Is it illegal to play defense now?

[Boognish_MU]

I thought the Big East was known for it's tough defense, but it seems now that every little bit of contact gets called. Even worse, MU seems to be on the getting most of the fouls. 

For instance, McNeal's 4th foul from the West Virginia game was a horrible call.  It looked like a clean swipe, then a WV foul stopping McNeal from a break.... but it was called a McNeal foul...

Let the guys play a little!!!

[21Jumpstreet]

Agreed.  However, we are a reaching team and today we were a bit slow.  I think that as the season goes on and we get a bit stronger and more cohesive the fouls situation will improve.

[Thomas' Danish Delight]

yeah that was definitely the biggest BS call of the game. Officiating was bad, but so were we. On the other hand, wvu was dropping treys like nothing

[mviale]

Frosh get frustrated with fouls, not a Junior-senior dominated team like this.

[sv48]

there were many BS calls today, why does refs seem to hate MU always?

[SGWarrior]

Seemed to me like WVU won the foul differential.  Hayward, Jerel, and Wes all picked up 3 early fouls a piece.  I think this happered their focus and aggressiveness the rest of the way. 

Plus it seemed like the fouls called on WVU were make up type, ticky tac fouls. 

I now remember why I hate Huggins so much.  The style of game his teams play is tough, aggressive and tough again.  I for one can't wait to get Huggins back in the BC next year, and I'd love to see WVU again this year in the BE tourney.

[Desert_Eagle]

MU had 29 fouls to WVU's 16. That's kinda ridiculous.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=280060277

[Daniel]

WE did not play well enough to win - we stunk it up.  And our defense was not there.  Too many uncontested 3s we let them shoot, and that killed us at critical points of the game.  And we shot, it seemed to me, way too much from outside - especially in light of the fact that we were missing.  Take it in amnd make them foul.  But it's easy to coach watching on TV - lol.

And yes, Huggins is good.  I wish he and Pitino would leave college sports.

[chapman]

MU had 29 fouls to WVU's 16. That's kinda ridiculous.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=280060277

Not really.  9 fouls in the last four minutes when the game was pretty much done and we were fouling out of desperation.  Combine shoddy defense and a couple of stupid fouls and there's only a couple calls that could have gone our way.

[mwbauer7]

This seemed to be the perfect example of what Bilas was talking about. Referees should be studying the style of the teams they will be officiating. If an official hasn't seen a team play as physical as MU then they're more likely to call the ticky-tack fouls.

[MUWarrior11]

The refs didn't lose the game, we did.

Quite simply, we gave them too many uncontested 3 pointers.  You just can't do that on the road, especially to a team that shoots well.  Ruoff had too many WIDE open looks, as did Butler.

I am a bit worried about our inability to operate well against the triangle and two.  We seem to start our possessions too far away from the basket.  There were a few possessions when the ball literally never went inside of the three point line, and we ended up jacking up a bad shot with 3 or 4 seconds on the shot clock.

I still think this team is special, we just didn't show it today. Perhaps we can run a bit more and speed things up?? We didn't get ANY easy shots against the half court offense...

[muhoops1]

I agree completely.  MU played very poorly.  I noticed a bunch of guys sucking wind when WVU was shooting FT's in the 2nd half.  What happened to our superior conditioning?

What was worse the sets called or the execution? 

That is a huge disappointment.  A winnable road game.

When was the last time Wes Matthews hit a big shot?  What is his role?

[mu_hilltopper]

Hmm.  For all the talk about WVU hitting 3s left and right .. they hit 9, we hit 8.  They had 1 additional 2 pointer.

How'd they smoke us by 13?  22 charity points to 12. 

Now, we didn't rebound well, and that usually gives your team a big L, so it's not like we played nearly well enough on the boards to give ourselves a chance, notwithstanding whistles.

[CTWarrior]

We get called for more fouls because we foul like crazy.  We played defense with our hands instead of our feet.  We don't get called for half the reaching fouls we commit.

[mufan924]

I LOVE lazar and jerels game and how the play...but when you have THREE fouls with plenty of time left...STOP REACHING AND BUMPING !!! Lazar should have had his fourth foul much MUCH earlier.

stay aggressive without reaching all the time > See Cubillan.

[MarquetteDano]

I LOVE lazar and jerels game and how the play...but when you have THREE fouls with plenty of time left...STOP REACHING AND BUMPING !!! Lazar should have has his fourth foul much MUCH earlier.

stay aggressive without reaching all the time > See Cubillan.

Overall, I agree with this.  What I don't understand is that in our first year in the Big East, we were getting knocked all over the court and no fouls were called.  We were reaching worse than we are now.  Back then, I was concerned that the Big East was letting too many fouls go.  It was fine during the Big East, but when the NCAA/NIT rolls around, teams would be used to being able to foul without consequence.

Has the Big East told officials to start calling games tighter like the ACC and Big Twelve?  It seems like something has changed.  If so, we just need to adjust.  I just hope this isn't selective.  Because Pittsburgh and Notre Dame were knocking us all over the place last year... those better be fouls this year.