As a UConn fan, I didn’t have a dog in the fight of the PC-Xavier game, but I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how the refs were partial to PC.
First of all, they called 6 more fouls against PC than they did on X, so on the face of it the argument doesn’t hold up.
Second, midway through the second half Kunkel came from a distance running at Croswell who was in position for a rebound and Kunkel had no shot at making a play, lowered his shoulder and rammed into Croswell knocking off the court and onto the ground, and then hit him in the head after Croswell was on the ground. It was an obvious flagrant foul and it was obviously intentional. But no flagrant was called even after the refs reviewed the video. If they were going to be partial to PC, that was an obvious spot to do so.
Third, In OT Claude missed on down low with Hopkins guarding him. Hopkins was planted with his arms extended but there was no contact with his arms. There was incidental body contact but nothing you haven’t seen 100 times before. Hopkins was called for the foul. Again, if the refs were being partial, that was an obvious spot to give Hopkins the benefit of the doubt in a key moment, but they dudn’t.
Fourth, with 24 seconds to go, Carter scored to cut X’s lead to a point. On 3 separate occasions, PC tried to give a foul to stop the clock & put X on the line. On their 3rd attempt, X called a timeout and the refs gave it to them instead of calling the foul. It was so obvious that PC was fouling that even Raftery pointed it out. But the refs did call any of those 3 obvious fouls. It was not until their 4th attempt 3 seconds after play was resumed from the timeout with 13 seconds on the clock. PC lost 11 valuable seconds as a result. If anyone was being favored in that situation, it was obviously Xavier.
All 3 of those situations struck me during the game as WTF? moments. And the number of fouks in the post game stats only added additional information. I’m not saying that the refs were wrong. I’m saying that those 4 points should be clear & convincing evidence that the refs were absolutely not favoring PC.
As for PC defenders bumping and getting away with it, every team of refs have things they call and don’t call in a game. All we can ask is that they be consistent, not that they agree with any of us as to how the game should be called. They certainly seemed consistent last night and certainly were not letting PC get away with things that they were calling on X, as evidenced by the fact that they called very few fouls on X at all. Part of a coach’s job is to figure out how the refs are calling the game early on, how much contact they are allowing or not allowing. The coach then needs to advise his players one way or the other. If the refs were allowing physical play and PC took advantage of that, then that’s to their credit. It’s not a knock on anyone.
