Friday, March 9, 2007

Wolves in Zebra's Clothing?

In the last day I've received calls from DukeFan and CavMan grudgingly congratulating the Wolfpack, then complaining that the referees gave them the game. I'll be the first to admit, I can't be objective here. I'm and N. C. State fan and am enjoying every minute of Tampa because of these wins. Also, even with great seats in the arena, I won't pretend I can see better than the refs. I even thought Clemson fouled Thornton. So without seeing replays, I have no real idea how many of the fortuitous calls that State got were solid or not.

In the UVA game especially, fouls helped State immensely, disrupting Virginia's lineup in both halfs, helping erase the huge half-time deficit, and taking away a game tying score late.

Dave Leitao of course can't officially complain about officiating. His thoughts on the game were gracious as always:

I thought we got thoroughly outplayed in the second half. They continued to shoot the ball well, but the reason they shot the ball well was because we stopped defending. We stopped doing the things we had been doing in the first half. They become very, very dangerous because they have five guys on the court that one, control the tempo and so it becomes a little more difficult to wear them down, and two, they spread the ball around and share it. When they do that, it makes it a lot more difficult. When we started to give up the lead, what you need is a response. We just took our medicine and never responded. As a result, the score is only an indication of our lack of energy, or whatever adjective you want to use. Especially obviously in that second half.
A look at the box score reveals 24 fouls on uva, 17 on state. That disparity can be explained by the fact that while the wolfpack went inside again and again, the cavaliers often seemed to be happy with outside jumpers. The box score also reveals other reasons state won. State shot 53%, 74% in the 2nd half, while uva shot 40%. Most importantly, Singletary was 6 of 16, Reynolds, who apparently has been hurt, was 3 of 15. Hard to blame the refs for that kind of shooting.

But, you know how these kinds of things go. If N. C. State loses on Saturday to VaTech, watch for a column where I point out the Ref's role in the loss.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought Cain's 5th foul was the right call. He jumped on Constner's back. In past years that might have been a jump ball, but they're calling that a foul this year.

The charge Nieman drew when it looked like UVa had tied it could have gone either way.

I'm glad that for once, we're getting the breaks in close games.

Unknown said...

I've got a problem brewing. I only brought the one state shirt, afraid to not wear it, and no place to do laundry ;)

Anonymous said...

Hey, we're 2-0 with the shirt, don't wash it... Hopefully Sid won't wash the red jacket either.

Anonymous said...

Ken,
Don't go to the ball game wearing a dirty T-shirt.

Mom