Illinois/WKU game
 

They kicked one bigtime. WKU inbounding on the sideline backcourt near the corner. Illinois player guarding the thrower deflects the throw in. It clearly changes direction and hits the floor out of bounds. They all three come together and give it to Illinois.

To their credit, when they went to the monitor to fix the clock and SAW they kicked it, they didn't ignore the rule book and change the call.

I know. I'm sure they saw they kicked it when they went to the monitor. That begs another question: Why didn't they put a second back on the clock? They ruled the ball wasn't touched on the throw-in, but they let a second run off.

Perhaps they had ruled that some player had touched it and it hit OOB after 1 second (@ 1:20) but had the color wrong...for whatever reason. As such, they'd be left will calling it OOB when it hit (@ 1:20) and leaving the call as originally called.

While I agree they may have kicked it, it hardly qualifies as "big time."

The only player that could have touched it was an Illinois player, meaning it would be WKU ball. It didn't end up hurting WKU, but it was a pivotal point in the game.

As I said above, it didn't end up hurting them, but it was a very big point in the game. WKU was up by about five with under a minute to play trying to get the ball in in their backcourt.

Maybe the Chancellor at Illinois will ask for an apology from the officials as Principal Cox did in his game.

I can guarantee you Richard Herman would not do that. He's actually a class act. :)

Doesn't mean they would have got it right...no matter how obvious to us. It was acually a pretty awkward angle for the positions of the refs.

fixed

I agree with Snaq's post.

It would actually be WKU's president asking for the apology, not Illinois. Nice try though. :p

A missed OOB call is not a "big time" kick no matter when it occurs.

I beg to differ on this. It wasn't like this was fundamentally a close call that was hard to tell, they just missed it...period. This missed OOB call happened at a time when it could have changed the outcome of the game.

It took possession away from the team ahead that was trying to protect a lead in the endgame. While it didn't in this case, that can change the outcome of the game and, if WK had ended up losing by 1, it would be the talk of the tourney, and rightfully so.

Imagine if it had happened with 15-20 seconds to go instead of 1:20 and with WK up 1 or 2 points....in a position where the opponent would have been forced to foul for a chance to get a rebound on a missed FT or to get the ball back after the made FT(s)....but now, they have the ball with a chance to make the winning bucket. You can't honestly believe a missed OOB call, one that should have been obvious, in this type of situation is minor.

Disagree completely. That call resulted in a major swing. There are two officials looking at that play. Someone has to see that imo.

This.

And this.

Well that was a wasted post; not that I haven't had my share, but still.

I was a little more categorical than I intended.

Huh?

Oh, wait, I actually do have a comment on this. I was watching the game, and agree it was a missed call, but I can see how it was missed. The ball was being inbounded in WKU's backcourt, along the sideline, very near the endline. Iirc, the old L/new T administered the throw-in, very close to the endline, and could very well have been straight-lined by the WKU player, because the throw-in went up the sideline towards another WKU player near the center line. The IL defender did tip it right after it was released, and it ended up bouncing on the sideline before bouncing up to another IL player. The new L actually made the delayed call from just on the other side of half court.

It should've been T's call, but it seemed as though it might've been a little tight along the sideline and he was probably not in the best position to see both the tip and the ball hit the sideline. The new L did see the bounce on the sideline, but it's not his sideline call to make, so he waited until he knew for sure the T didn't see it, and definitely would not have been looking at the player guarding the inbounds pass.

Moral: put yourself in the best position to see what you need to see, even if it involves moving spectators/cheerleaders/etc. out of the way, or making sure you're in a spot where you can best see your area of responsibility. <B>Especially</B> at that moment in the game.

I also wondered about the monitor/clock issue. I knew they couldn't change the ruling about whose ball it is after checking the monitor, but I wonder if they ruled that yes, the ball was tipped (and by extention, a blown call that was not fixable), and figured that 1 sec. did indeed come off after the tip.

What I seemed to see was the defection by Illinois and ball apparently hit OOB, but then WK player already out of bounds and probably going to make the throw in, touches the ball on the first bounce. So if they were ruling WK player was OOB when he touched ball, then clock is right.

The officials apparently thought after deflection that ball did not go OOB and it was the 2nd WK player to cause the violation and in that case their clock rullng at least was correct.

I'm pretty sure that another Illinois player, not a WKU player, touched the ball immediately after the deflection.