re: It's NOT the officiating ....

King Joey: Do you really need to resort to the ad hominen attacks? Don't you have a solid enough belief in your arguments that they can stand on their own merits without you having to resort to the name-calling? I guess we know the answer to that question. You are adept at criticizing yet offer no solutions. What is your alternative to our current system of hiring human beings to officiate college sporting events? You remind me of the radio talk show hosts who spend hour upon hour throwing out criticism of whatever the "flavor of the day" is yet offer no realistic alternatives. Come on, King Joey. Dispense with the name-calling and offer something constructive for us to munch on.

"idiot" "moron" "USWho"

Come on, Tiger bait. Can't you come up with something better than that? Whether or not I watched the game or not is not germane to this discussion. What is pertinent is that virtually every team's fans that lost a game today - or yesterday, or a week ago or a year ago - blame the officiating. What is ammusing is that when a team wins a game against a team whose fans complain about the officiating - well, winning teams fans all find it laughable and poor sportsmanship that they would react this way. Don't believe me? Read the posters reaction on this board when a team's fans who LSU just beat come on here and complain about the refs and see how they get treated. Amazing how perspective has everything to do with how we react.

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You are adept at criticizing yet offer no solutions.

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The first solution is to get people like you to stop using the kneejerk response (that's not an ad hominem attack, btw; "kneejerk" is a type of response that connotes one of a pre-determined nature without regard to the actual circumstances) of ridiculing every suggestion that the officiating was bad in a game. The second part of my solution is to have some sort of transparent accountability process for the officials. Have their games reviewed and make those reviews publicly available so everyone can see exactly which calls were missed, which officials were missing them, and which team(s) benefitted from those missed calls. When that information is available, then a realistic appraisal can be made of whether or not a particular officials "mistakes" are truly randomly spread to the equal benefit and detriment of all the teams he refs. Likewise, that information could be used to examine whether there are any particular trends for good/bad calls (like the common notion that "big name" teams get more favorable calls against "lesser" teams). This kind of transparent information is the most important factor in correcting the problem. The fans have to know how good (or bad) the officials are, because they are the ones who have to put the pressure on the conferences and the NCAA to maintain better standards of officiating. And finally, I would suggest that the accountability be significant. Officials that miss more calls than other officials should be treated worse somehow (paid less, given fewer games, etc.). And ANY ref whose bad calls show some sort of pattern (especially one correlating to a gambling theme; e.g., consistently clustered in situations dictating the result vs. the spread, for example) should be subjected to extreme scrutiny for any improper connections that might influence his performance.

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What is your alternative to our current system of hiring human beings to officiate college sporting events?

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My alternative (as described above) is to hire human beings and then hold them accountable for their mistakes, and do not attempt to pretend that the mistakes do not occur and sometimes significantly impact the outcome of games.

I agree with joey for the most part. Trojan, you are right, officials don't "screw teams purposly. I would never suggest that. However, just like any other person, officals can have bad days. When they do, sometimes the game suffers. The officals also change the nature at which they call fouls from game to game.

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I agree with joey for the most part. Trojan, you are right, officials don't "screw teams purposly. I would never suggest that. However, just like any other person, officals can have bad days. When they do, sometimes the game suffers. The officals also change the nature at which they call fouls from game to game.

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Sometimes you just get screwed by the officiating. But, at some point, the Coach and Team have to realize how the game is being officiated, and today, it was CRYSTAL CLEAR that the refs were letting a lot of contact, both away and at the basket, go. Typical SEC tourn. game.

We have to be able to adjust, and Spence driving recklessly, falling down as he throws up prayers is not the way to adjust. It lead to no calls on our offense, and problems with transition to defense when our guards penetrated too deep into big men, hit the floor, and then we're running back with bad numbers.

We're not deep to begin with, but that style of play exacerbates our problems. We shoot less free throws, have less open 3's, get in foul trouble, shorten our already short bench, get tired, then our interior defense is more exposed.

Bottom line... officiating matters and you have to adjust. This wasn't a "screw-job", but our play didn't help us get calls because we didn't play smart, and it made it worse.

It is a game officiated by humans... if they see Spence driving recklessly throwing up crap, hitting the floor... they're going to be less likely to call the obvious fouls on Thornton when he drives.

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today, it was CRYSTAL CLEAR that the refs were letting a lot of contact, both away and at the basket, go.

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Maybe so, but I surely did not see a lot of contact on Varnado go uncalled under the Miss. State basket.

:amen:

Chris Johnson needs to be benched. He is not the same player he was at the beginning of the season. Dude looks lazy at times.

I think Trent Johnson is starting to see it too.

I like the way Q. Thornton and S. Warren plays. I rather watch them play from now on. Chris Johnson shouldn't even be the starter anymore he is not getting it done.

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Bigger, more physical players can move players, like C.J. with much less obvious fouling techniques. When positioning for a rebound, for instance, the smaller (not necessarily weaker) player's fight to stand his ground is simply more noticable to the official than the bigger players effort if he is allowed to push from behind.

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I see what you mean, and I agree. I was just reading it differently than you meant it.

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inside game

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This is it.