Parting Thoughts on the Syracuse “Win”

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It still hurts. I’m still mad. Am I an NC State Homer? Yes, and unabashedly so. Did the overall better team win on Saturday? Yes. Did the better team on Saturday win? Emphatically, no. NC State came with a recipe to win that game and for all accounts, we should have won that game. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. Chalk this up to another in a long history of NC State Shit.

In my commute in this morning, I was listening to Mark & Mike on 620. And the standard line is this: NC State had two costly turnovers to end the game that set Syracuse up for the win. NC State could have won that game despite the bad call. Is that true? Sure. Unnecessary passes that resulted in turnovers did cause the Wolfpack to lose that game. What isn’t in question is that a bad call was made on the TJ Warren and one that was called a foul on the floor. Regardless of the rule that, on a breakaway run, the defensive player cannot simply foul from behind or else that is the very definition of a flagrant foul. We should’ve had shots plus the ball, or at the very least, an and one opportunity to put us up by at least 3, if not 4 if we convert the free throw.

The line from the radio guys plus sports prognosticators around the local sports world is that Syracuse made plays to win the game and NC State squandered its opportunity. Oh the Pack shouldn’t have had those two late turnovers. Oh the Pack should’ve sunk more free throws during the course of the game. If I’m reading that correctly, unless we have 0 turnovers and a 100% rate on free throw conversions, then we have no room to bitch about officiating. I get that sports radio and sports journalism is about attracting listeners and readers. Do I expect folks who are paid for an opinion to be 100% fair and open? No. Just as I don’t expect to get a fair stance from Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or Sean Hannity on Fox News. What drives listeners on radio / TV and clicks on the Internet is divisiveness. It makes for good radio. It makes for good TV. Otherwise, it would be boring. I get that driving a wedge and salting the wounds of Pack fans makes for good broadcasts (and other teams too, I’m not saying “oh woe is me”).

But that line is so dishonest and so disingenuous. Yes, NC State could have won despite the bad call. But NC State did enough to win that game and we, or any other team, should not be expected to win despite horrid officiating. If that were the case then what makes NCAA basketball any different than “professional” wrestling? The margin for error for a Pack team on the road against the #1 team in the nation is 0. Add a critical late bad call and the odds certainly stack up against you.

Without a horrible call, the likelihood that the Pack travels to Syracuse (the day of, mind you) and takes a win from the #1 team in the country is all but settled. Could we have scored 100 points? Sure we could have. Could we have operated with no turnovers over the course of the game? Sure, I suppose it’s possible. Could we have hit every single free throw? I guess. Did we need to? Hell no. And that’s why I remain salty and angry.

I wouldn’t be penning this article had TJ Warren gotten the appropriate call and we went up 4 points and still produced a series of turnovers that led to an eventual loss. The officiating was still suspect (how we were in the double bonus and they weren’t even in a single bonus to end that game is still beyond me) but I wouldn’t be as mad. Had we been blown out by 20 like I suspected deep down, I would have been mad for a bevy of other reasons but not directed towards Clogherty’s Crew.

This doesn’t help the NCAA. It doesn’t help the ACC. The hierarchy in “official dominated” sports is basketball -> football -> baseball. Basketball, both professional and collegiate, is becoming more difficult to watch based on the subjectiveness of officiating. The list of football teams being robbed of a win is vastly shorter (The Russell Wilson walk off interception comes to mind during the replacement referee period in the NFL). The list of baseball teams being robbed of a win can likely be counted on a single hand or two.

And it seems NC State is making a bit of history with this. That’s why “NC State Shit” is such a popular meme. Go back to the 1989 regional semifinals where a pivotal travel was called on Chris Corchiani is now dubbed “the worst call in NCAA History”. Mind you that the “travel” should’ve been a Chris Corchiani and-one which would have fouled out Alonzo Mourning (fast forward to the 6:00 mark).

I get that hearing NC State fans bitch about officiating is tired. But instead of directing jokes towards salty Pack fans, why isn’t there more of a dialog on the fact that the referee made the wrong call which resulted in a Syracuse win. (Note I’m not saying it prevented a Wolfpack win, but it most certainly and unarguably resulted in the Syracuse win although the Orange may have been able to win with the correct call). That’s what I don’t get from the local media. The line is always “well NC State should’ve have made that second free throw at the 18:42 mark of the first half”.

The wrong call was made. NC State fans will bitch about it and continue to bitch about it. And guess what? We have the full right to do so.

What was the correct call on TJ Warren's breakaway attempt at Syracuse?

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Home › Forums › Parting Thoughts on the Syracuse “Win”

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  • 02/17/2014 at 12:30 PM #41401
    nav
    Participant

    I personally didn’t think the foul on TJW was a bad call. It could have gone either way from a shooting foul to on-the-floor.

    I’m ready to move on past this heartbreaking loss. It hurts and there are still a lot of games left to win. This team’s coming together nicely and if they don’t let this game get to them they have a good chance at a nice run to setup a tourney bid. Even the loss turned a lot of heads and got people thinking about State as an NCAA tourney team.

    02/17/2014 at 12:52 PM #41402
    charger17
    Participant

    So, discussing the actual call. I’ve watched the video from two angles and my opinion is that the foul was committed when TJ was still dribbling. I’m not exactly sure whether he is, by rule, allowed to then leave the floor to shoot. But it would appear that the foul was committed before he was in the act of shooting (although the call, of course, was not). Someone else will have to inform me what the exact rules are on “the act of shooting”.

    I think the bigger problem was the idea of a flagrant 1 foul. I’ve looked up the official rules:

    Flagrant 1 Personal Live
    A personal foul that is
    excessive, but not based
    on the severity of the act

    I though I’ve read somewhere that committing a foul with two hands is a flagrant 1. It seems clear to me that the defender had his right hand on TJ’s back and reaches around with his left hand to swat his arms. I don’t see how this wasn’t reviewed and determined to be a flagrant 1 foul. Can someone clarify the two-hand idea for me.

    IF it is not a flagrant 1 foul, I think the correct call was a foul on the floor.

    02/17/2014 at 1:26 PM #41403
    MISTA WOLF
    Participant

    The way I see it is we played with the “best” team in the nation like we belonged for 39 minutes. Unfortunately when you’re playing a team of that caliber you’ve got to play and beat them for 40 minutes. That didn’t happen.
    The real question moving forward is what team will we see moving forward? Will they roll over and die or will they bring it like that for the rest of the scheduled games?
    I was so freaking impressed by the teams ability to rebound against Syracuse. That type of effort needs to be brought every night. Tyler did a fantastic job taking care of the ball. The only thing he should have done different was foul the ever living F(_)CK out of CJ Fair at the end of the game.

    02/17/2014 at 1:46 PM #41405
    nav
    Participant

    ^1000%. Tyler should have fouled Fair well before he had a chance to put that layup up. If nothing else, it would have stopped the clock.

    02/17/2014 at 2:54 PM #41407
    packof81
    Participant

    Well, here’s some documentation.

    http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24446718/acc-pac-12-acknowledge-referee-errors-in-weekend-games

    No, we are not imaging this. No school is this unlucky.

    02/17/2014 at 2:56 PM #41408
    tobaccordshow
    Keymaster

    Nav… You do know that if Tyler had fouled Fair… it would’ve been a flagrant 1!

    haha. I kid.

    Kind of.

    02/17/2014 at 3:20 PM #41409
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    “People can argue all day about the TJW foul, but the constant fouls called away from the ball that enabled Syracuse to score during much of the second half are what still has me angry. They were constantly getting all of their points from the charity stripe (17-1 free throw count at one point).”

    ^This was truly the difference in the game. IIRC, there were two holding calls against Washington within 10 seconds … both away from the ball – and I think a third holding call on Washington within the next minute of game play. We didn’t get a single replay of a foul called away from the ball, which by-and-large was the only reason Syracuse was in the game at that point (tons of free throws).

    Now, if you want to say that our guys were warned about style of play and but committed fouls anyway – that’s fine. But this was a complete inverse of the way the game was called in the first half. In that half, we were aggressive and got in the bonus well before Syracuse. Why the change? If you want to give credit to Syracuse, that’s fine – but the overwhelming amount of fouls on us in the 2nd half were away from the ball.

    They may have been fouls … but who knows? We didn’t get to see any of them. Combine that with the discrepancies of how the game was called in half #1 and the free throw disparity in the second half and you can see why people might be upset. Should we have gotten to line more in the 2nd half? Perhaps not – but our defense won that game Saturday. Free throws from off the ball calls made the difference. I don’t blame anyone for being upset by losing to off the ball foul calls.

    02/17/2014 at 3:36 PM #41412
    Khan
    Participant

    The sad thing is, I knew we weren’t going to win. I knew we were going to give it away. Why? Because that’s what we do. That’s who we are . We’ve been that way for a long time, and it’s hard to believe that we’re going to change anytime soon. No, we did what we do. And there’s always a reason:

    It was a bad call. It was a whole game of bad calls. It was a costly turnover. It was poor execution. The other team hit a full court shot. There was an injury. We’re a young team. We have a bad coach. We don’t have the talent. There was an unlucky break. We had a lot of players unexpectedly transfer. We’re rebuilding. There was a snowstorm. There was an earthquake. An asteroid hit Australia. A moose farted somewhere. It doesn’t matter. There’s always a reason. And there’s always a reason to wait till next year.

    So we’ll keep on waiting and keep on hoping while we keep on watching the same movie over and over. Maybe the channel will change some day…but I doubt it.

    02/17/2014 at 3:47 PM #41413
    wilmwolf80
    Participant

    How many times did Scott Wood get called for intentional fouls for putting two hands on someone to stop a fast break? How was this any different.

    I can guarantee that if Warren’s jersey said McAdoo or Parker on the back, that it would have been an and-1 at worst.

    02/17/2014 at 3:57 PM #41417
    archdalepack
    Participant

    Did not get to see foul on TJW. Has it been posted? Would like to see how it compares to the continuation basket in the second half of Duke/twerps.

    02/17/2014 at 4:05 PM #41418
    tobaccordshow
    Keymaster

    God. Looking at this again and I’m still angry. I don’t know who you people are who say that was an appropriately called foul on the floor, but you must be blind. With the new continuation rules, that is clearly an and-one.

    02/17/2014 at 4:16 PM #41422
    FergusWolf
    Participant

    So, the documentation of us being unlucky in a large number of losses is that (how ironic is this), Herb Sendek’s ASU team was the benefit of a no-call playing against Sean Miller’s AZ team, and Duke was the benefactor of an “administrative error” in their game against Maryland…

    This doesn’t really establish a pattern of “bad calls” against US.

    I guess you could consider the no-call on ASU vs. AZ as “against US” because we like to hate on Herb.

    But, we kind of hate on Duke and Maryland the same (I personally blame everything that goes wrong for me in life on Greivis Vásquez), so I don’t know how that was against us,….

    So, unless we are deciding that the ACC wanted Duke to beat Maryland because it would make our RPI worse (since we had beaten Maryland, not Duke), rather than because Maryland was abandoning the conference, I don’t see how this like was “documentation”.

    I think we like being thought of as the lunatic fringe.

    02/17/2014 at 4:28 PM #41424
    impackt
    Participant

    I’m having a hard time letting this go. What bothers me most is the lack of justice. I generally regard sports officials as being impartial arbiters of their sport’s rules. Of course they are human and make mistakes, but overall I hold them in high regard, and I believe they truly see themselves as unbiased bastions of fairness. But what we saw on Saturday was a miscarriage of justice any way you slice it. One team, though universally considered the weaker of the two, had fought to a one-point lead. That team then executes a perfect breakaway to apparently seal the game. The other team’s player, in desperation, commits an infraction by (intentionally) fouling in an attempt to keep TJ from scoring. His foul fails to prevent the score; he’s been bested. Of all the choices the official has in this situation, there is really only one that will lead to an unfair result, and that is of course the one he went with. If he’d swallowed the whistle, would there have been even one word of complaint from Syracuse? (Wait, wait, we fouled him! On purpose! Give him 2 shots and the ball!) Nope. They would have brought the ball down and tried to set up for a tying 3-pointer at the buzzer. No call, and-one, intentional— any of these would have led to a just result (not necessarily a State win, but a just result). Instead, a team that deserved an upset win, and did exactly what they needed to do to seal that win, was put in the position of having to do it again. Even if the foul did occur a split second before the act of shooting began (which I’m not convinced of), justice demanded a call other than the one made. I don’t know the nuances of the rules well enough to say which call would have been technically correct, but I know injustice when I see it. [As an aside, this is where hockey’s delayed penalty and soccer’s advantage rule are vastly superior in preserving justice. Teams should NEVER be rewarded for committing fouls to thwart clear scoring chances. I’ve never understood why this has been allowed to go on in basketball.]

    02/17/2014 at 4:43 PM #41425
    MrPlywood
    Participant

    Well this is a fun one.

    There’s no “intentional” foul by name now, but such a foul is part of the definition of a Flagrant 1.

    Art. 2 Personal Foul, Part c., Item 3: Pushing or holding a player from behind to prevent a score.

    The play could certainly qualify in that regard.

    Item 2 says: Contact that is not a legitimate attempt to play the ball or player, specifically designed to stop or keep the clock from starting.

    That could apply as well.

    Cooney was behind the play the entire time. Sure he swiped “at the ball”, sort of. But the fact is that State had the balls to run that play, almost to perfection, caught Cuse off guard then the ref bailed them out. How many times have you seen a defensive player hold up when he’s behind a guy with ball, heading for the basket? It’s because it would be called.

    So Flagrant 1, no basket. Fine by me. TJ gets FTs AND State gets the ball. Sounds about right.

    I also noticed on the resulting inbound play that TJ is open under the basket. I dare say things would have been different if he had received the ball there.

    And the “smiling ref” after the Lee miscue really bugs me.

    02/17/2014 at 4:45 PM #41426
    Jwolf61
    Participant


    Guess Who Made this call?

    02/17/2014 at 4:46 PM #41427
    Jwolf61
    Participant

    02/17/2014 at 4:52 PM #41428
    Jwolf61
    Participant

    SAME Karl Hess ….I mean Mike Stuart

    02/17/2014 at 5:02 PM #41429
    nav
    Participant

    https://vine.co/v/M7UI9apmHOI

    I dunno TRS. This is a 1/4 speed view. The call looks correct. I see a reach in foul on the floor before TJW traveled with the ball. 3 steps after the bounce.

    02/17/2014 at 5:13 PM #41430
    PackFamily
    Participant

    It looks like a good call. The arguments for continuation as well as the quick calls on State to start the half a re legit arguments. Hopefully we learn to close out games and won’t have to worry about this.

    02/17/2014 at 5:21 PM #41431
    triadwolf
    Participant

    I’ll just say that more than not that would be called a shooting foul regardless of what the technical definition of the rule is. But I think he had started his shooting motion for a layup and if you use that for the basis of deciding a block or charge it should apply here also.

    That said we shouldn’t have turned the damn ball over…

    02/17/2014 at 5:33 PM #41433
    btownwolfpack
    Participant

    To those who keep saying that the kids needed to make a play to finish off Syracuse, your argument is completely flawed. TJ WARREN MADE THAT PLAY. HE GOT A STEAL AND WAS FOULED ON THE BREAK AWAY. MADE THE SHOT AND WAS HEADED TO THE LINE WITH A CHANCE TO ICE IT. That was the play you keep talking about them not making. They did make it, but the refs took it. So quit whining about how it’s all on the players. When they made the play, it was stolen. So I guess they should have made two plays. Or do you think it should have been three? They made that many and more. But the refs changed the game. Period. In a one point game it matters. That’s all anyone is saying.

    02/17/2014 at 5:34 PM #41434
    Pack85EE
    Participant

    Thanks for the 1/4 speed. I don’t know the rules well enough to determine if it was a continuation or not, but it sure looked like a broken tackle which Warren ran through for the game winning TD.
    F1 two shots and the ball.

    If the refs had at least looked at it again, and I think they should have, coach could have worked the inbounds play a little better.

    02/17/2014 at 6:09 PM #41437
    Wulfpack
    Participant

    How many times did Scott Wood get called for intentional fouls for putting two hands on someone to stop a fast break? How was this any different.

    The Cuse player caught up to Warren and tried to make a play on the ball. There is no shove. A small grab but then a clear swipe.

    Continuation debate? Absolutely.

    02/17/2014 at 8:03 PM #41449
    MrPlywood
    Participant

    No shove? Maybe not with his hands but surely with the body. Cooney was way out of position, desperately trying to catch up to the play, made a wild “attempt” at the ball and knocked TJ off his line. The first photo clearly shows a hold with Cooney’s right hand, not a grab per se but holding TJ back. Then Cooney crashes into TJ with his chest.

    [edit] Just added another pic showing the end of foul shove. Look, the dude was doing all that he could to keep TJ from scoring without really making a play on the ball. That’s a flagrant 1.

    Perhaps TJ should have flopped and gone careening across the floor flailing his arms and legs instead of trying to make the bucket.

    TJ foul 1

    TJ foul 2

    TJ foul 3

    02/17/2014 at 8:15 PM #41451
    archdalepack
    Participant

    Thanks for both post showing TJW play. I like the break away play to basket that created the foul. Think it was a shooting foul. The next inbound play was not executed properly. After basket by Syracuse, one of the coaches could have questioned the time run off to get play set up and calm players. They had the no 1 team in the nation beat. See positives for future, but hate this was taken from them.

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