officiating or MU just cant hit a bunny?

[mviale]

I couldnt really watch after the 1st half. Yes, officiating seemed suspect, but we could not adapt and we were missing several easy shots and FTs again.  I believe DJ was 0-12 at some point and 4 of the starters didnt hit a FG in the first half.  Hard to blame the refs for that collapse. 

However, Crean and team rallied in 2nd half, but very tough make up 15 pts in 20 min. I also liked the Rebounding situation, but at one point they could not put the bucket in after 3-4 offensive rebounds. Just painful

[ecompt]

We gave it our best shot but the first 10 minutes doomed us. Shots weren't falling all night and both teams looked dead tired down the stretch. How Higgins still has a job is beyond me, but that's not taking away from either team's effort. Can't question the effort in the second half, and overall we acquitted ourselves well in the tourney. Now let's rest up for next week.

[CTWarrior]

We were missing those putbacks because we were getting whacked.  Anyway, we did miss a lot of easy shots, so a little of column A and a little of column B.

[mviale]

I also believe James' wrist is getting worse. Its a shame, because the Kid is so damn good

[ChicosBailBonds]

I also believe James' wrist is getting worse. Its a shame, because the Kid is so damn good

Why do you say that?

[drewm88]

I also believe James' wrist is getting worse. Its a shame, because the Kid is so damn good

I'd say his wrist is getting better and better. It looked like his legs betrayed him today with so many short shots until some adrenaline hit later on. O well, you get days off in the NCAA.

[mviale]

I dont see any wrist motion on his shot - especially FTs. 

[Niv Berkowitz]

Higgins is the worst f-ing ref I've ever seen ref one of our home games. He's a f-ing bum. He was brutal tonight. Just ungodly.

That said, when you can't hit a shot in ten minutes, you make things difficult.
And not going into the paint hurts too. It was too much for MU to catch up. But I still like our changes in teh tourney.

And...once Pitt plays a team and the game is called tight against them, they're done. Most physical team we've played all year.

[dwade320]

everyone was just exhausted from playing 2 straight games the previous 2 days.
now granted pitt was in the same boat but i heard from somewhere that they had a few players from the NY area and thought the MSG was their house.

[NavinRJohnson]

Higgins is the worst f-ing ref I've ever seen ref one of our home games. He's a f-ing bum. He was brutal tonight. Just ungodly.

That said, when you can't hit a shot in ten minutes, you make things difficult.
And not going into the paint hurts too. It was too much for MU to catch up. But I still like our changes in teh tourney.

And...once Pitt plays a team and the game is called tight against them, they're done. Most physical team we've played all year.

Thugh I understand the reasoning, this is why I hate the fact that conferences muzzle coaches. I would love to hear Coach Crean's actual opinions on the way that game was called. Was it really bad officiating, or more a case of MU's players simply not reacting well or adapting to the way the game was being called?

[CTWarrior]

I would love to hear Coach Crean's actual opinions on the way that game was called. Was it really bad officiating, or more a case of MU's players simply not reacting well or adapting to the way the game was being called?

I don't know how you adjust to the way that game was called.  There was no rhyme nor reason I could see to the officiating.  Lots of touch fouls called while many hard fouls let go.  Apparenly, according to the announcers, if you warn the officials that even though what you do looks like a travel but it really isn't, you're allowed to travel.  So maybe we should work on our pre-game in structions to the officials.  "Even though it looks like I'm hitting the shooter, I'm really not, OK?"

[NavinRJohnson]

I would love to hear Coach Crean's actual opinions on the way that game was called. Was it really bad officiating, or more a case of MU's players simply not reacting well or adapting to the way the game was being called?

I don't know how you adjust to the way that game was called.  There was no rhyme nor reason I could see to the officiating.  Lots of touch fouls called while many hard fouls let go.  Apparenly, according to the announcers, if you warn the officials that even though what you do looks like a travel but it really isn't, you're allowed to travel.  So maybe we should work on our pre-game in structions to the officials.  "Even though it looks like I'm hitting the shooter, I'm really not, OK?"

I hear ya, but I also saw MU doing a whole lot of bitchin', but not nearly as much from the Pitt players/bench - and there were definitley some questionable calls that affected them as well. It was a bit out of character for MU - Crean in particular, so that (along with my own eyes) leads me to believe it was a terribly officiated game - we all know that it was, but did Pitt simply handle it better? That's the kind of thing I would like to hear the coaches comment on, that we will unfortunatley never get.

BTW, don't get me started on that Young traveling thing. What a joke that was.

[AlumKCof93]

Naivin,
The calls were so in Pitt (have players from NY) favor, how could they complain?  MU got screwed tonight and I think Pitt realized it.  It was one of the worst called games I've ever seen.  Crean didn't get a T b/c he wanted to, it was b/c he was pushed over the edge for the first time all year.

And while we didn't score in the final 8 mins of the first half - and we played poorly offensively and settled for too many jump shots - Pitt wasn't scoring then either as our d clamped down.  It just wasn't as noticeable b/c we were losing and the announcers didn't mention how few points Pitt scored in that time.