Bye bye!
 

jbDUKE, where are you?

He won't be back until NEXT season or until he can put into words how the officials gave the game to LSU.:cool:

Who were the officials for the Duke/LSU game?

Bruce Hicks out of Phoenix from the Pac-10 was one of them. The other two escape me at the moment. Mostly because it's 6:15 in the morning. If I remember I'll post it later, but I'm sure someone will beat me to it.

Jim Burr and David Hall as well.

It was Jim Burr & Dave Hall. I found the answer to my own question on MSN.

MJ beat me to the punch

Which one was Bruce Hicks? I know who Burr is but is Hicks the other white official or the black official?

Neither. Bruce Hicks is the Asian-looking thin guy, about 6-foot-4. I personally hope he makes the final four this year; I think he's deserving.

Yes, Bruce IS the black guy. Maybe the mustache fooled you but he doesn't look Asian. He isn't 6'4" either but those are just details. :D

You know we all look alike. :D

Peace

This was the first time I've seen Bruce work. Some observations: He called a shot clock violation when the ball hit the rim. I thought he prematurely blew his whistle and would call it inadvertant but he proceeded to pat his head. This was at the beginning of the game.

I thought his count was really really slow. I guess this is just a pet peeve when I see this. I counted one of his counts and he was at 5 when the clock ticked off 9. I think that officials need to be more accurate with their count.

Another thing I noticed was that Bruce Hicks and David Hall were not changing their hand on their closely guarded counts. A couple of times I saw them start a 5 sec count when the player was holding the ball, then the player started dribbling and they kept their count going for 3 more seconds without changing hands. Is this standard in some parts or did they just forget to change hands?

The foul call at the 2 minute mark on Duke's guard to put Thomas on the line was a tough call but I didn't have the angle he had.

These are just some observations that I noticed from my couch at home with the chance to watch the play in slow motion ten times ;)

I agree with all of that, especially about his count being EXTREMELY SLOW. Maybe for every time his hand goes out its 2 seconds, thats the only thing I can think of. :confused:

The foul on Paulus was a tough call, looked like the LSU player may have lost his balance by himself. But thats not why Duke lost this game for sure. I thought the other 2 officials had very good games, and by good i mean consistant.

At the NCAA level, it seems as though the "athletic teams" are winning out. The game is much, much more physical then ten years ago. Its what the Big East was 5 years ago, except now its everywhere, and consistantly everywhere. There was alot of contact on both ends of the floor, certainly a game Duke didn't want to get into.

I wish the NCAA game returned to more of a finesse game because its better to watch, and better to officiate. Won't be long before Nebraska can just suit up their offensive line and win a national championship.

Not getting on the officials, its been consistant all year in most confrences, that alot of bumping and pushing underneath the basket will not be called. Its not specific officials, or officials at all, its the Director of Officials and the NCAA. I wish the NCAA would put out some POE on this, for the good of basketball. I perfer the finesse game over the physical game.

Yeah, I really noticed a slow count by the balding official. It sped up a couple of times near midcourt.