The ACC is Going to Hate the ‘Internets’

General Headscratchers NCS Basketball43

You think that Lee Fowler and the dinosaurs at NC State hate the ‘internets’?

Wait until savy fans become more active in benchmarking horrible officiating on YouTube and the internet. It is something that we wish that we had more time to around here. (Note: if you are a young, tech-savy fan with a desire and ability to painlessly transfer video to the internet, then drop us a line at [email protected]. We’d love to be more active in chronicling inconsistent officiating).

Section Six highlights this travesty of a no-call from Josh McRoberts at Duke. One of the videos on YouTube titles this “Duke player moonwalks”. So appropriate.

‘Poor Duke.’ They get spoiled by this kind of officiating treatment all regular season and then they wonder why they can’t more National Championships when their games are called by zebras who aren’t as intimidated or bad as the ACC refs. Because of this I fear the worst on Saturday.

State has managed to play 17 games without experiencing any game-altering foul trouble. I sure hope that the refs don’t take McCauley or Costner out of the game on Saturday in match-ups against Josh McRoberts. Additionally, if the Blue Devils are allowed to hand check and physically smother the Wolfpack’s thin squad on Saturday we may have 35 turnovers and lose by 30.

For a little more clarification of ^these comments, allow us to elevate BJD’s comments from our discussion section below:

To be honest, I think the only team that REALLY gets extra benefit from the refs is Duke. I think you can say that b/c of the OBJECTIVE results in the NCAAT, where recent Duke teams have had trouble adjusting to neutral officiating (Duke gets into foul trouble with a short bench, and also doesn’t get FTs on every flop). IMHO, there is no similar effect with respect to UNC. Yes, a few of their guys (cough, Hansbrough, cough) get “star” treatment, but not really any different than star players on other teams.

And no, I don’t think NC State gets disproportionately screwed. Not in the least

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General Headscratchers NCS Basketball

43 Responses to The ACC is Going to Hate the ‘Internets’

  1. JimValvano 01/19/2007 at 10:52 AM #

    Well…you all might as well go ahead and accept it. The officials will keep us from being competitive. We can go out and beat any team in the country. I know we can, but we have to have almost everything go right for us. The officials have to call the game as close to down the middle as possible, and we have to avoid foul trouble, play defense, protect the basketball, and knock down our open jumpers and free throws. We’ve done all these things. We’ve done them all in the same game. We can do it against Duke, but if one of these things isn’t accomplished then we will get our as*es handed to us…its just unfortunate that when it happens it will be by the zebras and not by the Dookies themselves.

  2. Texpack 01/19/2007 at 11:07 AM #

    You are absolutely correct about Duke and the level of contact allowed by the Zebras. I can tell within the first few minutes of a Duke game if it is being officiated well enough for the opposition to have a chance. All of the mindless nonsense about it being called the same way on both ends just doesn’t hold water. Most teams don’t have a clue how to mutilate their opponents like Duke does. Until there is a consistent, official, public complaining about the discrepancies nothing will change. Even then the ACC office will have to weigh the benfits of Duke’s national prominence and ESPN golden child status against the desire for fair competition. As much as I dislike BC’s style of play (thuggery) they are the school best equipped to outmaul Duke.

  3. BobLee 01/19/2007 at 11:22 AM #

    We solved this problem years ago when I played semi-pro baseball in Eastern NC (heavy on the “semi” and light on the “pro”).

    Each team would supply one umpire from among the players not in the line-up at that time.

    A player/umpire would try so hard NOT to appear to favor “his team” that you would get more favorable calls from “their guy”.

    That was 30 years before the creation of “the Internet” …. aka “the good ol’ days”

    BobLee

  4. lush 01/19/2007 at 11:22 AM #

    state has been screwed by the officials for as long as i can remember, in both sports. feel free, heels perspective, to send us a video of that game so we can count everytime hopsborough traveled or mauled our guys inside. Then we can add every bullshit foul they called on him plus the one no call gavin got, and see which team benefitted more from the refs.

  5. branjawn 01/19/2007 at 11:25 AM #

    I can see missing a little grab or slide step, but dude was Boot Scoot Boogie-ing across the floor. I mean, seriously, a middle school ref would catch that. Once he plants, and “declares” a pivot foot, I think he moves the pivot 3 times after that. Please.

  6. BJD95 01/19/2007 at 11:35 AM #

    To be honest, I think the only team that REALLY gets extra benefit from the refs is Duke. I think you can say that b/c of the OBJECTIVE results in the NCAAT, where recent Duke teams have had trouble adjusting to neutral officiating (Duke gets into foul trouble with a short bench, and also doesn’t get FTs on every flop). IMHO, there is no similar effect with respect to UNC. Yes, a few of their guys (cough, Hansbrough, cough) get “star” treatment, but not really any different than star players on other teams.

    And no, I don’t think NC State gets disproportionately screwed. Not in the least.

    SFN: This is the best expressino of the intent of my comments that I have seen.

  7. JimValvano 01/19/2007 at 11:39 AM #

    I’ve been going to N.C. State games my entire life. I am 25 years old and have had a complete understanding of the game of basketball since I was probably 6 years old. I’ve played the game since I was 3. I played AAU. I have played against guys in the NBA and I have played with guys who are now coaches in the ACC. I played college hoops myself. I understand the game on a level that the ordinary fan does not. I have attended the NC State v. Duke game every year since before I can remember. I also have pulled for Duke in games where they weren’t playing against NCSU, and I have noticed that since the early 90’s as Coach K won his first national championships and the Laettner led squad captured peoples hearts that their has been a tendancy on the part of referees to give Dookies the benefit of the doubt. This is in much the same way that parents tend to believe one child over another…or the court system one witness over another. Dook gets the benefit of the doubt from referees because the referees think that Dook is the more gifted of the two teams, dook carries themselves and holds themselves to a higher standard, and therefore it must have been the other team that committed the foul, etc. Look at the ACC tournament last year and the actions of Greg Paulus against BC…Paulus threw a punch. I was there. He should have been ejected…instead…not only did he hit a BC player but I believe if my memory serves me correctly…he hit the shot that would later become the game winner. Dook is shown favoritism by the referees and they are shown this favoritism against NCSU as we are not considered to be on the same level by the referees. When the Dookies play the Tarholes…it is called more evenly and more unbiased, but any other ACC team’s fans will tell you that calls go the way of the Dookies and Holes more than for any other team. Granted…for the most part games are called evenly, but when one looks at the calls that are “close calls” the referees call it in favor of the child or witness that has the track record that they believe in…which typically speaking is dook. WAKE THE FU*K UP!!! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF COACH K’S AS*!!! AND SMELL SOMETHING BESIDES HIS GLORIOUS SMELLING DOOKIES!!! Close games are won and lost by free throws and when all the close calls go one direction…the team that gets the benefit of those calls wins. This is reality…not whining.

  8. branjawn 01/19/2007 at 11:50 AM #

    If anyone lives near Ithaca, NY, we are watching the game Saturday at Benchwarmers downtown. We being, me (Raleigh native) and my wife (she is a State grad and native too) and some other people here who are going to be honorary PackBackers for the day. As far as I can figure out, we are the only 2 State fans in BFE, I mean Ithaca.

  9. packbackr04 01/19/2007 at 11:57 AM #

    JimmyV. I am with you . unc and dook do get more calls than other teams but its like my father tells me “son, you can wish in one hand, and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first”
    we all need to get over this.. and beat the shit out of these teams so we dont have to worry about those slack jawed yokels that the acc calls refs

  10. StateFans 01/19/2007 at 11:59 AM #

    Some of you will note that some comments have been deleted here. The reasons are:

    (1) We aren’t interested in providing you a place to criticize us.

    (2) Some of the comments fell into the idiot board trap of poor reading comprehension of what was actually written and meant in the original post. We aren’t interested in incorrect conclusions and strawman arguments that head off on irrelevant tangents.

  11. ncdan 01/19/2007 at 12:25 PM #

    I would imagine some smart people out there have analyzed the data, and drawn some conclusions. Hopefully a link surfaces in these comments to support/refute the implications of this entry.

    The problem with the youtube approach is that it’s ancedotal. Sure it’s dramatic, but picking out a single instance in time to highlight, and then extrapolating that out to draw big conclusions is bad science.

  12. Dan 01/19/2007 at 12:30 PM #

    Duke defense is a little like playing O-line in football. They foul every single time. Seriously, the officials could call a hold almost every time, and K dares them to do just that. But they don’t because it would destroy the game, and because they are afraid to rock the K boat.

    They do force the action on defense, and their fouls arent of the lazy variety (proactive vs reactive) which is another theory on why they arent called.

    For example:

    The lazy reaching foul is called all the time. It happens when a defender lacks the intesity to move his feet and reaches instead. Duke kids dont do this. When they reach, its not because they arent moving their feet. Its an agressive move instead of a make-up move.

    When they hold they are in the face of their opponent keeping him from getting separation. They are not holding to make up for the separation they gave away.

    The Duke defense is a two part monster really, but the reason they get away with mugging people is because they are so damn aggressive. Personally, I would say they are also technically sound on defense since they move their feet to stay in front of their opponent. However, there is a valid argument that they are aided in staying in front of their oppenent by holding on their jersey and not allowing him the initial separation.

    They get so many flops because they get there so many times. Yeah, its a crap call, and FOR PETE’S SAKE we need the nba circle inside which charges cant be called, but you have to give them credit for being in the position to force the call.

    Its a little bit of a chicken-egg thing, but one thing you have to give K credit for is the intensity level they maintain on defense. That level of intensity is rewarded by the officials.

    None of that explains Josh McRoberts being allowed to salsa dance in between dribbles though.

  13. 66pack 01/19/2007 at 12:36 PM #

    we may have lost a game or two due to bad calls in the last decade-all teams get bad calls-but we have lost many games to bad play and bad coaching.

  14. zahadum 01/19/2007 at 12:40 PM #

    While not conclusive of anything, I found it awfully interesting that as of last week, through 16 games, Duke had shot the same number of free throws, 275, as they did through the first 16 games last year. This in spite of losing Reddick and Williams, and at a time when almost everyone feels they are struggling on offense.

  15. zahadum 01/19/2007 at 12:49 PM #

    That should have been 257 free throws above, not 275.

  16. 82grad 01/19/2007 at 12:54 PM #

    so, unc recruits some of the top talent in the country, has one of the most successful head coaches in the ncaa, but they win because the refs always favor them?

    o.k.

    SFN: This is not the idiot boards. Nobody has said this. Strawman arguments and extreme conclusions made simply for the case wanting to argue are not welcome here. If you don’t have any value to add, then save yourself the bother of typing.

  17. lush 01/19/2007 at 1:11 PM #

    noone said they win soley because the refs always favor them. But to say that they dont get preferential treatment is ignorant. then again virtually all the unc fans i know are ignorant to anything that doesnt say unc is the best there ever was at everything there has ever been.

  18. gopack968 01/19/2007 at 1:17 PM #

    I was astounded how many times Wake went to the basket last night without drawing fouls. Now, having said that, they lost because they are not a good team and could not have hit the foul shots anyway.

    Neverthless, it was a perfect example of the Duke non-call phenomenon in action.

  19. JimValvano 01/19/2007 at 1:26 PM #

    Aren’t the Tarholes the all-time winningest program in the NCAA???
    If they are…then…I suppose they are the best ever…statistically.

    Of course…I would like to nominate the 74 and 83 teams as two of the best ever…not to mention the 73 team which was probably better than the 74 team. But overall…you have to give credit to the tarholes.

    With that having been said…they do win games due to their talent.

    Coaching shouldn’t win or lose a whole lot of games for you each year due to in-game coaching….but we’ll say that it factors into the game in probably 1 game in every 5.

    Refereeing should not have an impact, and does not impact games throughout the season to the point where it DECIDES many games…but their are games that are decided by calls and by no-calls and in those games the Tarholes and the Dookies are the ones that seem to come out on top.

  20. JimValvano 01/19/2007 at 1:27 PM #

    Plus you have to consider the calls that referees make or don’t make that interupt runs or propel runs…those always fall in favor of the holes or dookies too.

  21. Rick 01/19/2007 at 1:32 PM #

    “You are absolutely correct about Duke and the level of contact allowed by the Zebras”

    Dan hit the nail on the head.
    Duke just keeps hjand checking and bumping so the refs cannot possibly call them all. They should but they do not.

  22. choppack1 01/19/2007 at 1:46 PM #

    Only a fool would not see that officials can and do make a huge impact on these games.

    The problem that we run into against Duke – especially in Cameron – is that they will pester our guards w/their pressure D. We are particularly susceptible to this because we haven’t had a PG that is strong, fast, and has a great handle since Corchiani.

    Dan actually described the Duke D very well. They handcheck and slap at the ball – tons. There is lots of contact w/ their defense. ACC officials elect not to call this. In addition, because of all the handchecking and slaps – and the lack of calls – the offensive player often gets frustrated – and is more likely to committ an offensive foul.

    Finally, on offense – Duke a team that in the past has basically played 3-4 perimeter guys and one big man – somehow parades to the foul line. I do think once again, frustration plays a huge role here.

    Saturday we will have to be VERY STRONG WITH THE BALL. Duke will try to get Costner, McCauley and Grant into foul trouble by drawing offensive fouls. If we had Degande or Johnson for this game, our chances would be excellent. W/out them, it will be a struggle.

    It’s going to be frustrating. The refs are not going to call the handchecks on Duke. They won’t call the slaps. To win this game, we’ll have to be at least 10 points better than Duke.

    And yes, UNC-Ch used the same aggressive handchecks against us last year in the Dean Dome to help lead them to victory.

  23. redfred2 01/19/2007 at 1:52 PM #

    Dan, you nailed it. If the refs started the games by calling it five times in a row or even 75 percent of the time it happens, just like they are supposed to do, K and the Dookies would go berserk. It is just constant bullying and pushing the envelope, and the referees get worn down and let it happen more and more as game goes on. It works, can’t fault the coach for continuing it.

  24. packbackr04 01/19/2007 at 1:54 PM #

    “Plus you have to consider the calls that referees make or don’t make that interupt runs or propel runs…those always fall in favor of the holes or dookies too”

    JimV.. has hit on something else here… it may not be that they get all the calls in a given game, but the refs always seem too jump in on something just when it seems the tide may turning on the holes or devils… say a team is making a run, closing the gap, or starting to take control of the game with a big lead. there have been many occasions in my years of watching when they will make a bad call on aweak hand check,travel, or carrying that under normal circumstances would go uncalled that totally gives the holes and dookies a chance to collect themselves and regain composure…. too many times for the refs to not secrelty be pulling for those pusses.

  25. branjawn 01/19/2007 at 1:57 PM #

    Fight fouls with fouls. I hope Sid beats Duke at their own game Saturday. At least we might really be able to tell if D00k gets the calls or not, that is, if both teams play the same “aggressive” defense.

    Can someone create a poster with a picture of Josh McRoberts dressed as Jacko moonwalking for the game, that would be classic.

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