The Official WSU vs. UCONN Game Thread - Maui Style

[forevershockerfan]

Thanks shockerfan. I need to ground myself here for a spell and go watch this game again. I am quite disgruntled right now because we all really needed and wanted this win. This I do know. Our beloved Shockers showed some true grit today. Coach mentioned that we missed out on a few loose ball opportunities. The good Doc expressed his concerns about their marquee player Walker before this game ever started. He was correct!!! What about Kyles in the 2nd half? Not bad!!! Not bad at all.

[WuDrWu]

There was some body to body contact against our ball handlers that resulted in some of the turnovers, or at a minimum didn't help us to not turn the ball over.

It wasn't even from one end to the other. We still should have won, but we didn't. Gotta overcome adversity one way or the other, that's what champions do.

I think we're close. Today, not close enough.

I applaud the effort of the team and the coaches. I thought we fought our hearts out.

[ShoxFan963]

Statistically speaking, we beat them in every category except for Fouls/FT and Turnovers. I knew turnovers were going to be key going into the game. If we take care of the ball, we would have won. Murry had 4 and Dwill and Rags had 2 a piece, 8 between them. We probably gave 6-8 points by just lazy, bad passes.

On top of that, the fouls were ridiculous. At least try and make it look fair. I thought I was watching the freaking NBA out there with Walker taking over the game and getting his way. There is something wrong when he has more free throw attempts than our whole team combined.

I was pleased with how our team played barring the turnovers. We out rebounded them by 4 and had 10 more assists. Murry and Durley had very solid games, but Kyles was the most impressive today. I hope we see this all year from him. We will take this conference easily if he plays like he has so far. Stutz had a tough game, not all his fault though. Hatch had 4 offensive rebounds and 10 points. He showed today why he deserves to be starting. Ellis was solid with 6 rebounds, 2 offensive, and a steal and assist in 20 minutes. I would have liked to see how Orukpe(1 minute played, if that) would have handled the speed of UCONN in guarding the paint. A good all around performance by the team though.

Let's kick the crap out of Chaminade.

[another shocker]

Connecticut outscored WSU at the free throw line by 20+, I believe. Maybe someone can find an exact number of FT's attempted/made for both teams.. it's probabaly a pretty large disparity in UConn's favor.

I'll be glad when Orupke eventually starts to make a difference, maybe this year, but most likely next year. If you expect to compete evenly at a high level of compettition, BigEast level, deep into NCAA tournament level, you have to have somebody back there to guard the basket, block some shots.

[ShoxFan963]

Connecticut outscored WSU at the free throw line by 20+, I believe. Maybe someone can find an exact number of FT's attempted/made for both teams.. it's probabaly a pretty large disparity in UConn's favor.

Try 33.
9-13 70%
32-44 72%

Box Score

[KC Shox]

I see some people talking sense now. This loss is not on the officiating. Hell, if the officiating was that freakin' bad then GM needs to stand up and share his mind with the refs and get T'd up if that is what it takes or even ejected. Also,
adjust your D and practice, practice and more practice stopping dribble drive penetration and lastly, make players who turn the damn ball over carry the ball around campus all day and night when they get back. Turnovers in the last portion of the game killed this team.

[pinstripers]

this loss is on a lot of things, part of it is the officiating. They were not just bad, they were one-sided. Can't change that by ignoring it.

[shockermo]

They shot 44 we shot 13, 31 more free throws than we shot. I can't stand referees they have no accountability, they could blow every call in a game and be back out there the next day, blowing more calls with no reprecussion, it is an absolute joke. WSU out played them in every catagory but turnovers, but when you have refs favoring a team and that is what that was, because you can't have 2 teams that physical and the desparity be that big. The Shocks had to beat 7 tonight without a doubt, and we still lead for most of the game and out played them. I for one am sick of the lack of accounablity for officiating "PERIOD" something has to be done. It's not just basketball but in all sports. In Football and baseball they have replay and still can't get it right. I is a joke. The Shocks got robbed when they outplayed the other team. (':-x')

[hoopsnut]

I see some people talking sense now. This loss is not on the officiating. Hell, if the officiating was that freakin' bad then GM needs to stand up and share his mind with the refs and get T'd up if that is what it takes or even ejected. Also,
adjust your D and practice, practice and more practice stopping dribble drive penetration and lastly, make players who turn the damn ball over carry the ball around campus all day and night when they get back. Turnovers in the last portion of the game killed this team.

:good:

[ShockerFever]

I agree about the lack of accountability issue. These same refs will ref tomorrow (maybe even later tonight) without a whimper.

They can do literally whatever they want. They don't care if they're screwing one side or not. Why? Because nobody will do anything to them.



The officiating was a part of many things that affected the outcome of the game. Sure it was brutal, but we could have made some better adjustments in other aspects. As the non-BCS underdog, it's gonna be 5 vs. 7 almost all of the time. That's how unfair NCAA athletics are. No one will ever admit it but everyone knows that's what happens.

[1972Shocker]

this loss is on a lot of things, part of it is the officiating. They were not just bad, they were one-sided. Can't change that by ignoring it.

No, but you can ignore it by overcoming it and we had more than ample opporutunities to win this game despite the officiating.

We knew going in that it was very likely that UConn would get a beneficial whistle. Perhaps not to the extent they did but you figure they would get the breaks.

We did not take advantage of the officials putting Walker on the bench for us in the first half and we simply made too many mistakes at key times down the stretch.

It did not seem like we made any significant adjustments to try to at least slow down Walker and the penetration game.

We simply did not make enough good basketball plays down the stretch.

Potentially we can be a very good team yet this year. We clearly are not firing on all cylinders yet. Kind of unfortunate that we did not have a few more games to prepare us for this tournament.

[Good News]

2nd half officiating didn't help at all. A lot of questionable calls and called differently inside on both ends

It was bad, really bad.

The bald official was HS quality at best. And that may be an insult to HS officials. (No offense Sub).

Why, in a tournament with this amount of talent, would the assignor use/allow a HS official to work?

He was clearly not suited to handle a game with the amount of players and athleticism present.

On the other hand, HCGM did not adjust to the flow (translated, Kemba Walker). Make someone, any one, maybe even the mascot beat you. 8)

Thanks for preemptively clarifying, because it's one of the main questions I had for posters with real reffing experience regarding this.

I've only reffed a couple hundred games in college (IMs, to make money on the side), but we had to take classes, learn about the triangle, spacing etc. Three refs per game, college rules.

In those games, it was a serious deal if the ref positioned at the weak side hash overruled a call from the ref on the stong side baseline on a play that happened at the block. I think that's what happened today, although I haven't watched the game a second time yet.


That was very very concerning to me as I watched. Glad I wasn't the only one that cursed "Mr. Clean".

Other random notes:

Demetric - if you slip 5 times crossing over on the midcourt decal... don't try it a 6th time to see if something different happens. Or change shoes. And if you go around someone to your left, crossover so they can't poke it away from behind. And quit throwing the high elbow - I like it, but refs don't, and we're lucky it didn't get called.

Rags - If you break down your man with crossover... don't look at him on the floor. GO!

Toure - nice job. Be aware of mismatches with an underclassman that can't handle you and ask for the iso. And if you have a guy in the open court that has his back to you... GO!

Stutz - you weigh 250. I think the call was BS, but no elbow movement on screens.


Good effort, I'm encouraged on many levels... with one obvious hole. It's a long season, and I look forward to continued development from Stutz and EO. This team will miss Blair and Hatch though.


Good game, bad result. Karma works both ways. Bounce back guys, and take care of business.

[shockermo]

I'm not worried about the Shocks they will come back and have a great season they proved they could play with anyone, but you should not have to play 5 against 7, that's the point. When will somebody scream loud enough for there to be something done. If expanding replay is the answer so be it, it would have been real easy to overturn the Blair foul that was obviously a clean block. The refs have got to have some kind of accountability, with all the technology we have today. They could review the game, and dock pay, or suspend refs for bad officiating. If it was 1 or 2 blown calls or no calls a game that would be fine but it is way more than that it's chronic and we know it. SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE! Blown calls decide games it happens all the time just look at the NFL this year.

[ISASO]

At least we saw what it takes to beat a mediocre Big East team. Focus on playing above that level for EVERY GAME the rest of the season and we will make the Dance.

That was our wakeup call, an expensive one. Learn from this blown opportunity and never forget to put a team away!

[pinstripers]

On replay, I liked the Stutz foul. Wasn't his second foul the same call?