Game 16 - Duke

Well apologies for the late post. A small event was happening in DC this weekend so I was a little preoccupied. It happens every four years, some sort of leap year celebration or something. By now I am sure everyone is well aware of the phantom technical foul on Greg Monroe that changed the landscape of the game. Follower caf38 sent along this gem regarding the foul. It is from someone who talked to Bryon Jansen the next day:

I saw Bryon at church today and asked him about the call. He said it was a fan behind the bench that yelled "bullshit" and then the ref turned and gave the technical to Greg, who was sitting there not saying anything. Ref's back was definitely toward the bench and was looking for an excuse to give a technical after Coach [Thompson] gave him grief for the previous call.

So since my last post was an epic, I will limit my incredulously livid response to the blatantly shady and Donaghy-eque call. In fact, I won't even use words to describe my thoughts on the foul and why it was called. They say a picture is worth a thousand words thus I present to you Exhibit A.

Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the officiating was horrendous at Durham. Follower blichman sent me the following to preemptively refute allegations of foul play by the officials.

I know you didn't like the "ACC fouls" but they ended up calling 19 on Gtown and 18 on Duke with Gtown shooting 5 more FT's, so it looks pretty even to me. And they did T up Singler, which was well-deserved. Also, it's probably good for Monroe to be exposed to different referees at this point of the season - can only help come tourney time when you probably won't have Big East calls.

I disagree good sir. It had nothing to do with the numbers of fouls called, it is all about the types of fouls. The ACC and especially Duke are notorious for flopping. See below video:


Flop (n.) - a blatant and pathetic attempt to draw the sympathy of a paid-off official to call an undeserving foul on the opposing team. Commonly associated with the ACC, Duke, Coach K and girl's middle school basketball.

Georgetown had 19 fouls in the game, 9 in the first half, 10 in the second. Of those 19 fouls, 7 led to foul shots. Of those 7 shooting fouls, 5 were because Georgetown was over the foul limit. So, of the 12 pre-limit fouls committed by Georgetown, only 2 led to foul shots, and one of them was the phantom technical foul. So in reality, only 1 out of the 12 pre-limit fouls was a Big East Foul, the rest were ACC Fouls. This means they were hand-checks, moving screens, over-the-tops, charges, and other petty non-shooting infractions.

Duke had 18 fouls in the game, 7 in the first half, 11 in the second. Of those 18 fouls, 11 led to foul shots. Of those 11 shooting fouls, 5 were because Duke was over the foul limit. So, of the 12 pre-limit fouls committed by Duke, 6 led to foul shots. Thus 50% of Duke's first six fouls in each half fouls were hacks, and they didn't get as many of the crappy ACC Fouls called against them because Georgetown didn't flop on drives, fall after shots and most importantly, play grab-ass with the officials during timeouts.

Which is a perfect transition to my other observations:
- Despite the fact that Duke was playing with 8 players (five wearing Duke jerseys, three wearing stripes), Georgetown should have won this game
- Duke committed more shooting fouls, so Georgetown ended up with more foul shots. But like at Notre Dame, they couldn't hit the freebies. Georgetown was a pitiful 10-18 (56%) from the stripe, Duke was 12-13 (92%). That is where the game was lost.
- I was not overly impressed by the once again over-hyped Duke team. Put them on a neutral court, with good refs I don't think they are a top ten team. Singler can easily be taken out of the game by a physical front line and Henderson can't win it all for them. Scheyer is the non-poetry writing version of Redick, he cannot create his own shot.
- Don't know the number exactly but Monroe had something like a 30pt influence on the Georgetown squad. When he was on the court, Georgetown outscored Duke by 10, when he was off, Duke outscored them by 20. Don't hold me to that, I don't remember the exact numbers that were mentioned during the telecast.
- Clark and Wattad got more playing time than Wright and Sapp. Good for the future, bad for the present
- It is mental with Sapp at this point, first time all season he failed to score a point
- Please stay four years DaJuan, even though there is no need for you to, you will easily be a lottery pick in this year's draft
- Freeman is quietly putting together a first or second team all-Big East season
- Duke fans. Wow. They wear face paint not only to show their pride but to hide what is beneath the layers of color. The student section is a couple of mis-assembled rope barricades away from resembling the DMV.
- T^3 once pointed out Monroe's tendency to look shocked after being called for a foul. He looks funny but loses the after-foul face contest to Pitt's Tyrell Biggs:

- It's okay Tyrell, we have laundry machines that will clean whatever you just did in your pants.


Good talk.