Illinois fans blaming refs for ML foul on Austin!

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It was clearly a foul, what was amazing was the dumb play Leanord made in getting the foul and the fact that the shot went in. Just one of those things, Gophers should have won the first game and lost this one.
 


Even if it was a bad call, its not like it ended the game. Illinois had still had a chance to get it done in overtime and they didn't. I would be saying the same thing if Illinois had been down three and forced OT on a call that we didn't like.
 

The biggest concern that I, as an official, have on that call is that the call came from the trail ref, who was not in a position at all to make the call. He was straightlined on the play and was looking through both players.

I'll take the call, but boy it was a lousy one.
 

brucekaupa said:
Oh, and just remembered...Tubby was actually calling for a flagrant foul on this one.
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I rewound that one a couple of times and I saw the Illinois player put his forearm in his lower back, and that's why he went into the stanchion so hard.
 


jamiche said:
If that was a foul then you have to blow the whistle on every play, during warmups and during the national anthem. Sorry, no advantage gained, no foul.
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Apparently you don't watch much basketball. Fouls are called all the time when guys go hard to the basket and there is questionable contact. It probably happened more than 20 times just last night. No need to apologize for the victory. If illinois fans want to blame someone, it should be leanord. He should have ran the other way instead of trying to contest the shot. He put himself in a position to have the foul called.
 

Leonard's more intelligent play was to play phantom D on the Austin play, retain the lead by one and IL runs out the clock. As I said in a different thread, Gophs not the only team that grasps defeat from the jaws of victory.
 

jamiche said:
Because there is physical contact on every single possession, the refs should only blow the whistle when the contact creates an advantage. In the case of Hollins' drive, the contact didn't create an advantage. Hollins made a mental error, got bailed out and we should send the ref a gift card to Best Buy. (Illinois made a mental error by not fouling early in the possession and then retaining the ball with the lead.)
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There is not a single level of basketball that that is not a foul. And the advantage being gained is hitting him so it's harder to make the shot. I thought this was obvious?
 

WILLBGOPHER said:
Apparently you don't watch much basketball. Fouls are called all the time when guys go hard to the basket and there is questionable contact. It probably happened more than 20 times just last night. No need to apologize for the victory. If illinois fans want to blame someone, it should be leanord. He should have ran the other way instead of trying to contest the shot. He put himself in a position to have the foul called.
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You are right, don't watch much ball. Only thousands and thousands of games in my life. Fouls are also not called all the time when there is questionable contact, especially in decisive situations. As I said, there is contact on every play so the only time a foul should be called is when the contact creates a competitive advantage. In this case, it didn't. The gophers got lucky and the Illinois fans have a point. We'll take the questionable call.
 



jamiche said:
The gophers got lucky and the Illinois fans have a point. We'll take the questionable call.
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If I was an Illini fan, I wouldn't be so worried about the call, I would be worried about the decision by TL to do anything but stand like a statue in the lane with 5 seconds left, up by 3 and an opposing guard inexplicably driving to the rack.
 

Illini fans seem to mirror the Gopher fans. Some are pointing out many ways the refs screwed them, more than just the last play (see link)

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=169&f=2616&t=8634245&p=5

Some are blaming Weber - "team gets worse as the year goes on", same thing every year...

I did not see a cool Illini In Texas poster, but I am sure sure there is one.

Also, did not see BigIlliniFan posting doom and gloom, but he probably exists also.

But one thing is universal, we all agree tha Blake's date was hot (no that was not Blake's Mom).
 

jamiche said:
You are right, don't watch much ball. Only thousands and thousands of games in my life. Fouls are also not called all the time when there is questionable contact, especially in decisive situations. As I said, there is contact on every play so the only time a foul should be called is when the contact creates a competitive advantage. In this case, it didn't. The gophers got lucky and the Illinois fans have a point. We'll take the questionable call.
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The defender had his hands at a 45 degree angle as the offensive player was trying to shoot the ball. How you don't think that's a foul is beyond me. The contact from Leanord made the Hollins shot a lot tougher than if there wasn't any contact. If the contact by Leonard was legal (hands straight up), then its good defense. But since the contact was made illegally, it's a foul.
 

If a ref does not call a foul in a "decisive situation" they should be relieved of their duties. A foul is a foul is a foul.
 



dlw4gophers said:
ill had a 3 pt lead 5 sec to play. Why contest the shot. Dumb play. Blame them not the ref
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Agree. But having acknowledged that, basketball tends to favor the offense. So many times in a game you'll see the shooter jump into the defender (in this instance, it looked like Leonard was even backing up to avoid the collision for the reason you point out, I'm sure) yet the call was on him. The Gophers were called for a couple like that when Paul was driving. These types of calls make the game the playground, unreffed variety rather than the by-the-rules version. This tends to favor kids who learned the game unsupervised on the playground rather than in school.
 

Gopher Fan in TX, LOL, I guess the question here was whether the camera man was interested in the Gopher's bench or Blake's date?
 

jamiche said:
there is contact on every play so the only time a foul should be called is when the contact creates a competitive advantage. In this case, it didn't.
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I do think when watching live, or in fast motion, it appears to be a possible no-call.

But, as Barn has done with his screenshot, if you do slow it down and watch a super-slow replay, you clearly see Hollins get hit in the side of the head, get re-directed on his drive/shot, and then throw up a shot that went in.

So, I see the point, but at the end of the day, it was a foul.

And, if your interpretation is taken literally, would you ever award a three-point play? The guy scored, so no advantage???
 

jamiche said:
Because there is physical contact on every single possession, the refs should only blow the whistle when the contact creates an advantage. In the case of Hollins' drive, the contact didn't create an advantage. Hollins made a mental error, got bailed out and we should send the ref a gift card to Best Buy. (Illinois made a mental error by not fouling early in the possession and then retaining the ball with the lead.)
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Isn't a screen contact that creates an advantage? Point being that your "advantage" concept seems arbitrary. Also, are you suggesting that Austin's shot would have been as hard had he not made contact with Leonard? Clearly, Austin's shot would have been much easier without the contact. So Leonard's contact did, in fact, create an advantage, necessitating a foul...

It was a foul. Brandon Paul got very similar contact calls the entire game.

This discussion reminds me of something Bill James wrote about the baseball hall of fame. His basic argument was that people suffer from the misconception that the hall of fame is only for players like Ruth, Mantle, Wagner, Johnson, Aaron, etc. when, in fact, there are players like Rabbit Maranville and a lot of lesser players (compared to the Ruth/legend standards) in the hall. The hall's standard isn't Ruth, it's more at Maranville's level. People think a foul needs to be a hack; it needs to be egregious. But watch the course of any game. The standard is obviously not blatant hacks; it's much lower. It's at about the level of Leonard's contact against Hollins. It was a foul.
 

GopherJake said:
If I was an Illini fan, I wouldn't be so worried about the call, I would be worried about the decision by TL to do anything but stand like a statue in the lane with 5 seconds left, up by 3 and an opposing guard inexplicably driving to the rack.
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Agreed. Brain freeze.
 

SonOfTheVarsity said:
Isn't a screen contact that creates an advantage? Point being that your "advantage" concept seems arbitrary. Also, are you suggesting that Austin's shot would have been as hard had he not made contact with Leonard? Clearly, Austin's shot would have been much easier without the contact. So Leonard's contact did, in fact, create an advantage, necessitating a foul...

It was a foul. Brandon Paul got very similar contact calls the entire game.

This discussion reminds me of something Bill James wrote about the baseball hall of fame. His basic argument was that people suffer from the misconception that the hall of fame is only for players like Ruth, Mantle, Wagner, Johnson, Aaron, etc. when, in fact, there are players like Rabbit Maranville and a lot of lesser players (compared to the Ruth/legend standards) in the hall. The hall's standard isn't Ruth, it's more at Maranville's level. People think a foul needs to be a hack; it needs to be egregious. But watch the course of any game. The standard is obviously not blatant hacks; it's much lower. It's at about the level of Leonard's contact against Hollins. It was a foul.
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A screen is legal contact so, to the extent that it creates an advantage, it's evidently allowable.

In terms of your last point, for the analogy to hold the refs should blow the whistle on every play because there is contact on every play.

The contact was minimal, it appeared to be initiated by Hollins, and it didn't disrupt his shot. Bad call, happy walk to the car.
 


jamiche said:
A screen is legal contact so, to the extent that it creates an advantage, it's evidently allowable.

In terms of your last point, for the analogy to hold the refs should blow the whistle on every play because there is contact on every play.

The contact was minimal, it appeared to be initiated by Hollins, and it didn't disrupt his shot. Bad call, happy walk to the car.
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Not really. There's thousands of baseball players who belong nowhere near the hall, just as there is a lot of contact that shouldn't be whistled and is never whistled. I'm not talking about the entirety of contact in basketball or about every player in baseball. I'm talking about contact that is normally called a foul; the contact on Hollins, given the standard of fouls called in just about every game at every level (and in this game as well--Brandon Paul got several three-point plays on similar calls), was illegal. It was a foul. It wasn't a textbook hack (fouls on three-point plays rarely are), but it was a foul.

I don't understand your arbitrary standard for fouls. How do yo define "advantage" and which contact-begotten advantage is legal and which is illegal? Better yet, in what world do you live in where Leonard's contact didn't disrupt Hollins' shot? Without Leonard's contact, Hollins walks in for a dunk. With it, he had to fall to the right and make a much tougher shot. How didn't that disrupt the shot? How didn't that create an "advantage" for Illinois by making it less likely that Hollins would make that shot?
 



Not how it works. If a player jumps into someone after a shot goes up there's no advantage gained but it's still a foul.

The foul, and yes, it absolutely was a foul, happened at 1:09 http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7515238. His arms weren't even close to straight up until after the play. Maybe you don't agree with what should be considered a foul, but that's considered a foul at any level.

jamiche said:
If that was a foul then you have to blow the whistle on every play, during warmups and during the national anthem. Sorry, no advantage gained, no foul.
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GophersInIowa said:
The defender had his hands at a 45 degree angle as the offensive player was trying to shoot the ball. How you don't think that's a foul is beyond me. The contact from Leanord made the Hollins shot a lot tougher than if there wasn't any contact. If the contact by Leonard was legal (hands straight up), then its good defense. But since the contact was made illegally, it's a foul.
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If you look at the replay again, Hollins smartly initiated the contact on the play by (barely) jumping into his midsection, causing him to bow. I'm not disputing that there was contact on the play. There was, but not enough to justify the whistle. Almost every call the ref makes in a game is a judgement call. Hollins shouldn't have gone in the lane and Leonard should have gotten out of there. We got the benefit of this particular one.
 

jamiche said:
Hollins smartly initiated the contact on the play by (barely) jumping into his midsection, causing him to bow.
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This is NOT true.

Watching the replay in super slow mo on DVR, I can tell you with 100% absolute certainty that the FIRST contact made in the drive was Leonard's arm to the side of Hollin's head and shoulder. In fact, in watching the replay, I don't even see contact to the midsection.

If you look again at Barn's screenshot picture, that is the first contact made, and you can see the midsections of both players are not in contact.

So, not sure what you're looking at in that replay.

As for advantage gained/not gained....do you think an arm to the side of the head and top of the shoulder, forcing a redirected drive/shot is not putting the shooter in a disadvantaged attempt??
 

jamiche said:
If you look at the replay again, Hollins smartly initiated the contact on the play by (barely) jumping into his midsection, causing him to bow. I'm not disputing that there was contact on the play. There was, but not enough to justify the whistle. Almost every call the ref makes in a game is a judgement call. Hollins shouldn't have gone in the lane and Leonard should have gotten out of there. We got the benefit of this particular one.
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You lost me at smartly. Wow!
 

SonOfTheVarsity said:
Not really. There's thousands of baseball players who belong nowhere near the hall, just as there is a lot of contact that shouldn't be whistled and is never whistled. I'm not talking about the entirety of contact in basketball or about every player in baseball. I'm talking about contact that is normally called a foul; the contact on Hollins, given the standard of fouls called in just about every game at every level (and in this game as well--Brandon Paul got several three-point plays on similar calls), was illegal. It was a foul. It wasn't a textbook hack (fouls on three-point plays rarely are), but it was a foul.

I don't understand your arbitrary standard for fouls. How do yo define "advantage" and which contact-begotten advantage is legal and which is illegal? Better yet, in what world do you live in where Leonard's contact didn't disrupt Hollins' shot? Without Leonard's contact, Hollins walks in for a dunk. With it, he had to fall to the right and make a much tougher shot. How didn't that disrupt the shot? How didn't that create an "advantage" for Illinois by making it less likely that Hollins would make that shot?
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All I'm saying is that almost every foul call is a judgement call by the ref. In this case the contact was minimal, less than in most plays, and appeared to be initiated by the offensive player. The ref would have been justified in not calling it. The people on the board who think it was a foul (it's an understandable position) are describing the play as if Leonard greatly impacted the shot. He didn't. Sometimes they are called. In most cases, they aren't.

As the players get bigger, faster and stronger, it gets more difficult to referee. Given that there is contact on nearly every play, when do you make the call and when do you not? The refs turned the NU game into a complete grind by over officiating. If you under officiate you risk losing control and the attendant consequences. Tough job.
 


jamiche said:
The irony is that if the game situation were reversed and the gophers were on defense you would be arguing that it was a terrible call.
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When Austin Hollins was called for a similar foul on Cody Zellar in the closing seconds of the Indiana game no one said a thing.
 

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