February - Other Big East Games

[FriarJ]

Yes. The refs were horrendous both ways but better for PC

PC did not shoot a single bonus FT the entire game.

 

[Hurleyman216]

PC did not shoot a single bonus FT the entire game.

Boo hoo. That must be a first for you guys this year?

 

[gsmooth]

They are ripe for an upset if they get the wrong officiating crew. All that bumping is a foul in most leagues. They play like a hockey team, hip checking constantly. Big East weirdly lets it go, but God Forbid your fingertips contact the guy with the ball, that they call.

On the other hand, if allowed to play that way against a team not used to it, they’d be very hard to handle. Certainly UConn wasn’t used it in our prior game.

Let me first say this: Providence was the better team and hit more of their open shots and a few, not many, contested shots, while UConn had plenty of open looks and blanked on most of them. UConn I thought Providence deserved the victory, but that's my opinion and nothing more.

Now I am going to address if UConn was used to the physicality (the bold part in your message). I can't say UConn wasn't used to it or shrank like a violet from the physicality. It's very tough to compete like that and I think the UConn players were on egg shells wondering if any little thing would get called on them. UConn was getting called for ticky tack fouls and couldn't reciprocate the physicality because of it. At one point in the 2nd half with 14 min left in the game Providence was already in the bonus with UConn getting called for 8 fouls while PC only had 2. When Hopkins got called for a charge and the crowd and Cooley got upset, the very next trip down the court Karaban got called for a bogus "moving" pick call (he wasn't moving) . That was a make up call and the officials were just looking to call anything on UConn at that moment.

I was at that game-the officiating was horrendous. Does UConn foul more in general with dumb reach ins and so forth? Yes. But the officials were calling fouls on UConn for ticky tack stuff and whenever a PC player, especially Bryce Hopkins and Ed Croswell drove into a UConn player and slipped a foul call was made. It was unusually warm and damp outside which had something to do with slickness of the floor as it's over a ice hockey rink.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

You believe that PC got the favorable whistle tonight?

Not exactly. I do think Big East referees have a lot of tolerance for Providence’s bullspit although that appears to be wearing somewhat thin. Bynum didn’t get the call at the end of overtime against Xavier. He hurled himself into the defender so I don’t think he deserved the call, but Providence usually gets those calls. It could be a sign of things to come.

 

[wheelerdog]

Fans outside of the Big East have no idea how brutal it was for us to be in the AAC gulag. These games are fun.

Truer words were never posted

 

[wheelerdog]

Villanova looks a lot better now than Little Arch is cemented to the bench.

Had Marquette on the ropes just couldn’t make shots late.

He was absolutely killing them. Addition by subtraction.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Let me first say this: Providence was the better team and hit more of their open shots and a few, not many, contested shots, while UConn had plenty of open looks and blanked on most of them. UConn I thought Providence deserved the victory, but that's my opinion and nothing more.

Now I am going to address if UConn was used to the physicality (the bold part in your message). I can't say UConn wasn't used to it or shrank like a violet from the physicality. It's very tough to compete like that and I think the UConn players were on egg shells wondering if any little thing would get called on them. UConn was getting called for ticky tack fouls and couldn't reciprocate the physicality because of it. At one point in the 2nd half with 14 min left in the game Providence was already in the bonus with UConn getting called for 8 fouls while PC only had 2. When Hopkins got called for a charge and the crowd and Cooley got upset, the very next trip down the court Karaban got called for a bogus "moving" pick call (he wasn't moving) . That was a make up call and the officials were just looking to call anything on UConn at that moment.

I was at that game-the officiating was horrendous. Does UConn foul more in general with dumb reach ins and so forth? Yes. But the officials were calling fouls on UConn for ticky tack stuff and whenever a PC player, especially Bryce Hopkins and Ed Croswell drove into a UConn player and slipped a foul call was made. It was unusually warm and damp outside which had something to do with slickness of the floor as it's over a ice hockey rink.

The officiating was the worse I've ever seen in 30 years+ watching games. Mostly because PC was very physical, bumping constantly, with hard body fouls none of which were called. Meanwhile, UConn had small touch fouls, not impacting the offensive player, and all of those were called. I've seen the Big East seems to do that, focusing on hands. PC took advantage of it and it worked against UConn.

 

[gsmooth]

Fans outside of the Big East have no idea how brutal it was for us to be in the AAC gulag. These games are fun.

damn right. Which is why when Kalkbrenner was talking trash to Sanogo in that video about being preseason BEPOY I loved it and had no anger. Sure he looked bad after the fact when Sanogo destroyed him in Gampel, but I still loved it. Why? Because that kind of stuff builds up an exciting and entertaining rivalry and that is what I thought when listened to his statements. I simultaneously thought about the apathy and indifference of when UConn played the likes of Tulsa, Tulane, South Florida, and East Carolina-that is far worse than UConn fans being angry about being 0-5 vs Creighton at the time.

As others have said, I watch the other non-UConn Big East games whereas in the AAC I rarely watched non-UConn games unless it only involved Memphis, SMU, Houston, or Cincinnati and most UConn fans didn't even do that.

 

[PChoops]

Not exactly. I do think Big East referees have a lot of tolerance for Providence’s bullspit although that appears to be wearing somewhat thin. Bynum didn’t get the call at the end of overtime against Xavier. He hurled himself into the defender so I don’t think he deserved the call, but Providence usually gets those calls. It could be a sign of things to come.

Your funny man.....again last season PC was lucky, this year they get all the calls.......what's next yr going to be.....I can't wait lol.

 

[gsmooth]

The officiating was the worse I've ever seen in 30 years+ watching games. Mostly because PC was very physical, bumping constantly, with hard body fouls none of which were called. Meanwhile, UConn had small touch fouls, not impacting the offensive player, and all of those were called. I've seen the Big East seems to do that, focusing on hands. PC took advantage of it and it worked against UConn.

Correct, you stated it more succinctly that I did. Big East officials focus more on hands and less on body bumping. Hopefully, UConn can adapt to that. However, in that PC game I was referring to, I am not sure it would've mattered. Believe me when I say, it looked even worse in person.

 

[Kolumbo]

PC can look at the bright side. it outscored X from the charity stripe.

holy smokes, look at the minutes, and only Carter reached 4 fouls:
45 Hopkins
42 Carter
40 Locke
40 Croswell
35 Bynum

 

[Billy Jack]

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 shit 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.

 

[Billy Jack]

PC can look at the bright side. it outscored X from the charity stripe.

holy smokes, look at the minutes, and only Carter reached 4 fouls:
45 Hopkins
42 Carter
40 Locke
40 Croswell
35 Bynum

Holy smokes, look at the minutes and no one reached 4 fouls.

41 Jones
41 Boum
39 Nunge
38 Hunter

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

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.

You work really hard in your detail-rich posts that put PC in fuller context.

I noticed a couple others like this the other day in a thread that was locked before I could mention the effort you put into your posts. Thanks for the reminder and opportunity.

I missed the PC-X game, because I was watching the WBB game between UConn & PC in Mullaney Gym.

 

[Kolumbo]

Holy smokes, look at the minutes and no one reached 4 fouls.

41 Jones
41 Boum
39 Nunge
38 Hunter

My main point is that pc basically plays 5. Secondary, they play 5 and with their style, and no one fouls out. bizarro.

 

[FriarJ]

Boo hoo. That must be a first for you guys this year?

I’m not complaining, just stating a stat. Guy, said PC got favorable whistle. I’m asking him to back it up. But per usual on here, all BS with no substance. What game did that happen to UConn this year btw?

 

[FriarJ]

Your funny man.....again last season PC was lucky, this year they get all the calls.......what's next yr going to be.....I can't wait lol.

Funnier than that is what are the excuses going to be after the game in cow town? Huskyhawk has taken whining to a incredible level.

 

[UConnSwag11]

PC did not shoot a single bonus FT the entire game.

PC 14-18, 78%, PF 14

Xavier 13-23, 57%, PF 20​

What's the issue?
Oh...

PC 29-35, 83%, PF 20

UCONN 10-19 53%, PF 27​

 

[August_West]

Uh oh friar is feeling it. Look out.

Love you friar but you know better , you’re gone have to take a licking and wade through the excrement to get some insightful takes about your team on here. It’s our board.
I get the same at Friartalk.

I know you can take it, and admire the feistiness in some weird way.
Bring it on. Maybe Cooley will take the team to the dairy bar after taking an L in cow town.

We’ve already lost to X twice, we can’t hand you the title again like we did last year taking down nova for you.

 

[UConnSwag11]

Uh oh friar is feeling it. Look out.

Love you friar but you know better , you’re gone have to take a licking and wade through the excrement to get some insightful takes about your team on here. It’s our board.
I get the same at Friartalk.

I know you can take it, and admire the feistiness in some weird way.
Bring it on. Maybe Cooley will take the team to the dairy bar after taking an L in cow town.

We’ve already lost to X twice, we can’t hand you the title again like we did last year taking down nova for you.

We only played them once, right?

 

[ucp990411]

Funnier than that is what are the excuses going to be after the game in cow town? Huskyhawk has taken whining to an incredible level.

Hey Friar relax. No bigger UConn fan then me but I enjoy watching the physical way you guys play. In my book if they don’t call it it isn’t a foul but holy crap did Hopkins level whoever it was with the push off with about 7:30 to go in the 2nd half. The ref was looking right at the play. That ref needs to be reprimanded. And how on earth did Croswell get to be this good?

 

[FriarJ]

PC 14-18, 78%, PF 14

Xavier 13-23, 57%, PF 20​

What's the issue?
Oh...

PC 29-35, 83%, PF 20

UCONN 10-19 53%, PF 27​

Those were all shooting fouls. Are you dense? PC never got in the bonus the entire game. Did you watch it?

 

[FriarJ]

We’ve already lost to X twice, we can’t hand you the title again like we did last year taking down nova for you.

How about Marquette? Can you help us there?

 

[Frank06830]

Do you think Hurley is watching tonight’s games?

Do you think he’s learned anything from Colley, Miller or Smart?

Tongue in cheek rhetorical question, but listening to huddle with Smart and Cooley you can hear how they adjust or motivate. For example in one break Smart was telling his team they only have 7 deflections, they needed to get that total way up. DEFLECTIONS. Found it an interesting metric to generate greater defensive intensit from his team by using actual goal number. Also was noticed how coaches aggressively used switching and alternating defenses. I learned something

 

[UConnSwag11]

Those were all shooting fouls. Are you dense? PC never got in the bonus the entire game. Did you watch it?

Maybe PC should've worked harder on getting more fouls called against Xavier! That could've gotten you in the bonus.
It's hard to get in the bonus when you don't get your typical home cooking, huh

 

[Windsorlocks]

Not exactly. I do think Big East referees have a lot of tolerance for Providence’s bullspit although that appears to be wearing somewhat thin. Bynum didn’t get the call at the end of overtime against Xavier. He hurled himself into the defender so I don’t think he deserved the call, but Providence usually gets those calls. It could be a sign of things to come.

I had to watch the replay on Bynum’s last shot. On ESPN’s game summary page. He did not hurl himself into the defender. They show several angles, never touched the defender. He just simply missed. He beat X last year in the last second, I can just imagine how their fans felt watching that shot, lol….

 

[Hurleyman216]

I’m not complaining, just stating a stat. Guy, said PC got favorable whistle. I’m asking him to back it up. But per usual on here, all BS with no substance. What game did that happen to UConn this year btw?

You clearly haven’t watched many of our games this year…it’s a rare sight that we get into the double bonus in the Big East. You don’t remember when we played you guys and you shot 16 more free throws than you did? Good luck the rest of the way, you guys have a tough team, but not as much talent as you might think. Hope we stomp you guys when you come play us on our home court.

If you want to complain about getting the wrong side of the whistle from BE refs this board is probably the last place you should be. We’ve gotten the worst whistle of any team in the BE this year and it isn’t close, so get in line and take a number.

 

[Umami Zen]

Would be an interesting stat to find out which BE teams have gotten the most Ts called on them in conference games

 

[HuskyHawk]

I’m not complaining, just stating a stat. Guy, said PC got favorable whistle. I’m asking him to back it up. But per usual on here, all BS with no substance. What game did that happen to UConn this year btw?

A favorable whistle for PC means no whistle. It doesn't mean they go to the line, it means they get away with their overly physical constant bumping style of defense.

 

[MU in MKE]

You guys think you had it bad... When MU went to PC earlier this year the calls were crazy lopsided. PC hacks, bumps, etc and gets away with so much. MU tried to play tough back and got blasted by the refs. Final FT disparity was 49(!) to 19 during that game!