I pay a lot a lot of attention to journalism and the choices that writers make. I often grumble when they don’t mention or barely mention huge officiating decisions in articles about games in which I thought we really came out on the short end of the officiating stick.
Today, this writer led with the F1. That’s understandable. It was a controversial call that isn’t usually made in that spot in the game unless the foul is egregious.
But, he also wrote about the Macon noncall and the walk on the SH guy with :24 seconds left.
The effect of it is to report a game in which SH appeared to be robbed in the last minute.
I’m not sure that’s the case. I watch the win probablity stat fairly frequently and my semi-educated guess is SH’s chances of winning, down 3 and with us going to the line for 1 And 1 were not great at that point.
Think about what would have had to have happened for them to win. Barford would have had to have missed and they would have to have gotten a rebound and hit a 3 in the last 2 seconds (unless they went quick and tried to lengthen the game). Then, they would have had to have made the 3, kept us from scoring and then won OT,
Just winning OT between these 2 teams was at best a 50/50 proposition. Add in all the other factors and they probably had a 10-15% chance of winning whether the letter-of-the-law correct F1 was called.
That’s the problem I have with the article. It reads as if the alms swung the game and, that’s not really the case.
The calls didn’t cause them to win. They ensured their small remaining chance of winning had been lost.
OTOH the tournament had been pretty ho-hum so far so things like this are going to be amplified.
I agree. It is always funny to me that AR doesn’t get the same publicity from the “experts.” If AR would have been on the receiving end of that call, I don’t think anyone outside of our reporters would have mentioned it.
On another note, Dickie V just tweeted his updates on the tourney and called the Hogs and gave credit to Kingsley without mentioning the F1.
On the CBS pregame show for the evening session, Kenny Smith and Clark Kellog agreed it was the correct call. Charles Barkley thought it was just a foul and unless Barford was hurt, it should not be flagrant 1. Kellog quickly shut down Chuck by pointing out that is the difference between flagrant 1 and 2. All three agreed that the SH player made no play on the ball.
Comments: I’ve always thought there has to be a seriously disconnection with our fans that post harsh statements about our players and coaching staff. Especially if you know like I know once you step outside of the Arkansas borders you have nothing coming. Just wait until Sunday when we go up against NC a lot of disparaging words will be used against us by sport media we are not supposed to be here…
The media has never given our Hogs credit!
Dick Vitale only made a reference about Mosses in an attempt to save face.
Sunday we will be talk about just like Vitale did in the SEC Championship game! We will not get any calls and if it’s close the refs will take care of the Tar Heels ! We were sent to that region to get beat! No one gives the hogs credit for anything except the flour fans!
Someone better help the bear! Mike Anderson needs to use that to rally our team!