…Wally won’t let it go and it is all over the sports radio in Arkansas.
We fouled more than UNC did because:
They were bigger and better rebounders and we were scrambling and fouling to try and keep them off the boards,
we came from behind by pressing, attacking, etc. and you foul more when you do that, &
our higher number of fouls compared to theirs was not caused by the officials liking them better.
We lost that game because as soon as we took a five point lead, we stopped scrambling and pressing on defense and attacking on offense and we slowed down to try and milk the clock. That was when our lack of a point guard liability was exposed bigtime and we wasted several possessions with our ball handlers being unable to get free for even a pass inside much less a shot and having to jack up a 30’ brick over and over as the shot clock ran out. In the last three minutes, UNC played tough man-to-man defense in the half court and we handled it very poorly. Only after we went behind by 3 did we attack on offense and the injured Anton Beard (the only open shot we got in the last three minutes) shot and missed a 3-pointer on the fast break. The officials did not cost us that game. The lack of a quality point guard to run our half court offense did. Anton had played his best game at point of the season but was not the same when he came back in after injuring his ankle. JMVVVVVVHO.
Sometimes griping is justified. The national media–which doesn’t give 2 whits about Arkansas–was all over the officiating and how extremely lopsided it was.
Did we run out of gas at the end? Yes.
But, the rest of your post is a mischaracterization of what almost everyone else saw.
Phantom fouls and inconsistency between the way their drives and say, Dusty’s, were called had nothing to do with their rebounding.
Jaylen pinning a shot clean and a foul–nothing to do with rebounding. Berry’s non walk/charge–not rebounding until they blew the call.
Missing a review in which it was clear the shot was tipped and Macon was hit–not about rebounding.
Tying a ball up and then having phantom foul called–not about rebounding.
Flashing for a steal and would be dunk up 5 when, per your post, we had “stopped scrambling” and getting called for a foul on the slightest touch (if any) when they weren’t getting called for much worse–not about rebounding.
Bend over backward to justify it, but a 3xs as many FTA advantage in a Ncaat game and us never even getting close to the bonus in either half and getting called for twice as many fouls as them when we were playing the same type of defense was obscene.
Yes, you would like to be able to overcome it but how much better do you have to be than the #1 team on a very partisan court to have a chance?
I, for one, can’t stand Wally, but I am glad he’s not letting it go. The first thing you have to do to fix a problem is acknowledge it and the NCAA has a huge officiating/blue blood problem and it isn’t going to get any better as long as people rationalize absolutely pathetic, lopsided officiating.
All of that may be true. But you simply cannot predict with certainty what would have happened if the call was made against Berry and we had the ball down 1 with less than a minute to go. Common sense says that it would not have not played out exactly as you described. There are plenty of examples of teams reversing the momentum in the final minute. One of those 30 footers may have gone in. NCAA games are won on shots like that.
Lastly we have won games against teams that were better than us. So UNC being better than us, and they definitely were, is not a good enough reason to stop complaining about a bad call, that is generally recognized as a bad call by most other than those who don’t like the current program.
Fans will talk about that call for a long time, trust me. I am certainly not going to forget it. It all depends on how passionate one is about the team. What you wrote makes perfect sense for a non-passionate or a casual Hog fan or someone who does not like the current program.
The lack of efficiency at the end of the ballgame was the main reason Arkansas lost, but to dismiss the refereeing at the end is just as silly as to overweight its importance.
We have a five point lead with three minutes to go. We then fail to build on that lead and fail to stop them from scoring to win. Any bad calls prior to that have nothing to do with our failure to win the game in crunch time. They executed better than us and if we don’t develop or recruit better point guards, it will keep on happening in the future. There were some bad calls prior to that but they did not lose the game for us. UNC dominated the last three minutes. THAT is what cost us the game. JMVVVVVVHO.
You know I respect your opinion and usually take another look when you tell me I’m an idiot, but I think the bad officiating (totally agree it was bad) is obscuring the more important issue. Despite that bad officiating, we had the game won and lost it due to issues other than the officials. JMVVVVVVHO
I have read all of this and I cannot wrap my head around how you can think the officiating didn’t have an impact on their performance. I agree we didn’t bludgeon them into submission, and had we done so we would have won, but to ignore the officiating while we were having those problems just doesn’t make sense to me.
I am not saying the missed calls did not have an impact. I am saying that despite all of that, we had the game won and we could not score in the last three minutes and we could not stop them from scoring. That is what cost us the game. They just played better than us in the last three minutes. We missed free throws, we could not get free of our man to penetrate, we could not get a pass off, we just floundered in our half court offense and could only jack up a brick from 30’ with a hand in our face when the shot clock ran out. I think to ignore that and concentrate on the bad officiating is putting the cart before the horse. JMVVVVVVHO.
The refs definitely hurt us but…I believe there were 14 combined possessions in the last 3 minutes. 7 for us and 7 for them…We scored on 0 of those possessions and they scored on 6 of them. There were 3 very shaky calls during those 14 possessions. That leaves 11 possessions where we didn’t get the job done. Plain and simple. So…yes the officiating mattered. But, not to the degree our poor play did…IMHO
It wasn’t just the end of the game. Contact was clearly not called the same at both ends for forty minutes to the clear benefit of UNC. We only had two players get any FTAs for the entire game, this from a team that was among the national leaders in making FTs. Why? Because we don’t take a lot of treys and are consistent at attacking the basket. Since UNC got a generous portion of 25 FTAs, you can’t say they just let the players play. Since no other UNC opponent shot less than 16 FTAs (as compared to our 8) in the NCAAT, including Texas Southern, you can’t say UNC is preternaturally good at not fouling. It’s a huge statistical outlier.
FTAs for UNC in the NCAAT:
26, 25, 33, 26, 27, 26
FTAs for UNC’s opponents in the NCAAT:
16, 8, 21, 19, 28, 26
What doesn’t belong here? Oregon without Bouchet is smaller than us and was in the bottom half of the nation in FTAs per offensive play with him. They got 28 FTAs against UNC.
Officiating mistakes are going to be magnified at the end of close games. Even if you forget the tipped shot, UNC got away with a walk and/or charge on the ensuing possession. If that call is correct, then Arkansas would have had the ball down one point in the final 45 seconds instead of down three points.
Poor officiating might not have cost Arkansas a win, but it did have an effect on how the Razorbacks had to play the final minute. That shouldn’t be the case.
I am in 100% agreement that we could use a better PG. That is the proper evaluation of the whole season why we we did not do better in the regular season. I am the biggest proponent of a true PG.
But we are talking about this just one game. PG or not, getting the ball back and down by just one, you are not going to convince me that we could not have won that game. That call changed the way game played out after that no call.
We all have seen plenty of games when a team with the lead slows down the game, can’t make any shots, loses the lead in the last minute but ends up winning. Gonzaga just did that against SC.
And PG or not, we won every close game this season except the last one. So, you can’t convince me that PG cost us that game. We had learned to win without a combo PG. just like we won a national championship without a true PG. Corey Beck was not a true PG when he arrived at Arkansas.
When people that are not Hog fans are saying that call cost us, I am not sure why you, a Hog fan, are taking this stand.
Good point, Matt. Have you commented on why UA quit attacking offensively the last 4 minutes of the game? Because we started playing so passively, we didn’t get a decent shot off during that 4 minute span, and forced only one UNC foul.
To me, that’s much more interesting discussion that all the talk about officiating.
I get what you are saying. I am of the firm belief that the officiating contributed to some of that, but you are 100% right. We didn’t finish the game and ultimately that cost the game. I just think if the officiating had been consistent across both teams, then we wouldn’t have had the problems we did.
Water under the bridge. Since 1994 it’s all been about next season.
College officiating as a whole is atrocious. They should be full time employees. No doubt that game was impacted by a subpar black and white performance. It is not just Wally but national pundits…including Rome’s interview of Vitale. It does not need to be dropped and should be discussed at SEC meetings in Destin this summer.
In the last three minutes UNC had a big advantage in defending since they had three fouls to give. Plus, our guys had been going to the basket without calls the entire game. UNC could aggressively defend on the perimeter without any downside. We didn’t have a single FTA off a drive the entire game.