PlayerRep said:
Paytonlives said:
votb said:
I gotta tell you guys...as much as I love Griz fans and their enthusiasm for UM Athletics, you are the last ones that should be complaining about the refereeing. I call games on the radio around the Big Sky and around the country. I've called games in Dahlberg for 23 years, and there is no other Big Sky school...not one, that gets the benefit of HOMER refereeing like Montana. You even homered us in our own gym a few years ago when the refs refused to give the Griz a technical at the end of regulation for calling a timeout when you had none left with about a second left to play...and it forced the game into OT where you won (which I give you credit for).
By the way, I watched that last blocking call over several times in slow-mo to make sure, and the refs got it right. The Griz defender has his feet planted, but his upper body was still on the way to being upright (still moving) when contact was made. If the game would have been in Dahlberg and Cherry had the ball and they called the same foul on Beitzel, you would have said it was absolutely the right call...no question. I didn't have a dog in this fight tonight, so there's no bias. If you want to see somebody who had the right to bitch about crappy officiating, see the Rutgers coach.
Votb,
You are an idiot... By your definition of Blocking/charging it COULD NEVER BE a charge!! Every frigin charge call in a game the defender is moving at least a little. If you truely are an announcer (Which I have my doubts), you would not say such stupid things.
Agreed. votb is an idiot, and a crappy announcer. He doesn't even know the rules of the game. Apparently not aware of the officiating policy to call fouls against players who put their shoulder down and initiate contact. An offensive player cannot run over a defensive player who is in front of him. If the offensive player is not jumping, it doesn't matter if the defender is not stationary if the offensive player lowers the shoulder and initiates the contact.
Player Rep...Thank you so much for assessing my IQ, and of my career abilities. First of all, your assessment of which player "initiated contact" is totally colored by your "maroonness", which I totally understand, admire and get. The great thing about Griz fans is their intense loyalty and inability to see any situation through anything but "maroon-colored" glasses. Late in the season, I realized that I had let myself get carried away in my announcing by my disdain for some officials in the league (see, we all have it), and had let complaining about officiating become too much a part of my broadcasts. Subsequently I backed off, and feel it made me more effective as an announcer. but I had to take off the orange-and-black glasses in order to do so. You're a Griz fan, and I would be disappointed if you behaved any other way.
However, your assessment of what constitutes an offensive foul is repudiated by calls made in almost every single basketball game ever played when defensive players are backing up, giving ground, when a ball-handler drives into them, initiating contact and knocking them over backwards, and 99-percent of the time a blocking foul is called, dribbler's shoulder lowered or not. Almost never is a ball-handler like Devon Beitzel (or Will Cherry, or most every other player for that matter) standing straight up while they're dribbling...they're leaning into the dribble. And in this case, Beitzel was already in the low-running position when he caught the pass, trying to make a corner around the first Griz defender that was there. There was no intentional lowering of the shoulder, as Beitzel never even saw the defender until they collided...his head was turned back towards the passer until after he caught the ball. By your definition, a low-post player (like Brian Qvale) would foul out of almost every game by backing a defender out of his "
already-established" position in order to get the defender off-balance and create a better shot. I mean, if a defender doesn't have to be already set and stationary, then it certainly has to be a charge if the defender is stationary and gets knocked backwards.
In this case, the refs had to make a bang-bang call, which they did. Like I said, if the tourney had been played in Missoula, and if the same call had been made with the Griz inbounding and Will Cherry drew the foul from a UNC defender, you would have applauded the refs for making a great call, and you would never back down from your assessment that it was the right call. And if the game had been played in Missoula, and the Griz was the team with the ball in that situation, the refs would, indeed, have made the same call.
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