Rule missed in Duke vs. Villanova
 

Anybody else notice how Villanova got their 1st 2 buckets to start the game?
The officials got a rule completely wrong in allowing the 1st basket. The official called a foul away from the ball as his teammate was in the shooting motion (the foul occurred before the shooting motion and cleared the space for the rebounder-shooter to get to the ball). By rule, you must disallow the basket as it the ball was still in the shooter's hands when the whistle blew. The next basket was clearly basket interference - they showed a replay from above the basket. Quite a way to end a scoring drought at the beginning of a game.
It would be interesting to see if any of this crew advances since missing a rule, especially one that puts points on the board in most supervisor's eyes is a suspension.

You're right on with the basket interference one...Coach K finally had a legit reason to gripe!

I'm glad you started this thread as I thought they were mediocre at best. One in particular looked way over his pay grade for a stage this big. Some awful mechanics, questionable calls, and drama that made Hightower look like a freshman theater major.

I'm just so used to seeing top flight pros night after night, that this game jumped out at me. I think they are one and done.

There was a very bad basket interference call against UConn also...really bad.

Actually, the player from Villanova grabbed and pulled the Duke player out the way which allowed the other 'Nova player to get the rebound in the first place. The foul came before the 'Nova even touched the ball. Definitely should have waved off the basket.

I'm not gonna criticize the missed BI because that play happened so fast and it's easy for us to say it was obvious when we have the benefit of an overhead camera. ;)

I saw this play too and was surprised that the basket was counted. One of the other crew members should've had a red-flag raised as to something being amiss when the calling official had an offensive foul and counted the basket. It will be interesting to see if anyone on this crew gets a Final Four assignment.

I have to agree with you; these guys looked like they were in over their heads. Their names are: JD Collins, Karl Hess, Mike Stuart.

Never heard of them.

Both JD Collins and Karl Hess were final four officials last year!

There was also a held ball with the arrow favoring the shooting team immediately following an air ball and they didn't reset the shot clock.

Wow! I've never thought about that one. Team control ends on the shot attempt so it's not remaining with the team in control, therefore reset. Do I have it figured out right, Scrapper?

Why would you reset the shot clock?

Never heard of them???? You must not pay much attention to the officials then. Karl Hess and J.D. Collins are all over the place during the year and during the post season. I didn't see the game, but from what you guys say there were some questionable calls....thats fine, but to say they were in over the heads is laughable.

I didn't see this play but I think resetting the shot clock would only apply if the offense and defense grabbed the held ball simultaneously or if the defense had control of the ball first. If the offensive player got hold of the ball first then the shot clock stays when the held ball happened.

One of the things I have noticed about some of the "big dog" officials over the years is their lack of communication with their partners during games. I was at the morning session of the first day games in Portland, OR, and watched one of the crews have some interesting communication problems. One of the officials tried to talk with a partner several times during dead ball situations, and the partner turned and walked away all three times! So when that partner needed some information on a call later on, there was none provided. Sounds like this was the same kind of situation - one of the partners should have come and helped out, but didn't.

And scrapper - why are we resetting on an airball if the same team keeps possession???

In Men's (the Women's rule changed just this past season, I believe), you reset on any held ball, 2-11-6c. The only exceptions are:

2-11-7:

e) during team control and the arrow favors the offensive team;
i) simultaneous held ball during a throw-in and the arrow favors the throw-in team; and
j) when the ball goes out of bounds and the officials don't know who it went off of, and the arrow favors the offensive team.

So since there was no team control after the try was released, when the ball was simultaneously held by opponents, the shot clock should have reset.

This is exactly what happened.

Bingo! This was a test question for my D3 association several years in a row, so I have it down pat now.

So you are resetting the shot clock when an offensive rebound occurs on an air ball??:eek:

Can you read?

Shot clock issues aside is anyone surprised at how rough that game was. I realize I'm no big dog. I don't watch that much college basketball. So you can treat me as a fanboy if you must. FYI I'm a Duke hater but man that is physical basketball going on.

I thought the Big Sky was thug ball but the Villanove players are bigger and stronger then Big Sky hoopers and I was a little more then surprised at how rough it was.

I know one thing, Villanova is not afraid to send you to the free throw line. One of their starters fouled out on a stupid foul with about 4 1/2 minutes left and the bench was laughing with him when he came off the court.

....and the Big East still has five teams standing (for now) out of the remaining 12 - a pretty healthy percentage.

I believe so.....

And I have 4 of those 5 in my final 4.

Somebody at work made an interesting point - not sure when this changed.

When did the NCAA start using officials in the tourney that work the conference of one of the participants?

As for the mechanics, I've come to expect it at the top level of all sports. The double points, the "get up" signal, the "I have nothing" signal, the Ed Hightower fists together at the waste and extend up towards the sky to indicate a push, everything Teddy V does, etc. etc. etc. When in Rome, but it makes it hard for a high school official to learn from watching them on TV with the double whistles, double pointing, larger than life flamboyant mechanics.

MLB umpires are a prime example as well.

Hess was the calling official on the offensive foul and count the basket play. On the replay, he looked like he didn't even know the ball went in, as if it was just an ordinary rebounding foul. For once, the announcers had a right to be confused. I know I was.

Probably all the time since officials work for 2, 3, 4 or even more conferences. Its bound to occur. It is not like football where the crews/officials specifically work for one conference and it may be desireable to have a crew from a neutral confernece, even if only to avoid appearances of unfairness.

Then you would have to eliminate the pool of officials or assign officials at each round that did not make the tournament, if you did what you suggest. Teddy V or Hightower work so many conferences they would only be allowed to work Pac-10 teams playing each other and in the current system there are no match-ups these guys would be able to work based on that way of thinking.

Why would you look towards any level other than your own for examples of good mechanics? These guys (even the MLB Umpires) are not working high school games.

Peace

Back to the topic: Duke got killed.:D

This is always on topic.

I was just under the impression this used to be NCAA policy. If it changed many years ago, and perhaps I missed it nor never thought about it, my bad.

I wasn't critiquing it, I really don't think its much of a problem at all. In fact, I think its better. You get officials on the game that know team and conference tendencies. I wouldn't want a Pac-10 official working a Big East game if I had a Big East official of equal caliber to do it.

As for the mechanics issue, you won't convince me that some of you don't cringe when you see some of the stuff a few of these officials do to communicate a call. This is still amateur athletics. MLB, fine, its all about the show. But it is possible that a high school official works D3, which is under the NCAA banner.

So for that D3 official to want to aspire to D1, and then see D1 officials with crappy mechanics, it's gotta make them cringe a bit.

Again, when in Rome...

I am not sure this ever was a policy. I could be wrong, but I do not think this was ever something written.

I will say I am not trying to convince you, but if you understand that the college ranks have different mechanics, then you will get over it. For example, the "No closely guarded signal" was at one time not a NF or HS mechanic. I would hope that there were people smart enough to realize they could not do that at the high school level until that mechanic was adopted. And if you include NCAA Women's mechanics with all their signals, then you are really naive to compare the two levels. At least Men's basketball is in line with things the NF is trying to do. Women's basketball is another issue all together. And as an amateur umpire, I really do not care what the MLB people do. Just like as an amateur football official, I do not look at the NFL for guidance either. Each level has their standards and you if you are looking toward another level then you are not using the right role models.

I think college officials realize quickly what they can or cannot do. You learn that by going to camp which most college officials will have to do nowadays. Even at the D3 level there are officials that can do things that another or younger D3 official would never get away with. It is not about when in Rome, it is about knowing your place. ;)

Peace

Yes, as per the rules that I posted earlier. That's why you were asked if you could read -- the rule and its exceptions were posted in post #15 of this thread. The rule in question is NCAA Men's 2-11-6c.

Most regulars would recognize that I was being sarcastic. I just found it strange that someone posted that one of the officials looked way over his pay grade. These three guys are top notch. That does not mean they didn't miss a few last night.

Only if the result is a held ball. A airball followed by an offensive rebound is not a reset. In fact, in the Pitt Xavier game; that's what happened on the missed shot clock violation.

Villanova reminds me of something Tarkanian used to say about their brand of defense back in the day. They can't call em all!! It seems that is their mindset and the game ends up in a slugfest/hockey/lacrosse match instead of the beautiful finesse game of basketball the way it is intended.
If a game has 60 fouls, put air in the whistle. If the players don't stop, they sit.

Venatus Interrupi (It Sounds So Cool In Latin) ...
 

And interrupt the flow of the game ???

What is happening with Duke? Six years in a row they have lost to a lower seed.

Is coach K not getting the job done anymore? Is Duke overrated? When Duke gets McDonalds All-Americans, are they All-Americans because they are that good or are they All-Americans because they go to Duke?

:confused:

They must be over-seeded and over-rated. :D

Of the three, who was the shorter, stockier one? Had brown hair. He stood out. I thought the other two were OK.

Strictly my humble opinion and it wasn't based on the quality of calls. As I mentioned earlier, from my lazyboy, one official in particular to me was having a bad night, you could sense it in his body language, mechanics, etc.

Hey, I'm just a high school official and by no means ripping these guys. I like watching the big dogs and try and learn from them. That said, they are on a big stage and open to opinions from here.

Don't know but I hope they keep it up!

To the haters: enjoy it while it lasts.

As to whys and wherefores, a lot of it's just random variation. If Laettner misses the buzzer-beaters in '90 and '92, the expectations over the last fifteen years are completely different, and this five-year stretch is much less of a story. Note that if those things had happened, K would not be a lesser coach. On the flip-side, Roy Williams said for many years before '05 that winning a title wouldn't make him a better coach, and I respect him for reiterating the point after he did win one.

More randomness: highly touted Josh McRoberts turned out to be a bust, while the much less hyped Tyler Hansbrough turned into a college superstar. No one was faulting K for recruiting McRoberts, nor did anyone foresee his lack of a substantial contribution to the program.

Going further back, Luol Deng leaves one year sooner than expected, and Sean Livingston never shows up on campus after signing a letter-of-intent. Think about this line-up: Livingston, Deng, Redick, Shelden Williams, and Daniel Ewing. That's who Duke would have rolled out in 2005 had things gone as planned. Think that team wouldn't have at least made the Final Four?

In the last few years, Duke has missed out on two bigs who had Duke as one of two finalists: Patrick Patterson and Greg Monroe. What do you think the last two Duke teams would have done with PP? How about this year's team with Monroe in the mix?

The other big issue in the last four years has been the lack of an elite point guard. No one thought this would be an issue when K signed NPOTY Greg Paulus in 2005, but things didn't work out as planned for Paulus, whose major weakness was largely covered up his freshman year when the dribble penetration he allowed was cleaned up by Shelden Williams. By the time the picture had clarified itself at the end of 2007, the USA Basketball commitment for K had ramped up, and that didn't make it any easier to get a true point guard to come in and back up or start over Paulus.

Certainly Duke's recruiting has suffered in the last two years with K putting country above program. Not a complaint, just an observation. With that commitment now over, expect Duke's recruiting to rise to a level at or near where it was in the early nineties when Duke was hot and the team eight miles south had a pretty fair coach itself.

If Henderson comes back next year, Duke will be a favorite to go to Indianapolis. If he doesn't, the team will likely be about where it was this year, with a second-weekend exit, but should be on a strong upward trajectory for what will likely be K's last four or five years.

It's great to still see the hate, as it means Duke is still the gold standard. When it stops being news that they don't make it past the Sweet 16, it's time to worry.

Want some cheese with that?

Actually I don't like Duke because I think that the media gives them too much coverage and over-hypes them. If they were good enough to deserve the press, then I wouldn't mind, but there are so many other programs who are deserving of that attention, and many of them out-perform Duke.

They aren't the gold-standard of anything. They are just a media darling.

That's why I root against them.

"K putting country above program."

I'VE HEARD IT ALL NOW!! I can hear the music in the background..."Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord..." Everyone grab a tissue.

Thanks for sacrificing your team for America! LOL

I've never seen a bigger collection of 'what ifs' and excuses!

And the 'haters' label. If you don't love us, you must hate us. What a simplistic paranoid concept.

What will Duke do without Hansborough to cheap shot??

Will coach K ever drop the profanity-laced tirades against officials? He's the biggest hypocrite in basketball. At least we aren't seeing those morality-based commercials this year with the great moral leader.

All this over a Duke loss...................PRICELESS.
 

Entertainment!!!

Peace

Love it. A page of reasonable explanations for the "decline of Duke," something a couple of people actually asked about, and you guys come back with nothing but ad hominem crap.

Whatever.

If anyone wants to actually engage in something substantive, let's rock.

As for the "over-hype," what are you talking about? Name me one national writer/talking-head who has picked Duke to go to the Final Four, pre-season or post-Selection-Sunday, more than one year out of the last five. If your point is that they get too much exposure, well, that's a purely market-based phenomenon. Duke is televised more than anybody else because more people tune in to watch Duke than they do anyone else. And people watch Duke more than any other team because they care more about Duke than any other team. For most of the audience, they care about the opportunity to see Duke lose.

Those of the 'overhype school' usually argue that their dislike is born of over-exposure, but if Duke is over-exposed, it's because they're so hated.

NOBODY hates the Pittsburgh Pirates. And nobody would hate them even if ESPN and Fox both made the dubious decision to include the Pirates in every single one of their regular-season telecasts this season. The overexposure argument is a figleaf.

Dude.

This is a referee forum.

Go away.

Fixed it for ya. :p

FYI, I'm a referee. And a good one.

www.provincialrubes.com

I don't like Dook cause I find K to be a vulgar, whiny douchebag and because of what Nevada says in the post I quoted. No place was that more evident than him commenting on Obama's picks.

Personally, I am beside myself with glee when the ACC loses, but never more so than when it's Dook.

Every year at this time we can count on you to be here extolling the virtues of Duke. Rarely see you otherwise.

You must have some sort of fixation with me, because I haven't made a post-season post about Duke here in many years. The only reason I decided to post in this thread was because of what appeared to be a couple of sincere questions about Duke's recent post-season disappointments.

It's interesting to me how so many people who post here claim to be such paragons of basketball objectivity, but let the topic turn to Duke basketball and many of those same people turn into the most hateful and irrational of partisans.

And as for the Obama stuff, please. I'm only slightly to the left of Che, so I can't stand K's politics, but the Obama bit was a joke. Get over yourself.

Don't think I have ever mentioned the prez. This thread is about to get locked up.

If you don't like my team, you must hate my team.

How about, "I don't like your team."

A previous post pointed out the hypocritical vulgar coach of the team.

Could we please have more excuses about the decline of the dookies?

"If only...If only...If only...country first..." LOL

Before anybody decides to give me the sobriquet 'fanboy' please realize that I was an accredited official for 11 years until a serious injury forced me to give it up.

I have a question for all the officials who are showing such disdain for Duke and their coach: If you were assigned to work a DUKE game would you work it, or would you turn it back into your assignor?

On one of my old boards we were allowed to list schools and / or coaches whose games we wouldn't work; on another board we did not have that option, and turning games back was frowned upon.

Hey Dan, welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear about your injury. That's a lousy break.

To be honest, I don't think your question really has anything to do with liking or not liking Duke or Coach K. Of course, NOBODY would turn back that game. I work at least 3 or 4 D3 college games per season with coaches that I don't particularly like on a personal level. But we keep it (mostly) professional during the game.

If you can't work with people who get under your skin, you can't be a basketball official.

Is this really a serious question?

Peace

"Is this really a serious question?"

Absolutely a serious question.

I cannot fathom anybody working a game where they have stated that they 'hate' a coach or a program, but that they will be fair and impartial to that coach or program.

It's really not that hard to understand that such hatred would be a problem.

Did it ever occur to you that the people that say they "Hate Duke" are talking as fans and not as officials? I doubt anyone here is really going to be in much of a position to work an ACC game, let alone a Duke game. And if you are honestly taking any comments that seriously, then you either do not understand the real purpose of this site or you are taking things way out of context. Who cares who does or does not like a particular team. They lost, they will probably be back, but this is not the place that thing is usually discussed here.

Peace

Actually it means no such thing.

To prove it, may I submit exhibits A, B, and C.

A. Notre Dame football.
B. Dallas Cowboys.
C. Nebraska football

Does anyone really hate Nebraska or Notre Dame anymore? You kinda start feeling sorry for them or not caring at all.

"Dude.

This is a referee forum.

Go away".


Yeah, I guess I am 'confused'.

Does Nebraska still play football? :confused:

Listen to your parents.....
 

My dad taught me to try to avoid using the word "hate" as it's a bit too strong. He said use, dislike instead. That being said....

I watch Duke a lot because I like college basketball and live in the east....and that's what's on the tube - a lot (Big East too). I choose to watch.

I compare Duke to the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees - you either like em or not! Most folks have a side. You're either for em or against em.

Look, I live in our Nations Capital. Few go to see the Wizards or Nats anymore (Caps are a different story - everyone follows a winner ya know). My point being when the Yanks or the Cowgirls come to town (any town) - many either go to cheer for their team or cheer against the other disliked team. As was stated before (Nebraska and ND) if the Devil Rays or Angels come to town you either cheer for your team....or don't go.

Does this come from years of success, overexposure, personailty issues, etc.? Probably a bit of all of it. I choose to live with it.

As for a Duke game? Seeing that I'm ending my third year of officiating, and doing some smaller V, but mostly JV/F, if an ACC game pops on my calendar - even if it's Duke, color me there. I mean, I don't live in SoCal ya know! :p

My $.02

Keep dreaming. They barely make the top 5 by most accounts. UCLA, UNC, and UK clearly have them beat by almost any standard. Then you have UI, KU, and a couple others that compete with Duke for the next few spots.

Or a program that you didn't even mention.
 

A sports radio show last night was making an effective case that Michigan State has been THE BEST program over the past decade.

Five Final Fours in the last eleven years. I haven't checked, but that seems to be more than Duke over that time period.

Let's be fair and give credit where it is due.

You should contact this guy:
InGameNow Why Duke Won?t Make a Final Four the Next Five Years

:p

Duke: 3 FF's/1 NC

Florida: 3 FF's/2 NC's

UNC: 4 FF's/1 NC

UConn: 3 FF's/2 NC's

MSU: 5 FF's/1 NC

UCLA: 3 FF's

Kansas: 3 FF's/1 NC

MD: 2 FF's/1 NC

That may all be true, but "gold standard" is not something that comes around lately. You simply have to look at all history. And, Michigan State would certainly be in the discussion for the next tier, but NOT the best program.

Nah, changing the subject from whether or not Duke is great or not to something substantive would be hijacking this thread, and that's frowned upon.

I heard Greenberg this morning mention that Izzo has never had a player stay four years and not go to a Final Four. That's impressive over a 14 (I think) year tenure and running.

I agree that you can't use a decade to indicate how storied a program is; but I would also suggest two decades isn't enough to define a gold standard. The Gold Standard in college basketball is UCLA.

That's it, that's the list.

And growing up in the 60s & 70s, you either rooted for UCLA or against them. Everyone from that time remembers Austin Carr, NC State & David Thompson. The streak breakers.

I also remember the Duke fans tossing records after it was reported that NC State star Chris Washburn allegedly lifted a stereo. Sort of a mini disco demolition day. The fan behavior even back then was either pushing the envelope or over the edge, take your pick. A Duke/UCLA final is like a Yankees/Dodgers WS....Who do you root for?

I thought the gold standard was abolished back in the '70s. You know, like UCLA basketball. :D