I hate yelling about referees. It’s too easy to hate them. It’s easy for a love of one team or he one result to overshadow objectivity. It’s also usually not productive game to game because nothing really changes moving forward.
It’s especially annoying to rant about a reference after losing. Even if true (which is often the case), complaints lose something when everyone simply assumes your sour grapes about the loss.
In this situation MSU lost a passionate and tight game to Purdue BoilermakersPlease know that I am writing this regardless of the end result.
Complaining to the referee is cliché, so we start a discussion about fouls complaining to the announcer.
Let me set the scene.
With six minutes remaining in the first half, Maddie Sissoko was called for a foul. Not a shocking result for a too foul-prone player. The shocking part is that Sissoko was called for a foul after being body-slammed by Zach Eddy.
Both Sissoko and Eddie got tangled up on the rebound. Edey had primary control of the ball, swinging his body around to shake off Sissoko. If that was all, a foul would be called on Sissoko and everyone would move forward. As an exception, replays showed some key moments in play.
Edey locks Sissoko’s arm into the death grip and performs a 3-point step move. There he turns a full 360 degrees on him and uses Sissoko’s arm as a leverage point to raise the Spartan Center over his Edey’s body and throw it to the floor. This move looks familiar to me since I wrestled in high school.
Here’s a (admittedly not great) video clip of the play.
In this example, Edy has done two important things that should change the foul call.
1- Fix Sissoko’s arm in place
2- Dragged the sisoko all over the body and made a slamming motion to the floor (rather than the more standard violent back and forth shake)
These actions are classic indicators of the NCAA.hook and hold” Rules. This foul should be immediately classified as a Serious 1 which would have given MSU two free throws and a possession. It could be argued that the flagrant two that would have changed this game should have been considered.
The irony is that this wasn’t called out against Purdue. Created as a reaction. It was a frequently called foul for about 1.5 years, mostly when a big man was knocked to the ground (and never when a guard went down, though it seemed to never happen). , that’s another rant).
Recently, my phone has stopped working.
In this game, the usually capable crew, the announcer (I’m a decent Bill Rafferty fan) saw this play and praised Zach Eady for “standing up for himself.”
I do not understand. In other games, Edy could be hacked (I’m sure it has). MSU didn’t approach the game that way. There was no evidence of such excessive physical approach. Michigandefense. Instead, Eddie throws the opposing player to the ground. This could be a devastating scenario in terms of injuries, and the announcers are happy.
If the player’s safety must be taken seriously, the announcer cannot applaud the player’s hips being thrown across the floor.
And the referee should have gone to the monitor. Instead, it feels like a preconceived notion of the situation led to foul calls and quick moves.
I feel like Maddie Sissoko has a lot on the floor. I think the referees see him as an over-the-top player who lacks coordination. And when Sissoko hits the floor, they don’t call a foul. In another example of this game, a Purdue first took out Sissoko’s leg while the Spartan center was in the air for a rebound and the referee called nothing.Foul here His call was , was supposed to be a highlight last year.
Referees are human, and if they expect a lot from a guy on the floor, I think they just let it go. down.
Zach Edey is incredibly physical. He wrestled Sissoko, Cooper, and Kohler throughout the game to earn his position. He draws fouls sometimes by completely tangling and sometimes pushing each other.
I was blown away that Edey played that physical and ended this game without a foul.
I will admit that Edey is a relatively clean player. No long list of dirty plays. Simply put, it’s a physical play routinely called a foul when another player remotely likes to do something.
Especially in this game, we didn’t see a lot of very flagrant fouls (apart from hip throws) from Edy. What I saw was Edie crossing my back multiple times, even the announcer mentioned it several times. Centers are always asked to go behind smaller players. Just because Edey is passing behind other centers doesn’t mean it works. In fact, foul calls are legally intended to reward smaller players for taking positions. But when a man is his 7’4″, that notion doesn’t seem to apply.
Apparently, Edy’s commit was 1.5 fouls game of the year. However, he draws a huge amount. His one way of showing it is that Edy won his 122 FT. ENTIRE MSU ROSTER COMBINED have individually taken nearly half of the free throws they have taken this year.
The referee clearly doesn’t know what to do with Edie. I think he’s afraid of fouls because he’s so big. The problem is that they open up a situation where Edy draws a lot of fouls and beats the competition.
This should be considered by the league. Not to change the outcome of MSU’s game (I’m not that naive), but to address competitive balance purposes and player safety. Maddie Sissoko was unprotected by the referee tonight.
Oh, and let the references remind you that hook-and-hold calls are designed to stop. Isaac Haas may remind you.
