By
Steve Kallas (posted by Rick Morris)
It
was an exciting tournament for sure and congratulations to Virginia on going
all the way after that terrible loss in the first round last year. But they were beyond lucky to be in the title
game. Let’s go with the obvious
(Auburn-Virginia) before the more nuanced (Michigan State-Duke).
AUBURN
GETS ROBBED
While,
apparently, very few people understood the obvious at the end of the
Auburn-Virginia game, everybody picked up on it after the fact (mainly because
Gene Steratore, the CBS rules expert, explained it AFTER the game was over).
But
a number of knowledgeable basketball people understood that, without question
(not appeared to be or maybe or it’s unclear), Virginia’s Ty Jerome
double-dribbled with a few seconds left in the game and Auburn up by two. As a result of that clear violation, Auburn
should have had the ball at center court with about 2.4 seconds left in the
game.
At
that point, Virginia has to foul. If
they can’t (because Auburn plays keepaway), game over and Auburn’s in the
Final. If they foul and Auburn makes both, the game’s over (up four) and
Auburn’s in the Final. If Auburn misses
or makes one, Virginia has under two seconds to make an incredible play and,
maybe, tie or win.
With
a proper, simple call, Auburn could have and should have won the game.
SO,
WHAT HAPPENED?
Well,
with three officials on the floor, you would think one of them would have seen
the obvious. This wasn’t a play where
Jerome was crossing over IN FRONT of his body while being closely guarded. Rather, he attempted to dribble BEHIND HIS
BACK (and, then, off the back of his foot), the point being there was no tight
defense and a possible tipping of the ball by the defender (which would
eliminate any double-dribble call).
While
Steratore, trying to defend the officials, said it was a “tough judgment play,”
the reality is it was a no-brainer and an easy call.
Interestingly,
the CBS commentating crew had no idea and also missed the obvious. It’s unclear whether that was something that
should have been obvious to Jim Nantz, but basketball experts Grant Hill and
Bill Raftery should not have missed this.
Sometimes they spend so much time saying Team A should do this or Team B
should not do that, they actually miss what’s right in front of them.
Jim
Nantz tried to save the whole crew by saying, when Steratore was introduced
(again, after the game), “one [play] we didn’t even have a chance to review”
(referring to the double-dribble). But
that’s not true. In fact, right after
Jerome double-dribbled, he was fouled and play was stopped.
Didn’t
have a chance to review? That’s
ridiculous. In fact, right after the
play ended, they showed a SLOW MOTION replay.
If you didn’t see it the first time, you had to see it the second time. Yet nobody on the crew saw it.
CBS
stayed with the replay for 30 seconds or so and then went to the (dreaded)
commercials. After a minute of those (an
eternity to, hopefully, see that a turnover was committed), CBS returned to the
game and, after another 45 seconds or so on the air (never mentioning the
double-dribble), the game resumed with that Kyle Guy jumper at the buzzer. So
there was about two minutes and 15 seconds of real time to review the
obvious. An eternity in TV time.
OF
COURSE IT WAS A FOUL
While
Auburn fans (and, frankly, basketball fans) should be disappointed that there
was an obvious missed call that (most probably) led to a championship game
appearance for Virginia rather than Auburn, nobody should really complain about
the final call sending Kyle Guy to the line for three shots. It definitely was a foul. He definitely was behind the line.
Auburn’s
Samir Doughty definitely hit Guy (with his body) before Guy let the shot
go. You can’t expect no whistle there
just because it’s the end of the game.
Charles Barkley said it was a foul.
And Auburn coach Bruce Pearl pretty much said the same thing. There was really no question on that one.
And
incredible props to Guy for making all three shots ( despite being iced by
Pearl with a timeout after the first two) in as pressure-packed a situation
that one can be put in at the end of a huge game.
Auburn
got the ball back with 0.6 seconds left.
Despite ESPN’s Zubin Mehenti saying (on SportsCenter) that Auburn got a
“decent look,” Auburn got a virtually impossible look. Daniel Purifoy threw a 70-foot or so pass to Bryce
Brown, who jumped up just behind the three-point line to catch it and then twisted
in the air to take a heave that really had no chance.
And
that’s how Virginia got to the final game.
REPLAY
IN COLLEGE BASKETBALL?
A
fascinating question. After what
happened to the New Orleans Saints, who were clearly robbed of a chance to go
to the Super Bowl (yes, they had time to win, but if the proper and obvious
call was made, they would have taken three knees and won the game), the NFL has
now changed the rule to allow review of pass interference calls and pass
interference non-calls.
Could
something like this be done in basketball?
A challenge flag? A review from an eye-in-the-sky official?
Well,
it would be very hard to do. In the
Rams-Saints game, there’s obviously a stoppage of play after each play. Not so in basketball.
BUT
COULD THE NHL BE INSTRUCTIVE?
The
NHL replay rule is a bit weird in some respects but it has been used to
challenge goals by saying the scoring team was offsides, even if they were
offsides 20, 30, 60 or 90 seconds before the goal was scored.
Think
about that. The offense comes across the
blue line, the linesman signals no offsides, the offense keeps the puck in the
zone for (in theory, as long as they can – it could even be minutes) and then,
when a goal is scored, the defense can challenge the goal based on something
that had happened awhile ago.
It’s
unclear whether that could even be used in basketball because the goal scored
in hockey, by definition, causes a stoppage of play. Not so on an uncalled double-dribble (for
example) in basketball.
SO
WHAT’S THE NCAA OR NBA TO DO?
Well,
on that particular play (the Jerome double-dribble), you actually could have
had a replay since he was fouled about one second later. But ESPN’s Jay Williams had a good
point. He’s against some kind of replay
and essentially said that Jerome had his jersey grabbed right before he
double-dribbled and that wasn’t called.
He went on to ask, if there was replay review should it have been
called?
Well,
the answer to that is, if you want to get it right, absolutely it should be
called if the refs think it was a foul.
Interestingly, if that did happen, Auburn would have had a (very) little
additional time to try and win the game.
But
maybe there is something, like the NHL, that can be done, especially in the
case of egregious non-calls. It will be
hard to do it in basketball but, in 2019, we had an egregious non-call that
(most probably) kept the Saints out of the Super Bowl and we had an egregious
non-call that (most probably) kept Auburn out of the NCAA championship game.
And
that’s just not right.
WHAT
ABOUT DUKE’S HUGE MISTAKE?
This
was not a bad call or a non-call. More
nuanced, this still has not been recognized by many people weeks after it
happened.
Michigan
State-Duke are playing a tough head-to-head game to go to the Final Four. This writer’s personal thoughts aside (that
it was absurd to put Michigan State in Duke’s bracket – the head of the
committee said it was for “geographical” reasons. Yikes!), the game was a back and forth game
as you might have expected.
But,
during the second half, it became obvious to a tiny number of people (and kudos
to Joe Heinzmann of Ridgefield, CT, an excellent basketball coach, who was the
first and one of the only (maybe the only) people to recognize this major issue
with about four-and-a-half minutes left in the game), that Duke had not fouled
Michigan State in the second half.
With
4:30 left in the game, Duke had committed one foul in the second half. This, of course, could be incredibly
important if, late in the game, Duke was down a little and had to put Michigan
State at the line.
SO,
WHAT HAPPENED?
Well,
with 4:07 left in the game, Duke committed its second foul (you probably know
that, in college, you have to commit seven fouls before someone goes to the
line (on the seventh)). But at 3:30 left
and 3:00 left and 2:30 left, Duke had still only committed two fouls.
What
were they going to do if Michigan State was a little ahead – foul FIVE times?
With
2:26 left, CBS put up a graphic showing score, time outs remaining, fouls and
the possession arrow. Jim Nantz said
that Duke had only committed two fouls in the second half. But he didn’t seem to understand the
potential problem that could cause Duke (i.e., they couldn’t put Michigan State
on the line if Duke was losing late).
With
2:18 left, Duke committed another foul.
Jim Nantz said, “And again, only the third team foul.” Grant Hill chipped in with,”I’m not mad at
that play by Tre Jones. Duke has a lot
of fouls to give and they can be aggressive especially with the basketball
cause they are not in the bonus.”
Again,
nobody seemed to look at it the other way:
what if Duke doesn’t foul enough to get Michigan State in or very near
the bonus and Duke is down late?
At
1:33 left, the sideline reporter said that Coach K had told them a number of
things. The final thing she said to the
audience was that Coach K “reminded them they have three fouls to give.”
Did
Coach K really remind them that they had three fouls to give? Or did he tell them to commit three fouls
quickly so they could put Michigan State on the line if they were down
late. Because if he didn’t tell them to
foul intentionally (and it appears that he didn’t because they didn’t foul
anyone intentionally then), that could cost them a chance to win the game.
Did
anyone on Duke’s bench (player, coach, assistant) understand the potential
problem?
THE
FINAL 1:17
With
1:17 left, Duke is up by one. With 43.6
seconds left, Michigan State calls a timeout down one. With 34.3 seconds left, Kenny Goins hits a
three-pointer to put Michigan State up by two.
NOW WHAT IS DUKE GOING TO DO?
Duke
runs their offense (no timeout called but they only have one left) and R.J.
Barrett shoots a three with 12 seconds left in the game. The ball goes out of bounds and eventually is
given to Duke with 8.4 seconds left.
Barrett goes to the basket and is fouled in the act of shooting with 5.2
seconds left.
Barrett
goes to the line for two, down by two points.
He tries to make the first but misses.
He now has to miss the second (Duke down two) but the ball (a line drive
shot) hits the back of the rim, goes straight up and goes in.
Duke’s
down one with only three team fouls.
They are FOUR fouls away from putting Michigan State on the line. The ball is thrown in by Michigan State and
their point guard, Cassius Winston, is fouled right away. Everybody starts walking the length of the
court so Winston can shoot a foul shot with 4.7 seconds left. Right?
Wrong.
Duke
hasn’t fouled enough for Michigan State to be anywhere near shooting the
bonus.
And
it finally dawns on Jim Nantz (and maybe Duke?) that Duke has a problem.
Nantz
first says, “And they have a foul to give.” Well, they actually have TWO more
fouls to give and Michigan State STILL wouldn’t be shooting.
And
then Jim Nantz says, “And that’s only team foul number four on Duke. It really comes back to hurt the Blue
Devils.” YA THINK?
Finally,
Jim Nantz says, “They just can’t send them [Michigan State] to the line. They haven’t committed any fouls.”
So
it wasn’t until 4.7 seconds left in the game that somebody on the broadcast
looked at it from the other side.
Michigan State then got the ball in to Winston who ran away from
everybody to run out the clock and win the game for Michigan State.
The
moral of the story: you really have to
look at the team fouls sometime not-too-late in the second half to see if you
should give a few fouls down the stretch.
A
WEEK LATER
It
was interesting to see that there was virtually no conversation about the lack
of fouls committed by Duke. Had they
been able to put Michigan State on the line when they fouled with 4.7 seconds
left, they would have at least had a chance (4.7 seconds), down one, two or
three (depending on how many foul shots were made) to tie or even win the game.
But
they never got the chance. A big
mistake.
So,
at halftime of the Championship Game on CBS, Greg Gumbel said to Seth Davis
something to the effect that you wanted to talk about the fouls in this game. Seth Davis explained that you had to look at
the team fouls for both Virginia and Texas Tech because they each had only four
in the first half.
He
then referenced the Auburn game, saying they hadn’t fouled enough against
Virginia in the second half to put them in the bonus. And he’s right.
But
the MUCH GREATER issue and MUCH BETTER example was Duke in their loss to
Michigan State. Without question, it
cost them an opportunity to tie or win the game. Did Seth Davis not know about it more than a
week after it happened?
Again,
it’s almost two weeks after the Michigan State-Duke game and, still, very few
people know or understand what happened.
Amazing.
A
BRIEF THOUGHT ON THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
Virtually
everybody (correctly, virtually all (but not totally all) of the time), the
game isn’t won or lost on one play. You
know, the coach says something like, “we had a lot of opportunities” or “you
can’t blame it all on that one play.”
Again, that’s usually, but not always, true. The Seahawks passing (rather than running)
from the one-yard line to lose the Super Bowl to the Patriots is one classic
example when Malcolm Butler intercepted
a pass to save the win for New England.
In
this game, the one play late to focus on (and, no, it’s not as bad as Seattle)
is, with about 18 seconds left in the game, Texas Tech is up by three. Ty
Jerome of Virginia easily beats his man and is going down the lane for an
uncontested layup. At that point, what
you don’t want to give up is an uncontested three or an “old-fashioned” (how
quaint) three-point play (you know, don’t foul the guy).
So
what happened? If you watch the replay, Davide
Moretti, who was guarding Virginia sharpshooter (and hero) Kyle Guy, never
moves from Guy, understanding exactly what he has to do (no threes). However, three other guys, including Jared
Culver, who was guarding De’Andre Hunter, attack Jerome. WHY? A layup can’t tie or beat you.
Culver
left 42% three-point shooter Hunter wide open in the corner. Hunter buries it with 12.9 seconds left to
tie up the game. Virginia would go on to
win in overtime.
If
everybody just stays with his man, Jerome scores a layup and Virginia, down
one, has to foul and put Texas Tech on the line with 10 or less seconds
left.
Does
that mean that Texas Tech would have won?
Absolutely not. Does that mean
that Texas Tech would have had the advantage? Absolutely. It’s very hard to stay at home (like Moretti
did) in such a big spot.
But
that’s something you have to just learn to do.
FINALLY
All
credit to Virginia. They owned their bad
loss last year and came back to win it all.
Congratulations to them.
©
COPYRIGHT 2019 BY STEVE KALLAS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
