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Originally posted by Hawks Coach
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Everybody says to simply adjust, and clearly that can be done by players. But I would argue that you work all winter and build certain habits, and are asked to change them in one game because a crew decides to "tighten things up" before the game has even commenced. Having dealt with players for some time, it is hard to try to change their habits for one game and detracts from their play in other respects. They have to reconsider everything they normally do on defense, rather than react based on how they have played all winter. Their thoughts are not strictly on their opponent, but on how the game is being called. And that is not a positive, IMO.
[/B][/QUOTE]I don't share your opinion at all on this one. First, it is simply your hypothesis that the crew decided themselves to tighten things up. That's one comment that I didn't expect from you. You don't know that for sure. They may have been told to crack down by NCAA officials' supervisors. Who knows? They may also have been calling the contact consistently with previous games that they individually called- games that didn't have nearly the amount of physical play in them that Duke/UConn did. That's a judgement call on individual watchers too. As for players changing their habits, that usually happens in almost every single game also. You get 3 or 4 fouls on you, you are gonna change your approach in that game if you have any smarts at all. If not, you deserve to foul out. People are seeming to forget here that the officials aren't committing all these fouls. All they're doing is calling them.
The bottom line in this one is that the game was consistently, equitably and fairly called. The officials did
not determine the outcome of this game. Whether it was well called isn't really that important as long as the preceding is true. JMO.