The Great Traveling Conversation, Part One

I’ve been dying to get around to putting this on the blog for over a month now…and, I promise you that we will be focusing more and more and more on this in the future. This basketball season has finally seen attention being given to one of my biggest pet peeves in all of college basketball:  horrible officiating of the walking violation. (One day we will get around to carrying the basketball; but, for now we will focus on the travel).

Four the last three years we have all gone nuts watching Tyler Hansbrough travel multiple times per game. In games played in the RBC Center in years past I have literally watched (live) as Hansbrough possessed the basketball and moved from outside the free throw line all the way to the basket without dribbling and without a walking violation be called. As 19,722 fans screamed and imitated the traveling violation, the three officials would just turn and run to the other end of the court oblivious to the most simple and usually obvious rule in all of college basketball.

So, imagine my happiness when the following following video from Bobby Knight (that can also be seen at this link on ESPN) originally aired on the network earlier in the season. Heck, I was so pleased when ESPN originally ran this that I went out and bought hardware that allowed me to digitally copy items from my Tivo and move them onto my computer. You MUST watch this.

Note that they show a quick clip from Duke in the video and then Knight focuses on ‘#50’ with one of his examples. The scary thing is that Knight only verbally identifies five steps in the previous video while the video editor obviously identifies SIX steps without a whistle. I throw this out to the community because we are going to talk about it a lot more in the future and we are going to beat this drum loudly. This is RIDCULOUS and the inconsistency of how the incompetence is applied is even more ridiculous.

Allow me to give you a couple of quick points of which I am working to create videos to put on the site to support the discussion:

* During State’s game in Chapel Hill last week, Javi Gonzalez got called for a very questionable travelig violation that served to negate a sure two points from Tracey Smith after a Gonzalez dish. Again, it was very questionable; surely not obvious. During that game, their were FIVE individual situations where a Carolina player CLEARLY travelled (with three or more steps) with NO call. In EVERY one of these situations Carolina ended up scoring (some were three points). This means that Carolina gained a net of 13-15 points on bad traveling calls in a game that they won by 9 points. (Again, I am working on videos to share with you).

* Please refer you to the following comments I typed just after Virginia Tech’s officially-supported run during State’s collapse in Blacksburg last month.

On the following inbounds play that gave Tech the ball because of the intentional foul, the receiver of the inbounds pass took — get ready for this — at least SIX STEPS without dribbing the ball and without being called for a traveling violation. I am not using hyperbole. I am not kidding. If you count the shuffling of feet as twp steps instead of one then you get to seven or eight steps. Again, this is not a joke. How in the hell can a college official MISS SIX-SEVEN-EIGHT steps with NO dribble?! (Again, we hope to have video later). Of course, the lack of the travling call benefited the Hokies who proceeded to hit a three point basket just seconds later.

Do you think that I am exaggerating? Take a look at the following videos for some representative examples of just how egregious some of these violations can be:

Wake @ Duke on 2/22/09: Duke shot 36 FTs while playing a perimeter offense; Wake shot 16 FTs while trying to attack inside

Josh McRoberts @ Duke

Tyler Hansbrough – Just a taste

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

General Headscratchers NCS Basketball

74 Responses to The Great Traveling Conversation, Part One

  1. redfred2 02/24/2009 at 7:02 PM #

    Traveling…palming…and then an offensive player CLEARLY ESTABLISHES a lane, HIS LANE, to the basket, then, what do you see? Schuffle an inch or two here this way or that way, schuffle once more, then FLOP on your ass and push off with hands on the floor and slide on on that same ass, backwards for five or six feet, and what do you get? answer: OFFENSIVE FOUL!!!!

    Good lord DO I ABSOLUTELY HATE!!!!!! the way A GREAT GAME has been OPENLY ALLOWED and PERMITTED to deteriorate so much, and in such a short time.

    IT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    But then, I’m reminded of the simple phrase that I hear frequently these days, “It’s just progress, man.”

  2. wufpup76 02/24/2009 at 7:35 PM #

    Sorry to get a little off topic –

    but if any of you get MASN Providence is leading #1 Pitt by 14 points late in the 1st half …

    The Friars are on the wrong side of the bubble at the moment, but this could obviously change things …

  3. john of sparta 02/24/2009 at 7:38 PM #

    not EVERYTIME…
    but how ’bout 80% of:
    1. traveling.
    2. palming.
    3. whatever.
    this is JUST in the ACC mind you,
    and ESPN would need 4.5 hours for a game.
    it’s EVERYwhere, ALL the Time. back in the day…
    you couldn’t TOUCH the opposition…like barely…
    no skin to skin. even by accident. FOUL. jump ball.

  4. Dr. BadgerPack 02/24/2009 at 7:44 PM #

    You expect conference officials who can’t even call a technical foul properly to call something “complicated” like traveling? 🙂

  5. CStanley 02/24/2009 at 8:07 PM #

    That 12 step Duke video made my head explode.

  6. redfred2 02/24/2009 at 8:18 PM #

    ^j o sparta, I absolutely agree with what you’re saying, but I’m seeing more and more where the younger fans don’t want to hear anything that even remotely hints at “back in the day”. They seem to think that this crapola they call bassetball is the way the game was meant to be played.

    When the rules are adhered to as they are written, the game of BB becomes much more about strategies and out-thinking the opponent then just being able to out run and jump higher than your opponent. Much moreso then this hop, skip, touchy-feely, flop on your arse instead of playing solid defense, CRAP that we see nowdays.

    A game of chess wouldn’t last more than 15 seconds if you used the same lax standards in interpreting the rulebook of that game.

  7. Par Shooter 02/24/2009 at 8:20 PM #

    I’ve told friends of mine that college basketball has become an official’s game and it’s the main reason why I have lost most of my enthusiasm for the game, to the point of not renewing my LTR’s this season. Basically I don’t see paying what they want for tickets to watch 3 incompetent assholes decide how most games end up. The officiating in the ACC has totally ruined the game in my opinion. It very weakly resembles the game that I grew up watching in the 70’s and early 80’s. If I want to watch NBA basketball then I’ll watch pros do it rather than a bunch of guys who aren’t good enough for the league.

  8. MrPlywood 02/24/2009 at 8:25 PM #

    C’mon now! I posted that Bobby Knight link about 5 times in various threads and got zero response! Gah! Anyway, glad that you made it an article.

    Tyler has a habit of pivoting on his heel, then his toe, which is also traveling. You cannot alternate, even if you have not picked up your foot. As far as I know – but I have not been able to completely confirm – the player is only allowed to pivot on the ball of the foot. So anytime the toes on the pivot foot come off the floor without dribbling, it is traveling.

    A couple of other pet peeves:
    1. A blocking call when a defender has established position but is moving backwards. The D player is allowed to move once he establishes proper position. Many times is a charge called, when the offensive player basically runs over the D guy. Corollary to this is that a D player can be off the floor if he maintains position and verticality.
    2. The O guy “creating space” by banging into a defensive player. I remember watching Al Horford playing in one of the NCAA championship games, and he basically “backed down” his opponent every time by bowling the guy over and forcing his way to the basket. No charging. What is a defender supposed to do?
    3. Ball interference after made basket. Once again, Dook guys are pros at this. It is obviously a point of emphasis for the coaches. The ball is not supposed to be touched after it goes through the basket. Incidental contact is OK, but more and more, and after almost every basket when Dook is playing, the team on D slaps the ball away from the O team, or catches it and tosses it to the ref when there is no need. This buys the D time to set up and disrupts the O from perhaps getting a break going.
    4. And a bit of an odd one, on inbounds plays. I see a lot of times when the guy inbounding the ball has not established himself out of bounds. In an attempt to inbound quickly, they grab the ball while heading out of bounds, and pass mid-jump to their teammate before anything hits the floor. This is an old pickup-game trick, when a guy will just catch the ball coming through the basket and start the play without stepping out first. Of course State takes SO LONG to get to the ball on the inbounds plays that this is not a problem for the Pack 😉

    While I was searching for the ball interference rule interpretation on officialforum.com, I read quite a bit about the way officials regard traveling. An amazingly large number of them said that they let it go if they decided it gave the O no advantage! Basically, they just ignore it. More than a few said that if they called every traveling infraction it would ruin the flow of the game. This attitude encourages players to develop bad habits. These are guys officiating everything from peewee to college, although most seem to be high-school level.

    The popularity of the And1 MixTape Tour and similar productions are part of the decline as well, by highlighting moves (crab dribble anyone?) that cannot by pulled off without carrying and/or traveling.

  9. Dr. BadgerPack 02/24/2009 at 8:36 PM #

    My absolute favorite is the guys that practically pull their junk overtop of the rim on a dunk. Greg Oden was a master of this at Ohio State.

  10. pakfanistan 02/24/2009 at 9:01 PM #

    …by highlighting moves (crab dribble anyone?) that cannot by pulled off without carrying and/or traveling.

    Crab dribble

    Greg Oden was a master of this at Ohio State.

    So was JJ Hickson.

  11. BSIE80 02/24/2009 at 9:09 PM #

    Over the years I have always carefully watched the new guys that come into our program, especially the big guys. My focus was to watch their moves in the post to see their footwork, etc. I have always noticed that most of our guys do not earn the official’s respect, similar to Duke and Carolina because typically they are not as skilled and athletic, with very few exceptions.

    What happens is they will typically get the foul or travel call whereas the others don’t.
    I think a lot of this is how smooth or athletic the guy performs and maybe his High School reputation, ranking, etc.

    Therefore, State guys have to prove themselves more, which sucks.

    I believe if Hansbro had came to State, the officials would have made these calls early on. He would not have gotten away with this and he would have had to adjust his game.

    I don’t see this changing any.

    They could easily address the charging calls under the basket by adopting the circle- which I would like to see.
    Moving screens, traveling, and walks are up to the officials to call. We are at their mercy.

  12. BSIE80 02/24/2009 at 9:11 PM #

    Forgot to mention that I liked what Knight did.
    I use to dispise him because of his coaching methods, bully attitude, etc.

    But I do have to say that I respect his BB knowledge and what he is currently doing. Hats off to the guy.

  13. redfred2 02/24/2009 at 9:12 PM #

    Collegiate/Amateur basketball is supposed to be different, it’s for fun. It really shouldn’t even matter how bad everybody from the playground wants to make it into Da League.

    I say that if the AMATEUR game of collegiate BB is being lost because of it’s own ignorance in trying to be a carbon copy of the NBA, then STOP giving scholarships to kids who don’t really qualify for college in the first place, and those who are only taking those scholarships because they are required to be there for one season. Let those HS kids who think they can play in DA League go out and try straight out of high school. Or let ’em go to Europe like alot of them are talking about, and let them get paid to play, or make them actually earn their way in. The way it is set up now is promoting the opposite.

    Either FOLLOW THE RULES in the spirit in which they were written, these kids can wait to prevert and twist them if and when they reach DA LEAGUE, and give the scholarships to kids who WANT to go to college, for exactly what college is. By allowing/forcing kids to play college basketball who have never been seriously required to do any of the criteria that it takes to be enrolled into college in the first place, they have effectively turned logic completely upside down and dismissed those young kids from any academic obligations even way back in their HS years.

    Either make them aware early on, make them learn and LEGITIMATELY qualify, or give the scholarships to the guys that possibly aren’t quite physically gifted and let the talent across the board seek it’s own level. We can still enjoy BB, all of the great rivalries and the like, without having a single kid who doesn’t really want to go college to be taught something besides BB.

    Either way, follow the rules and make it what it is supposed to be once again, an amateur game which is played by the rules, or just end this farce altogether.

  14. Alpha Wolf 02/24/2009 at 9:54 PM #

    this is JUST in the ACC mind you, and ESPN would need 4.5 hours for a game.

    No, players would stop doing it because coaches wouldn’t stand for it.

  15. Greywolf 02/24/2009 at 9:56 PM #

    Regarding all the flopping, I’d like to see basketball take a page from hockey’s book and call a technical for “diving” (flopping) or embelishing. That would just about eliminate flopping. While we are at it, I like hockey’s attitude about protesting calls. It’s unsportsman like conduct. 2 minute penalty. In BB a technical would about do it.

    The state of lawlessness in this country reflects our sports attitude: If you can get away with it it’s legal. Not just basketball, either. Receivers claiming catches of balls they know they picked up off the ground, etc.

  16. ryebread 02/24/2009 at 9:58 PM #

    Great thread. It will be nice to have all the videos posted. The officiating is just awful.

    This is actually the main reason why college football has passed college basketball as my favorite sport. After seeing countless games where poor officiating has impacted the outcome of a basketball game, I have really lost a huge level of enjoyment. VT and UNC in the RBC are just two such examples this season.

    Yes, I still watch basketball, but football is so much better. The penalties in football are obvious and rarely subjective (outside of pass interference). The penalties are also typically about protecting the players. I think the game is called much closer to the rules as well.

    UNC and Duke both enjoy a massive advantage with ACC officials. I’ve decided that it is by design by the league to protect the marquee teams. Unfortunately, the league is so stupid that they haven’t realized that it actually HURTS the league. When Duke and UNC go to the NCAA tournament, suddenly the huge referring advantage that they’ve grown accustomed to (and built bad habits around) is no longer active. They get flushed out far earlier than they should as a result of it. Suddenly the ACC’s “power teams” are NCAA flops and we hear how “the ACC is down.”

    It ultimately will hurt the number of teams that we get into the big dance (which will impact league revenue). Mark my words — we’re setting up for it this year. Despite being the RPI #1 conference (again) with a bunch of teams who have beaten up on one another (outside of GT and UVA), we’ll probably send 5-6 out of a 12 team league to the NCAA tournament. The Big East is primed for 8 and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Big 10/11 send 6. Heck the Pac10 is atrocious and they might send 5 (though they only seem to deserve 3 based on what I’ve seen). The ACC needs to wake up before they permanently damage their crown jewel.

  17. redfred2 02/24/2009 at 10:08 PM #

    ^Good stuff ryebread!!!

  18. Alpha Wolf 02/24/2009 at 10:23 PM #

    ^^ Ryebread, every word you wrote is probably true — but UNC and Duke fans will deny it until the sun rises on the last days of the Earth.

  19. redfred2 02/24/2009 at 10:27 PM #

    ^Well, there you go, among those you mentioned Alpha, would of course be our favorite ACC commissioner himself.

  20. Alpha Wolf 02/24/2009 at 10:34 PM #

    ^ You’re putting the dots together well, Fred!

    Seriously, there is a sense of entitlement among some UNC and Duke fans that makes me laugh, and then it makes me mad because the league office is all too obliging.

    They see these games films, and they have even better views than we can ever hope to from our TVs, or anything else. Yet they deny the facts — and they are facts — that there are some major issues with officiating in the ACC. I guarantee you that if any ACC official had a reaction towards this article, it would be some dismissive statement about blogs or the dismissive “there goes Statefans Nation again.” Well Emporers, your lack of clothing is obscene and all we are doing is pointing it out…with pictures. Deny it all you like, dismiss us all you like, but you can see what we can see and we’re not blind.

    That’s because John Swofford is all about money and nothing else. Duke and UNC are their sacred brands. Common sense says that they will protect that brand because it protects their revenue streams.

    Bless Bobby Knight for standing up for the game. At the end of the day, its integrity is what makes it great. Call it the Golden Goose, and folks who ignore what is happening to the game to make more money faster are killing that Golden Goose just to get more golden eggs.

  21. wufpup76 02/24/2009 at 10:36 PM #

    Fantastic thread.

    “The ACC needs to wake up before they permanently damage their crown jewel.”

    ^They already have. Between propping up two teams and select players and ruining the fantastic showdowns that the round robin format produced the league has done considerable damage to it’s face – basketball.

    What was once a proud league capable of sending 4 or 5 teams (out of 8!) to the NCAA’s that were credible threats to reach the Final 4 EVERY SEASON is now a football’s bitch league. A league that decided 2 programs were more important than the others in basketball and that it was ok to have 2 great programs and 10 other mediocre ones.

    Yeah, it’s up to the other programs to close the gap – but does anyone else feel like the deck is decidedly stacked in favor of the few (or two) rather than the many?

    Btw, BC and FSU are locked up in a good one that BC really needs. BC leads by 2 @ the under 4 minute timeout.

  22. wufpup76 02/24/2009 at 10:40 PM #

    Thank you Alpha, ryebread, redfred and everyone else … I’ve been waiting for a thread like this for a long time.

    It’s not about blaming the refs for your own failures – it’s about taking the league to task for some pretty clear double standard bullshit.

  23. wufpup76 02/24/2009 at 10:52 PM #

    BC gets past FSU in a game they really needed …

    Too bad for them they’re going to lose to us in Raleigh …

  24. SouthernWolf 02/24/2009 at 11:08 PM #

    I agree with above posted material on lack of standardization among college basketball refs. Furthermore I think I see a difference in calls from conference to conference but maybe the refereeing is so inconsistent in general that I am imagining it.

  25. statemech 02/24/2009 at 11:10 PM #

    I have never been a huge fan of basketball, but seeing indisputable evidence like this just makes it even harder for me to care about this sport. I’ll support our Wolfpack to the death, that’s the only reason I ever watch the games on tv and go to as many home games as I can. I’m always excited to see them perform well, but the sport in general is just crap if you ask me. And seeing stuff like this just makes me dislike the game ever more.

Leave a Reply