Tag Archive: ncaa basketball tournament

A Moment of Appreciation for the Second Ref

March 20, 2011 Adam Thomas

Last night was “game night” aka Holy Balls board games are fun, we’re in our mid-20’s and don’t want to get blitzed every night anymore, let’s play some Catchphrase!

Anyway, in the midst of this, the Pitt/Butler game was on TV. I couldn’t hear what was happening with all the Rick Astley blaring in the background, but I could see what was going on, and it pissed me off.

Butler is up by 1 with 3 seconds left.  Pitt in bounded the ball, Pitt guy catches it, heaves up a desperation half court shot. Refs call a foul.

Huh?

The Butler guy didn’t really come close to fouling the Pitt guy in my opinion.  I’ve been reading articles today that said the Butler player leaned his shoulder into the Pitt player.  I can kinda see how that was the case but still, there’s no way you make that call in that situation.  It was BS and Butler was getting hosed.

Until…

The Pitt guy hits the first free throw.

The Pitt guy misses the second free throw. Big goofy white guy on Butler grabs the rebound and for some odd reason, he gets absolutely HACKED by a Pitt player.

The second ref is standing there and rightly calls the foul.  Two shots Butler.  Game over.  Just like it should have been 3 seconds ago and drama free.

I hate everything about Pitt so seeing them lose was awesome, and I dunno why I put them in my final four, they always, always, ALWAYS choke.

The thing I loved the best was seeing a Pitt assistant basically piss himself crying over the call, he jumped up, stormed the court and was screaming at the ref.

Dude. Calm down.  They got it right.  And your call was total BS and now you’re mad at this call?  What a tool.

So thank you second ref for having the balls to make that call and get it right.

Butler deserved to win and we all deserved to get our brackets busted by trusting in a team that has done absolutely nothing to earn our trust in March.

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March Madness, Sprinkled with Sixers Talk? Yes Please.

March 14, 2011 Randy Neil

Bracketology. A science only few are familiar with and only the elite can master. Deciphering the strategies and match-ups of a 64 team tournament into one great spectacle, analysts around the horn are going to be on TV for the next 3 days speculating what players have enough “swagger” to lead them to Houston for the NCAA Championship.

Before they can even get to that, arguments need to be made about what teams were left out, and which undeserving ones got in. When analysts on ESPN starting jabbering about which teams got robbed, arguing that bigger market teams were chosen instead, my first response was “duh.” Of course they did. The NCAA is still a business at the end of the day. But, after some thought, I’m kind of glad it was said. It needs to be said. This is the system, as shitty as it is, that helps recycle universities in need of some recognition. Complaining gets you there. It IS retarded that teams that haven’t played all weekend in their conference tournaments have lost ranking to teams that did good in their poor…. poor… just god awful representation of a conference. I’m looking at you, UNC.

Good news is you don’t have to listen to those idiots. theheadrush.com is having their own predictions this year, and we’re so cocky and confident in our choices, we’re going to compete and wager against one another. Starting Wednesday, I’ll have a bracket in place on the site, listing our predictions, constantly updating the score throughout the entire tournament. Should be a good time.

Talk about the Sixers? Alright you twisted my arm. Yes, I did in fact see the victory over the Celtics on Friday. It was sick. When we hold teams to 80-90 points with great defense, we have a chance against anybody. So if I check correctly, we upset not only the #1 team in the West, but also the #1 team in the East. It was almost a given that we’d lose to the Bucks on Saturday. Back to back home-away games always spell disaster. We just poured our hearts into a game against a great Celtic team, and then had to travel 500 miles to play less than 24 hours later against a youthful Milwaukee Bucks team that has nothing to lose. We were tired. We looked tired. Doug Collins made note to address that in the post-game interview.

And I take anything that man says as the truth. Doug Collins was named Coach of the Month in February for leading the Sixers to a 7-3 month, the best winning percentage we’ve had since 2007. He’s still got my vote for Coach of the Year. We have already surpassed our total wins in a season for last year and clearly shown we can hang with the elite in the NBA.

Tonight, we face the brand new Utah Jazz. They’ve been dropping coaches, players, training staff, wives, all kinds of crazy stuff. The Jazz are coming off a 2-4 record this month, with scoring in the 100’s almost every game. The Sixers boast a 108 pt. average the past 9 games, in spite of the two lack luster offensive performances last weekend. The Sixers have been 2-19 going into Utah, and this road trip proves to be tough, but I have faith with the Jazz’s recent troubles that we’ll light it up.

Stop the Mormons.

And one of my favorite highlights from this weekend coming from the NBA Playbook. Best part is, KG gets burned.

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