Friday, February 13, 2009

You'd think one of these days we'd catch a break...

Michael Thompsom drives to the hoop with 14.7 seconds left (photo: espn.com)

I hate blaming the refs for a loss, but this picture sure makes it look like Michael Thompson got fouled with 14.7 seconds left. Look at the pain in his eyes. How is that not a foul? Between this and the foul at the end of the Purdue game, I am now certain Welsh-Ryan Arena is the only place in the Big Ten where the home team doesn't get "home team" calls, maybe thanks to our lack of fan support we don't deserve them, but why do the refs have to punish our kids and coaches for our fair weather fans. Yes, NU blew big leads both last night and against Purdue. However, I would love to hear from the Big Ten Office on the calls at the end of both games. After they take a look at this picture, the Big Ten office can feel free to contact me any time and explain. Though, they should probably contact Bill Carmody because it's his team getting jobbed at home. After all, it seems in both cases the officials made poor calls which in the end might cost NU the postseason.

13 comments:

John said...

I hate to say this, but... if that's the play from the baseline on NU's 2nd to last possession, it wasn't a foul. I've got a photo from a split second before that in which the defender is clearly getting the ball.

Check out the third photo here: http://www.ootp-baseball.com/chicagobasketball/?p=468

Ryan said...

@John...you got some great shots. I love the panorama of the student section. You must have a great camera and a great eye for action.

Unknown said...

Even in that photo, he's pushing Thompson with his right hand... oh well. Shouldn't have come down to that anyway.

NorthwesternHighlights.com said...

John - Great shot, but it also shows the defender's right arm in Thompson's side while making quite a lot of contact with Thompson's left shoulder and entire arm.

Cat Lifer said...

I've had season tickets for 30 years. Back before it was Welsh-Ryan, it was the old dirt floor of McGaw Hall. I've been to road arenas in the Big Ten, Bloomington, Champaign, you name it. In every other big ten venue, it's a foul on the visitors. And I won't even get into the phantom call vs Purdue, a foul on Ryan? Okay, I guess I will get into it. I've seen it for years. It is the only home court at cruch time without home court advantage when it comes to close calls.

Unknown said...

"cruch time"... most appropriate typo ever.

Unknown said...

I've posted a few comments in the last two days and none of them are showing. Why is that?

John said...

Thanks for the comments about the photos. I just put up a full gallery at: http://www.ootp-baseball.com/chicagobasketball/?p=480

I hope you guys enjoy them.

Ryan said...

@Lunker 35...I think I found at least one of your missing comments, which I'll post below. As to the others, I have no idea. Everything seems to be working right at the moment, but I can't say there weren't problems with the system in the last few days. Thanks for letting me know and I'll check into that, though, given my limited tech skills I might not be the best guy to check into that.

Ryan said...

Regular poster Lunker 35 made some good comments which didn't seem to get posted earlier, here they are (btw good as Luka was, I'd have liked to have seen Ivan as well and Coble did play really dumb)...

From Lunker 35 regarding the Illinois loss…

I feel so sick to my stomach.

1.) The refs were brutal the last five minutes. They call one foul on the Illini and it totally changes the game.

2.) Coble was not playing smart at all!

3.) How could we be so irresponsible with the ball?!

4.) WHERE WAS IVAN?!?? How did he not play a minute? Especially down the stretch we don't get an experienced guy in who can handle the ball?!?!

5.) That's it! Carmody needs to go!!!

Unknown said...

Thanks Ryan!

Fire Bill Carmody said...

can we PLEASE stop bitching about the refs. officiating did not cause NU to blow 10+ second half leads to Penn State, Purdue, Illinois. yes Ted Hillary is old and yes they missed some calls both ways during the game, but let's not turn into a bunch of whining bitches.

Unknown said...

Clearly you're not the #1 blogger because if you were at that game you watched the Illini go up for shots and we'd get called for a tickey tack foul. We get hacked a few times on a very physical press and there is not a single foul call. It even looked at if the Illini were trying to foul a couple times. Yes we did implode, but if we get just one foul call during that stretch we win the game. Something is wrong with the officiating and it has been bad all year. There were some very suspect calls in the other games that you mentioned too.