@umhoops what’s your thought on JB taking a timeout, after Duncan “traveled” (he did travel, only after getting repeatedly raked). I get wanting to get your defense set, and Pitino is no Beilein-offensive-genius, but it seems odd to give them a chance to draw something up.
I know you didn’t ask me but I thought he just wanted a chance to get everyone organized. We were all out of sorts after the missed free throws and the traveling call. It was a chance to get things back together but they got the 3 anyways. I liked the call.
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I definitely get that angle. But, if roles were reversed and Pitino took a timeout when we had the ball and didnt have any timeouts, I’d be jumping for glee.
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A cursory search doesn’t yield a database of referees’ assignments by conference - there was something a few years ago on SI.com or ESPN.com that looked at where certain refs plied their trade - it’s my recollection that guys tended to have just about all their games spread out only among three conferences and that those guys tended to have one conference that certainly stood out as the league where they called the bulk of their games. Has something changed materially in how referees are assigned and where they get their games in the last few years? I think the article was from a bit back as I’m pretty sure Ed Hightower was part of the study.
Back to today’s game, what a bullet dodged. McBrayer got an excellent look from near the top of the key with the score tied right at the close - if that goes down, oh boy. I think there’s been some “playing afraid to lose” since the MSU game. If this game doesn’t serve as a wake up call that playing that way isn’t going to cut it, we’re in a lot of trouble. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our best game since MSU has been a loss to #3 Purdue.
Jordan Poole does not lack confidence 
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“It hurts,” Abdur-Rahkman said. “You miss two free throws, it’s basically like you turned the ball over."
Well, well, well.
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KenPom keeps referee game logs. For example, here’s Valentine’s last 40 or so games.
Refs are independent contractors and basically take work wherever they can get it. The Big Ten does probably have a pool or referees that they try to choose from, but I believe there’s a website that handles the assignments somehow. There was some incident with it being hacked/compromised.
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That travel schedule looks brutal. He’s basically working every night in a different town. I had no idea their schedules were so tight.
Probably contributes to them being so terrible.
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Yeah. They’ve got to be tired and that would affect their concentration.
I do think that travel is a big part of it. Might they be better served by having a wider pool of people to draw from so that they are working 3-4 games/week rather than 5-6?
One thing I love about him, he doesn’t let his lack of confidence at the line keep him from getting to the line.
Yesterday was a great example. He kept driving and staying aggressive, not worried about getting fouled. For some players, if they struggle or are struggling to shoot FTs, they become hesitant to get fouled. Not the case with Matthews.
The grind it out, come from behind, overcome adversity win was excellent, the pathway was excruciating, and I knew the outcome before I watched. Real time is 10x worse.
Good things. Matthews going with the jump stop, gather quickly), and attack rim with emphasis in the second half. I would like to see more of this. Teske needs to implement this fundamental as well.
Simpson keeps gettin better. Starting to do some Darius Morris type things in the paint; very effective getting to the rim. Defensively: His hands are incredible.
Defensive rebounding Y’all. It’s all hands on deck
MAAR: another huge play to win a game
Wagner: he was too much for Jordan Murphy on the glass… Astounding
Livers/Robinson: nice production
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Yeah, that was funny. We gotta get MAAR on here for further discussion. I also thought of this topic when watching the IU game and Dakich basically predicted Bridges would get a missed FT rebound (which he did after stepping out of bounds). Dakich noted that MSU practices this situation consistently - getting offensive rebounds on missed FTs - and it made me wonder how common this was and whether it was an a smart few coaches could exploit more.
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Thanks, someone lied to me on the google, and said that KenPom didn’t have this. I guess you can’t trust everything you read online. 
Watching that 3 by Mason to tie, it doesn’t really look to me like a missed switch, more like Matthews made a poor decision of trying (unnecessarily) to go under a screen and Mason flared up instead.
Another thing – watching the Texas game and then the MSU game, it really made me think that even though we seem to have been having bad luck with the opposition hitting tough 2s against us, some of that is the complete absence of worrying about getting their shot blocked. Just having Bamba or Jackson out there changes the way guys take shots. I’d even be interested to see if there’s a difference in opposition 2pt% with Wagner and Teske on the floor.
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I think there’s some interesting things going on there - there’s the side of the FT shooting team where teams exert more or less effort going for the OReb and there’s the side of the defending team and how alert/not alert they are to the possibility. And some of this has to do with time and game situation (and how willing the FT shooting team is to risk a foul). In the big middle of a game, the missed FT seems less contested, and some of that has to do with not wanting to tack on a cheap foul, probably. So a lot of those come to closely resemble turnovers, in my book, and as we all know, those points and possessions in the big middle of a game count, too. I do think missed front ends are undervalued (the same way in baseball people got carried away and stopped realizing that a guy striking out 180 times a year has a cost to your offense) and then there’s the truly execrable, which is letting a team off the hook by missing two free throws in one trip.
I think there’s an argument for refs being familiar with players and having relationships with the coaches… and then there are arguments against it (see Kohl Center madness under Bo Ryan)