I hate to talk about zebras, but...

[andy]

Look at the 2nd half. We had the lead going in. We were 6-11 from downtown. We only turned the ball over 4 times. And we lost!

Iowa shot 22 freethrows in the 2nd half. We shot 9. There is almost never a time you can't point at a myriad of factors in a loss, but last night it was all too clear... we'd hit a big three against their crappy zone, they'd go down, draw a little bump or touch foul, stop the clock, hit a couple of throws, and get their press set up. Unless you hit EVERY jumper on your end, it's hard to beat a team shooting more than double your number of throws.

And just so I don't sound like too much of a homer: The zebras called (I think) eleven fouls in the first four minutes of the second half (7 on MN, 4 on IA). About two of those were legit. Swallow your damn whistles you worthless bums. Let them play basketball.

 

[Moses87]

I agree that Iowa got a bunch of ticky tack calls that went their way and also mugged us a few times without getting calls, but that is par for the course in the Big 10...the real problem is that we weren't tough enough and didn't value the ball enough. We needed to attack the basket down the stretch and we were soft.

Iowa took the game and deserved it.

 

[920/414 Gopher]

I respect where you're coming from and agree to an extent...But when the Gophers give up 15 offensive rebounds to a smaller team, and Ralph & Rodney combine for 4 total rebounds against a smaller team, you're not going to win either.

 

[CentralGopher]

I thought for sure that was a charge when the plain ran EE over at the end of the game. Looked like EE had his feet set to me and beat the guy to the spot only to have the guy see that and pass the ball then proceede to tackle EE giving an easy basket with nobody on their feet to defend it. Had they called this the outcome may have been different. EE would need to sink a couple of free throws(not his thing) and we would still need to defend for about 30 seconds but would have given us a better chance. Iowa seemed to be running into the lane out of control running into guys all night and no calls were made on them either. They just forced their way in there with a lot of contact to defenders that had their feet set several times.

 

[Blizzard]

The crew wasn't from Illinois were they?

That might be called .. #karma.

Someone hook me up on the usage from that first sentence. Is that a correct way of phrasing the question?

 

[Moses87]

Even if they had called that charge, it wouldn't have been 2 FT's...It would have been a player control foul and Gophers ball under the basket with 94 feet to go and about 8 seconds left. With our track record at scoring in those situations, it would have been 95-5 against us scoring.

 

[GophersInIowa]

A bunch of fans around me were yelling at the refs all game long. I politely pointed out that your team was in the bonus with 17:03 left in the 2nd half. They didn't buy it (I think some didn't even know what I was talking about) and continued to think they were getting screwed all night long.

Either way, we lost that game, plain and simple.

 

[CentralGopher]

Anyone else listen to any of the radio broadcast? I started listening to it before I was done with work and the first time Fran came onto the court Grimm was calling for a T. Seemed a little much to me to call for it right away. If Fran had kept doing it all game long(maybe he did, I didn't see for sure) I would be calling for it but right away?

 

[Torbee]

The offiicating was atrocious

But I can't say it favored one team much over the other.

McCabe was called for a charge in the first half that should have been an "and-one" with Iowa in the lead, on a run, and the Gophers totally on the ropes. In addition, Sampson got away with about four over-the-backs and blatant shoves (including one on Marble's dunk that gave Iowa its last lead).

On the other hand, it was obvious the refs were calling EVERYTHING on Minnesota in the second half to apparently try to "make up" for some of the aforementioned blown calls in the first half.

All-in-all just a terribly inconsistent, poorly officiated game. In my opinion, it didn't really favor either team, but certainly disrupted the flow of the game.