re: Barkley
 

As a Sixer fan Barkley is my favorite player of all time, but I can't stand that "let the players decide the game" crap. As if the player violating and the official appropriately penalizing the violation isn't allowing the players to decide the game. The player helped seal his team's fate with an elementary school violation of the rules. Plain and simple.

For those that haven't seen the footage, here it is, complete with Notre Dame fanboy commentary for comic relief:

<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ABflhZG3tLk?version=3&feature=player_detailpage">< param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ABflhZG3tLk?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object>

I hate Barkley he was the biggest whiner in basketball in his day. Now it's Dirk Nowitsky (sp).

hahaha, that notre dame whiner sounds just like stevie from Eastbound and Down.

http://i.lv3.hbo.com/assets/images/s...owski-1024.jpg

Advantage/Disadvantage
 

A few people I know are crying "advantage/disadvantage" about that free-throw violation call. Had this been a high school game, I could argue that a/d applies to contact, not violations, but I'm not sure how valid this argument is in the college game. Thoughts?

Even the violations that aren't called by the letter (3 seconds, 10 second FT), I tend to use two criteria, either of which is enough for a call.

1. Advantage. Kid catches the ball after being in the paint well past my warning, for example.
2. Egregious. Kid simply ignores my warning and stays in the lane forever.

Advantage: The player that committed the violation got the rebound. Without violating he wouldn't have gotten there in time.

If you had seen the ball bounce off onto the other side of the lane, I'm not sure you would have seen the violation called.