At #17 SDSU, Ponmeroy

Basketball
21

And, Hall also turned the ball over. The two point guards turned it over 12-20 times. That’s where we lost the game. Also, Jarom Jordan said if we shoot 45% from 3’s we can win. We were doing that in the 1st half but shot poorly from 3’s in the 2nd half. Aside from that, the NCAA should review all games where it’s a huge 3 to 1 advantage from free throws. The total fouls don’t tell the story in this game. It’s the type of fouls that do that create 36 free throws to 16.

With that said, teams who are prejudiced against like BYU have to take care of business like turnovers and shooting if they are going to play the games.

22

For those of you who know basketball better than I (which would be all of you): It seems BYU has three major weaknesses. Which are easy fixes and which are next to impossible?

  1. Turnovers
  2. Fouls
  3. Protecting the rim
23

First, shooting percentage and freethrow shooting percentage is more important than protecting the rim. Our height challenge makes it hard to control the rim situation.

Turnovers can be better controlled more than shooting percentage. Do like SDSU did, they had 10 or less turnovers and won. We had 20.

Shooting is all about repetition in practice and hopefully transferring to game speed and all other things that game play can affect the shot like crowd behaviors. Conditioning affects shooting as well.

24

Just to note that in DH reffed games in the last two years BYU has only lost one game of six. So this makes him 5 wins to 2 losses in three years.

as for VH obviously this was a loss
last year he only reffed one game for the cougs BYU won.
the previous year he reffed six games BYU lost all three games against the Zags
and were otherwise 2 wins and one loss.

as for Mr. McCall last year he called 4 games byu was 3-1
year before he called six games 3-3 and one of those losses was to the Zags.

my enthusiasm sinks every time I hear DH named as a ref but given the record it is tough to say he is biased.

They are all well respected and tend to ref the bigger games: the games where Pope’s boys tend to lose more often than his total record. So maybe my bias comes from so many losses in noticable games?

25

I would say that the refs you mentioned are slanted against BYU. But, BYU still won because of limited turnovers, great shooting and defense. The game last night was a real problem with the difference between free throw attempts.

26

I appreciate that information Harold as it helps lend perspective. However, one factor that needs to be included is which teams was BYU playing? Also, I am not saying that D.H. has such a heavy influence as to change the outcome, I am only saying that he has never really looked at BYU as a team that he is objective with. The reason I say that is generally he is a good official. I have seen him do NCAA tournament games for many years and he is good. Unfortunately he loses his objectivity, for whatever reason, when he officiates a BYU game and that is a bummer. Just because BYU wins when one of those officials is doing the game doesn’t mean they weren’t biased in their perspective to make calls against BYU.

I point to one specific thing that kept happening in the game last night and that is the number of “turnovers” BYU had as it relates to the number of “steals” that SDSU had. I stopped trying to keep track of the number of times a BYU player would be dribbling the ball and the SDSU defender would put his hand on the hip of the dribbler, impeding his movement and then reach in and poke the ball away. I’ll bet close to half of BYU’s turnovers were a direct result of that. Sorry, but that is a foul that these particular officials refused to call on SDSU. Was BYU given the same allowance when they were on defense? Nope. Just that specific no call shows bias. I don’t blame SDSU because they got away with it, I blame the officials because they allowed them to.

I decided to check the stats and see if I could confirm my suspicion. BYU had 20 turnovers and SDSU had 16 steals. Wow. Doesn’t that translate to only 4 of BYU’s turnovers being of the non-steal variety? I’m sure a few of those steals were bad passes so those don’t count but I’d also venture to guess that at least half of BYU’s turnovers were of the variety that I described with SDSU reaching in to steal the ball after impeding a BYU dribbler. That is a foul, it’s in the rule book.

27

I would agree with that. This fact also allows them more leniency as they have earned their stripes so to say. That, in an of itself, does not change my opinion. Like I said, I have seen a lot of BYU games where they seem to lack the objectivity the demonstrate when officiating other teams.

I don’t know if they are trying to hard to prove to BYU’s opponent that they don’t favor the Cougars or trying to prove to BYU that they aren’t going to get calls they might expect to but it happens. The nose is another referee that comes to mind who has a similar problem with BYU. I know many of the posters here know who I am referencing.

Hey, none of us is perfect and I am willing to acknowledge that my opinion might be skewed somewhat. That is why each and every game I watch I am hopeful that BYU will be treated the same way their opponents are. If you happen to watch a replay, I think my opinion will be validated. One telling factor was that 2 of the 3 officials were more likely to blow the whistle when the foul was called on BYU. The other official, for very long stretches during the game, is the only one who would whistle SDSU for a foul, often times away from his area of responsibility. The other two were not as likely to make those calls, whistling only when the call was against BYU. That was my perspective and generally speaking I believe it is validated.

28

If what you say is true about the hands on the hips in all of the steal, then Pope has a responsibility to make this aware to the board of officials so that the question of bias can be raised. No reason not to. With that said, is there a way to counter such things like moving the ball out quicker before the hand can be on the hips. As well as the shooting problems in the latter part of the second half when we went cold?

29

EXCELLENT post! You explain your position reasonably and logically.
I watched the game. What a GREAT game to watch! Felt more like March Madness than it did week one. Yes the TOs are TERRIBLE and Pope needs to fix that, but great grit from both teams. LEDEE IS A LOAD! First guy I’ve ever seen that Fouss couldn’t push around. I bet SDSU expected a wipeout but left the court with big respect for the BYU kids. I was impressed the way we hung in there, and although the better team won, it showed significant improvement from game 1 to game 2, against superior competition from superior athletes.

On the officiating: Like a March Madness game, both teams were MURDERING each other, and so the FTA should have been somewhat similar. I don’t know if the officials were biased, but it seems that way.
SDSU FTA per game:
2021: 16
2020: 18
2019: 16

BYU FTA per game:
2021: 16
2020: 16
2019: 14

Friday night: BYU 16, SDSU 37
(In a similarly brutal, even MORE physical game Friday, GU beat MSU; FTA were GU-22, MSU-28).

In such a hard fought, physical game that was neck-and-neck the entire way, I honestly don’t think you can have a disparity at the line like that unless it’s on purpose.

Example 1: with 15:30 remaining, Mensah scores on a pick and roll. Blocking foul called on George. George is stationary, shoulders square to the shooter. Mensah jumps forward into George. Official calls a block. Pope complains. Official then explains to BYU that yes George was set but was inside the restricted area. George was NOWHERE CLOSE to the restricted area. He was standing THREE FEET OUTSIDE THE RESTRICTED AREA. So maybe the guy made a bad call. Two other officials could have talked to him to overturn but did not. Instead the official, who KNOWS George was outside the area by a mile, simply lies about it. Go to the game result on ESPN, click on “videos”, then “Mensah gets the hoop and the harm.” It’s laughable.

Example 2: I could show 20 times on film where Fouss got hit on the body or arm. He shot 4 FT. SDSU 2 bigs were hit an equal amount of times and shot 19 FT. Oh…kaaaaaaayyy…Worst example: with 2:33 left and BYU losing by only 3, Fouss had a breakaway dunk. He got CRUSHED from behind–full body + arm, easiest call ever, with all officials’ eyes on the play and no other players close. No call. The officials were so excited about the dunk missing that they forgot in the moment they are supposed to be impartial, or simply were not impartial from the beginning.

Every game has bad calls and bad no calls on both teams. But these are just two of many examples of officials who intentionally screw one team for one reason or another. Despite whatever honest mistakes may have been made in this game, the flow of the game and the numbers just don’t support the disparity in FTA.

30

The problem is Pope won’t do anything. He won’t call the NCAA officials office and file a complaint for them to watch the butcher job by the officials. With that said, TO killed us. And, most were not on bad passing. Just protecting the ball issues. 3 point shooting also fell off in the second half and that hurt.

31

What could they do? The “CONFERENCES” controls the officials, not the NCAA. That is one of my pet peeves with officiating in the NCAA.

Second, are you not the one that tells people who complain about officials the “Officials don’t lose games”, the team must adjust to the way the game is being called.

32

I’m the one that doesn’t use the officials in every game why we lose it almost lose. That would be Jim. I don’t deny the influence. I simply have stated just win by lowering the turnovers and shooting better.

Yes, the NCAA should be able to review officials when there is evidence of wrong doing. This was clear cut.

33

The difference between our observations and opinions is that you tend to have a more simplistic perspective and you think it is easy to fix one or two issues during a game in order to win. The problem with that perspective is that it is short sighted and doesn’t take into account ALL of the things that are happening during a game. I do take everything into account. Thank you Tom Larimer for recognizing and understanding this. Tom basically restated much of what I said, but he added his own perspective and opinion as well. I will concur that his was excellent as well. I agree that the game felt like a late season game or ncaa tourney game. It was entertaining and I thought BYU competed. I will never complain about BYU when they play hard and give 100% effort.

Doesn’t change anything I said.

Go Cougars!

34

Me simplistic?

Jim: The refs hate BYU
Scott: They turned the ball over 40 times
Jim: Nose hates BYU
Scott: BYU needs to change up the offense and be less predictable
Jim: Hall hates BYU
Scott: The three point shooting needs to be better and take less of them. Get the ball into Foose more
Jim: the refs hate BYU
Scott: do you have anything else to add Jim?
Jim: Nose doesn’t line BYU

35

After Jim, Hopper and Tom all pointed out the foul disparity of 3-1, I missed that one pretty badly.

36

Apology accepted here. But, your other notes were correct. We still could have won with less turnovers and not disappearing of the 3’s in the 2nd half.