The House of Blue

The way Doug shows crews officiate games (allow them to become brawls) does not suit our personel well. To deny that is ignoring reality.

A lot of people want to turn it on Harrow, but honest to goodness, how many players in this country are allowed to be held pushed and slapped as much as he is? Also , the inside game now has to be fight. Remember when we had Big Cuz? He couldn't breathe without getting a foul called on him. They took his physicality out of the equation. Now, Harrow gets hammered every time he brings it up and its not fouling, which is bull$^!#. When contact impedes the player it should be a foul. If not then 6 foot tall 250 lb. point guards are needed to succeed in college basketball. And bigs are allowed to throw , push and hook the people inside. Imagine if Cousins could have got away with the crap that gets let go now. He would have scored 80 a game himself.

Cousins brought a lot of it on himself. And if you haven't noticed, he continues to bring a lot more of it on himself. Cousins problem was and is himself and his hothead attitude. When you continuosly caught doing stupid things like hitting, kicking, and taking cheap shots at people, how do you think refs are going to call it?

I for one actually think Harrow is one of the better players on the team. But they all have their moments of good and bad. It's just that we can't get them all doing good at the same time. It's normally only one or two of them while the others are having their lapses. Missouri was the best game we played all year, IMO. We haven't come close to duplicating that game the rest of the year with the exception of Duke, IMO.

You don't always get the benefit of the calls on the road like you do at home. Especially when playing in Rupp or any other big name schools gym like Duke or Carolina or Kansas. If Mizzou was at home it would have been a little more lenient, more than likely. But you never know how the game will be called for sure.

As for Shows, I have seen him in person at Rupp numerous times over the past 6 seasons as a season ticket holder. He loves blowing his whistle and being the center of attention. I actually think he does a good job of trying to not let games get out of hand physically. But I don't want to argue about refs all night. They are all pretty good at what they do even though some seem to have agendas against people (Shows and Cal). But they all make mistakes also. Some of them bad mistakes. Lets remember though that we as spectators and fans have the advantage of replays on tv when watching at home and when in attendance at a game you also have the advantage of being elevated (most people) and having a better view of the whole court. These guys are running up and down the floor full of guys that are mostly bigger and taller than the refs themselves. They can't always be in the best positions to see everything that goes on.

I will keep it simple. He is a bad ref.

**EDITED** No name calling.
Several times hogs pushed our players with both hands for no reason and nothing called..off ball action...Shows is an ass...**EDITED** - Same .back to top...

There is no such thing as "sec officials" anymore. All the power conferences share the same officials and the issue we are having is not unique to us.

SHows stays east of the Mississippi river and does mostly SEC and big east games..

Our only win with him officiating is the Morehead game.

I actually did notice that as well, and pointed it out immediately. To me, that's not much of a coincidence. I guarantee if you talked to Calipari off the record he would go on a rant about Shows.

Too bad he went west of the Mississippi to call the game in Fayetteville.

I'm usually reluctant to blame the officials but, with Arkansas' style of play, officiating is at least one big reason they have a superior record at home and a poor record on the road. Based on a quick perusal of their box scores, it appears that when they are on the road they are called for more fouls than their opponents. At home, their opponents are called for more fouls than them. When a pressing team gets away with fouling they end up with a bunch of easy points due to turnovers. Therefore, the lack of a foul call has a much greater impact than the lack of a foul call against a team that just plays physical in the half court (a Bob Huggins team, for instance).

That said, the players and Cal also deserve their share of credit (or blame) for the loss. The players have to fight through contact and force the refs to have to call a foul (the same argument that I make about defensive ends in football who complain about being held).

But Cal also should have been prepared for the press. His intent, apparently, was to bring the ball up deliberately against the press where the Cats could then beat Arkansas with better execution and skill. He should have known, however, that almost every time Harrow has faced a team that plays physical against him, he shies away from contact -- he even shies away from the ball. Given that, once it was clear that his guards struggled to break the press (and not just Harrow -- despite all his hustle, Polson struggled as well), he should have been prepared to ATTACK the press and use Arkansas' aggressiveness against them to get easy baskets for UK. They should have prepared to beat the press with the pass instead of the dribble. And once they beat it, attack the basket before they get back and set their defense.

I agree with your main point. harrow not attacking the hip of a trapper in a press = not getting fouls called.

many may disagree, but once it was evident that Harrow wasn't going to be aggressive vs. the press, I would have put the ball in Goodwin's hands. his out of control dribble in the back court can't lead to bad shots, so it may have led to them actually calling fouls...

It felt like we got beat by 40. If we could have simply beaten the press we would have won.

As I've said before. The game vs. Florida boils down to how it's called. If we get a favorable whistle at home we have a legit shot. If not, we will lose and lose bad.

We tried a lot of stuff including something similar to what you are saying. The issue is that our guards weren't tough enough to fight through the initial trap to get the pass away..