Key Play of the Game

[CTWarrior]

MU on a big run, trailing 56-52 with 6:30 left, but Hayward takes a fall away one handed sorta side arm shot with 24 seconds on the shot clock and misses badly.

Things unraveled in a hurry after that and we should have called a time out.  Pitt scores an easy hoop to go up 6.  For some reason we go to Burke who misses a shot while double teamed.  We give up another easy basket to  Young to go down 8.  McNeal loses the dribble and Acker fouls Fields and we're down 10 just like that with 4:33 to go.

[mviale]

wrong - this game was lost in the 1st half

[ChicosBailBonds]

MU on a big run, trailing 56-52 with 6:30 left, but Hayward takes a fall away one handed sorta side arm shot with 24 seconds on the shot clock and misses badly.

Things unraveled in a hurry after that and we should have called a time out.  Pitt scores an easy hoop to go up 6.  For some reason we go to Burke who misses a shot while double teamed.  We give up another easy basket to  Young to go down 8.  McNeal loses the dribble and Acker fouls Fields and we're down 10 just like that with 4:33 to go.

Yeah that was a tough spot....watching James get freight trained around that time with no call didn't help either as Pitt scored a layup.

[CTWarrior]

wrong - this game was lost in the 1st half

Obviously, we stunk at the end of the first half.  But at the point I mentioned, Pitt was gassed and we were rolling, had we taken a good shot there and scored, I think we win the game.  Of course I have no way of knowing, but I really think that play, and definitely the stretch that followed, killed any hopes we had of winning.

[DegenerateDish]

I think CT Warrior is dead on. I thought after that Hayward miss, Crean should have immediately called a TO on the next trip down and gotten McNeal in immediately. It was such a key point in the game, to fight back like that and then lose that momentum was a very key point in this game.

[MUEng92]

I thought the same thing.  You had 4 guys on the floor capable of hitting a killer three and you pass it inside to Burke?  If someone would have said that was the play they were going to run I would have laughed at them.

It actually did make me laugh.  The same disbelieving, sarcastic, sick to my stomach laugh I did after the play where there is no physical way the ref could not have seen Young (I think) was the only possible person who could have reached the ball going out of bounds, but still called it out on MU.  Or the time an MU big hedged at the top of the key towards the end of the game and brushed the Pitt players bicep and got called for a foul after essentially every play MU ran in the first half featured an MU guard getting sideswiped by a Pitt big while dribbling around the pick at the top of the key.

That game just leaves so many different bad tastes in my mouth.