catching the ball etc. Admittedly, the same could be said for the missed layups and missed free throws.
 
I wonder if we still have those bubbles that Sampson used to put on the rims. We need the work. I have to disagree with the turnovers though; with the way we were manhandled inside, we still only lost by 6; if we cut out a few of the unforced errors, we probably win IMO. Some were due to the physical game the refs allowed, but there were quite a few that were just silly; lazy passes, not coming to the ball, not catching the ball etc. Admittedly, the same could be said for the missed layups and missed free throws.

This could have been posted concerning most of SC teams. For the life of me I can't understand why we continually can't take care of the ball. And ugh. don't start talking about layups.
 
Well it wasn't the worst officiated game, but it did have one of the worst officials that called the game. Kantner and Inouye were final four refs last year and I thought did an okay job last night. Dee kept making "make up" calls for Melissa Barlow's incompetence. I don't think I have ever seen Barlow call a decent game. From the out set the officials were going to allow a physical game, some times too physical without calls. It was the Sooner's responsibility and the coaching staff to toughen up and give back what the Bruins were dishing out. We never did. I, like everyone else, am amazed that with the pounding we took on the boards and the abysmal free throw shooting, how in the hell did we only lose by 6. I really am trying to take that as a positive and think maybe we are a lot better than I thought we are. Only time and practice will tell.
 
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We had 12 turnovers in the first half (according to Brian) and only 5 or 6 in the second half. That indicates that Sherri got their attention at half-time to take better care of the basketball.

We have talked about it several times in the past that turnovers, missed layups, missed free throws, etc don't seem to be monumental until you lose a close game when every possession and every point is critical. Last night was one of those nights.
 
Well it wasn't the worst officiated game, but it did have one of the worst officials that called the game. Kantner and Inouye were final four refs last year and I thought did an okay job last night. Dee kept making "make up" calls for Melissa Barlow's incompetence. I don't think I have ever seen Barlow call a decent game. From the out set the officials were going to allow a physical game, some times too physical without calls. It was the Sooner's responsibility and the coaching staff to toughen up and give back what the Bruins were dishing out. We never did. I, like everyone else, am amazed that with the pounding we took on the boards and the abysmal free throw shooting, how in the hell did we only lose by 6. I really am trying to take that as a positive and think maybe we are a lot better than I thought we are. Only time and practice will tell.

It's hard to tell on TV which official is making a call. Maybe the next time Kanter & Inouye work with Barlow, they'll stick some bubble gum in her whistle so it won't work.
 
It's hard to tell on TV which official is making a call. Maybe the next time Kanter & Inouye work with Barlow, they'll stick some bubble gum in her whistle so it won't work.

MsProud, I like the way you think!!!!!!:clap
 
If we only had 17/18 turnovers, that isn't too bad.

As far as allowing physical play, that is something totally different than what I am talking about. An officals allow physical play, e.g. A&M style, when they don't call "arm bars" to prevent progress, allow grabbing that makes contact, and pushing before the ball gets to the rim. I guess I'm like Billy tubbs, "allowing them to play", doesn't mean you don't call blatant fouls. it is not the officials role to allow the game to reduce to an unofficiated playground game.

You leg and/or hip a dribbler going by you, you can't push players under the goal when they are airborne for a ball, you can't extend your arms in the air over a player, whether it is for a rebound, an attempt to block a shot, defend a player, -- for any reason. These are fouls and have been since we have played basketball, boys and girls.

I normally don't say much about officiating, as in the end, it is just excuse making. But, it is my opinion that the game was essentially uncalled, and therefore poorly called. Like I said before, I dont' think it was the reason we lost the game.

Norm, like you, I certainly want the girls to go up after rebounds. The point I was making was just that the technique missing, at least to my eye, is blocking out and not a lack of aggression.
 
Well all good points. I will give them credit for coming back from 18 down and making a game of it. It just should not have come to that point. It was a perfect storm last night, missed free throws, turnovers, bad fouls (called wrong or right). It looks to me as if we are just not quick enough nor tall enough nor strong enough to play the style that was going on last night unless we start screening more for our three point shooters. I don't remember one screen for Ellenberger in the second half when they were slowing her down, she was hot in the first half, get her the ball in shooting position no matter what it takes, double screens what ever. Why no adjustment for this? Don't think we will see a game like this again, at least I hope not.
 
Terrible officiating in women's basketball is the norm, unfortunately. Well officiated games are the exception, not the norm.

Last night's game was defensive rebounding, plain and simple.

No rebounds equals no wins.
 
Terrible officiating in women's basketball is the norm, unfortunately. Well officiated games are the exception, not the norm.

We keep saying this like it's just a women's basketball problem, but I thought last year's men's National Championship game was as poorly officiated as the vast majority of women's games.

Last night we did have a bad official, and it's a bad situation when one official is trying to compensate for another.
 
It was more a mugging instead of a basketball game. I never saw so many of our players knocked off their feet.
 
We keep saying this like it's just a women's basketball problem, but I thought last year's men's National Championship game was as poorly officiated as the vast majority of women's games.

Last night we did have a bad official, and it's a bad situation when one official is trying to compensate for another.

Does anyone know if officials work in permanent teams? Or do they work with different people all the time?
 
Does anyone know if officials work in permanent teams? Or do they work with different people all the time?

Yeah, they work basically individually. I know Dee Kantner works the Big 12, SEC, and ACC quite a bit. I think the NCAA tries to keep officials regionally close to where they live to hold on travel expenses, but the "so called good ones" will travel a wide area.
 
In the end, I totally agree with Sherri and Billy that this game could be very good for us. Hopefully, we will learn a lot and we certainly know the areas we need to work on.

Rewatched some of the game yesterday, and I still can't believe we nearly won that game. Unreal. I guess if you have to point at something, you would point at our 3 point shooting. We burned the nets pretty good.

Another thing not discussed much, but very indicative of a Sherri team, they never quit and played to the buzzer. I love that about Sherri's teams.
 
Like I ranted about over on SF, I thought Joanna McFarland was taking Blake Griffin sophomore year levels of abuse and yet kept playing without complaining... to her credit and the officials' discredit.

But, don't even try to blame officiating entirely on this loss. We were letting easy layups by on defensive breakdowns. UCLA was rebounding all of their missed shots repeatedly (and oh did they ever miss tons of shots) so we had opportunities to win and didn't.

Blaming officials is loser talk anyway... and yeah, I know that we lost :(
 
We had 12 turnovers in the first half (according to Brian) and only 5 or 6 in the second half. That indicates that Sherri got their attention at half-time to take better care of the basketball.

We have talked about it several times in the past that turnovers, missed layups, missed free throws, etc don't seem to be monumental until you lose a close game when every possession and every point is critical. Last night was one of those nights.

I beg to differ. Even in a double digit loss they make all the difference in the world. If you lose by 12 how different would the game have been had you not committed six of your turnovers and made three more layups and four more FT? Not to mention they are momentum and moral killers.

I've always been of the mindset that you have to treat every possession as if the game is on the line. Once you allow mistakes to be "okay" they become easier to make. Everyone will always focus on missed shots or mistakes in the last two minutes of a close game but not realize that those same mistakes in the middle of the first half are just as costly. JMO.
 
Like I ranted about over on SF, I thought Joanna McFarland was taking Blake Griffin sophomore year levels of abuse and yet kept playing without complaining... to her credit and the officials' discredit.

But, don't even try to blame officiating entirely on this loss. We were letting easy layups by on defensive breakdowns. UCLA was rebounding all of their missed shots repeatedly (and oh did they ever miss tons of shots) so we had opportunities to win and didn't.

Blaming officials is loser talk anyway... and yeah, I know that we lost :(

Our defense was definitely subpar.
 
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