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Southern Road Trip

oldrunner

oldrunner

Active member
This should be an interesting road trip. Both of these teams are capable of upsetting us if we let our guard down. I don't expect that to happen, but you never really know. Both teams have some decent athletes. NAU just beat MSU in Bozeman. SUU has played a lot of good teams close this year.

Anybody on here making the trip south?
 
Despite having relative success in Flagstaff and Cedar City they usually turn out to be some of our toughest road games. Where we usually only win by like 5 points or less. Both teams are talented enough to beat us and should we play poorly are more than capable to. This team has played better since that home loss to ISU, but we need to get off to better starts, the start of that ISU game last weekend was tough to watch, reminded me of the first half of our game vs UNC.

Sadly I have other priorities this weekend so I wont be making the trip, but will be faithfully watching from my TV.

I do know Weber is getting a student bus for the trip down to Cedar City on Thursday. So that's cool.

With the way Montana is playing every game is crucial, and Weber faces 6 of their last 10 on the road. It's time to toughen up and get er done.

GO CATS!
 
I've made my way down to Cedar a few times. I feel they have a fairly nice court and facility, and each time down has ended up being a fun experience. Never have I had a problem with SUU fans. However, the rivalry is starting to heat up a bit. So, things could end up being different in the future. Hope the Cats show up tonight. There are no gimmies in the Big Sky this season.
 
What is it with games against SUU being foul fests?

Got the win and that's all that matters at this point. Too bad the Bears couldn't help us out
 
WILDCAT said:
What is it with games against SUU being foul fests?

Got the win and that's all that matters at this point. Too bad the Bears couldn't help us out
Click to expand...

Congrats on another nice road win.

Speaking of foul-fests, there were 50 -- FIFTY!!! -- fouls called in Greeley. The bsc is atrocious in general, and their officiating is worse.
 
Grizwald said:
WILDCAT said:
What is it with games against SUU being foul fests?

Got the win and that's all that matters at this point. Too bad the Bears couldn't help us out
Click to expand...

Congrats on another nice road win.

Speaking of foul-fests, there were 50 -- FIFTY!!! -- fouls called in Greeley. The bsc is atrocious in general, and their officiating is worse.
Click to expand...


It sure seems that way, but the Sky shares the same refs with the other western conferences, i watched the Utah/Arizona game last weekend and im not sure i have ever seen a worse reffed game. And i have seen a lot of big sky games. NCAA reffing is just bad period. Having said that 50 is a ridiculous number for any college game.

Congrats as well on the big win in Greeley. Not an easy place to win. Griz are smokin hot.
 
Thanks WC.

And I agree that officiating is bad across the board. But it's worse -- waaaay worse -- in our conference. And not only is it bad, it's inconsistently bad. Coaches and fans can handle bad; we're all used to it. But when a guy with the ball gets bulldozed to the ground from behind with no call, and then 13 seconds later there's a foul called 37 feet from the basket for a finger check (not even a hand check), well, it's no wonder coaches lose their cool.
 
Grizwald said:
Thanks WC.

And I agree that officiating is bad across the board. But it's worse -- waaaay worse -- in our conference. And not only is it bad, it's inconsistently bad. Coaches and fans can handle bad; we're all used to it. But when a guy with the ball gets bulldozed to the ground from behind with no call, and then 13 seconds later there's a foul called 37 feet from the basket for a finger check (not even a hand check), well, it's no wonder coaches lose their cool.
Click to expand...

My biggest beef with the officiating is as you said the inconsistency of the reffing any given game, or in last night's case any given half.

Last night in Cedar City the refs called the game pretty well in the first half, there were some ghost fouls and honestly fouls that were missed but at the end of the first half I felt they did a decent job.

Then the 2nd half starts and the refs are calling every tiny little bit of contact and touch calls that they let go in the first half that neither team could get into any kind of rhythm. Almost every other possession had a whistle blown whereas every say 6 possessions in the first half were whistled. By the 10 minute mark in the 2nd half SUU was already in the double bonus. In the first half, neither team even made it to the double bonus. There were 7 fouls apiece on each team in the first half. In the 2nd half Weber was called for 16 fouls to SUU's 12. And a few of those 12 were called when SUU was intentionally fouling.

The inconsistency of reffing is what really makes it look bad. It isn't just a Big Sky thing but it is seen more in our league because we watch our league more. Heck last year I had a friend who is a BYU fan come to a Weber game with me and I remember him laughing and saying that the Big Sky's refs made WCC refs look like morons, and then when I told him every conference in the West shares the same refs he then asked "then why are they so bad in WCC games?"

The truth is Officiating is bad and inconstant period but because we focus on the Big Sky so much (as we should being fans of Big Sky schools) we tend to believe that officiating is the worst in our conference. I have watched ACC games where the officiating was just downright awful which made the already hard to watch game even more unbearable.

I have already come to terms with refs being bad, I just wish it wasn't game to game or half to half. If you aren't calling certain things fouls in the first half then you shouldn't be calling them in the 2nd half.

I mean at the end of the day...

consistency-is-key.png
 
Good win by the Cats. Baker had quite the game against his brother's former team last night. It was fun to hear James McGee pass Davis Baker (the older brother of Dusty) on the SUU All-Time Scoring List. The defense was pretty stout. Kozak, Chapman, Braxton, and even Dallas all got whistled, at least once, for playing perfect defense. Really interesting some of those calls. My two favorites...Chapman's charge when the guy is 2' in the restricted zone and one on Kozak at the end with him playing absolutely perfect defense in the key. Oh another one, but against SUU, Dusty is falling down before the guy even touches him and they called a charge. Final one, I promise, the phantom moving screen on Harding. The play hadn't even gotten to that area of the court and there was a SUU guy moving in the opposite direction of the Harding screen, so moving away from him, and he gets whistled for a moving screen. Nobody was near him!! He didn't even touch a SUU player and bam. :lol: :lol: Such a zealous crew of morons.

There are three things that hurts consistency in the Sky and the NCAA at large. First it is all about accessibility. If it is easy to get to, then there is a better chance of getting the best refs. Second, conference notoriety. PAC-12 games are usually going to get the best refs. Besides, they do get paid more getting "bigger" conference games. Even if the refs are all in the same consortium, bigger conferences have more $$$, and with that, they supposedly, get the best refs. Finally, the NCAA has really hurt the college game with all of the new rules instituted throughout the past decade.

So, you play a game in Greeley Colorado or Cedar City Utah, you will end up with the least experienced refs. Why? Because it is hard to get to those locations; Distance. Both institutions have rather small budgets; can't pay a lot. And finally, the less experienced a crew, the more likely they will call everything the NCAA says they NOW need to call. What does that equal? A hard to watch foul-fest.
 
In Cedar, there were two experienced refs and one that looked as though he was doing his first game ever, at any level. He couldn't have been more than 19 years old. He had not a clue about the rules of the game, the markings in the floor, or anything else relating to basketball. He was consistently off the mark, but had a strong desire to blow his whistle. The other two refs tried to help him out, but it was a lost cause.

I think the problem is that we get the least experienced at the most remote locations. The BSC is about 60% remote locations. The most experienced guys are not choosing to go to Cedar City. Places like Cedar City will continue to see the lowest level of NCAA officiating until such time that assignments are made randomly.

I was at both games this weekend and loved the games and the trip. There were some loud WSU students at the SUU game. It was wonderful. :coffee:
 
All in all a good weekend with 2 road wins. Any time we can blow a team out on the road when Jimmy Casas is the lead a official I would say it is a success.
 
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