To have the Bruins fans strutting around thumping their chests like they'd just taken out Kansas or some other traditional power, as opposed to a No. 9 seed they were supposed to blow out by 10-plus points is too much. Especially when practically everyone else in the country is calling it for what it was.
Maybe Donald Sloan would have gotten to the foul line if he'd produced autopsy scars.
Sloan got slapped and knocked down on the way to the potential tying basket in the final seconds of the Texas A&M Aggies' second-round NCAA Tournament game against the UCLA Bruins. The cameras don't lie: In 49 states, what the Bruins defense did to Sloan would have constituted a mugging.
The truth is that the Aggies were in Anaheim, Calif., just down the road from the UCLA campus. The truth doesn't set the Aggies free or send them to the next round.
Right or wrong, that's the kind of call — or non-call — that almost invariably goes the way of the marquee team.
Especially a marquee team that is seeded No. 1 and is the gold standard of college basketball programs.
Steve Campbell's right about delivering a knockout punch, though. Against a golden team like UCLA, you've got to have a 10-point lead at the end of the game, rather than just after halftime, so bad calls or non-calls can't affect the outcome. Last year against Memphis, Law didn't make his layup and we lost the game. Two years ago against LSU, our guys fell apart in the final seconds and we lost the game. Both of those outcomes were a direct result of the play on the court. This year... well, this year's outcome burns. It's going to for a long, long time I suspect.
I hope Kansas or t.u. kicks the snot out of UCLA in the Final Four or in the final. Actually, I hope anyone playing UCLA kicks the snot outta the Bruins from here on out, preferably aided by a bunch of non-calls to rub salt into the wound.
Update: Our Big 12 friends to the north who tend to know something about the game of basketball, namely Jawhawks fans, have put together this little video. Thanks, guys. I wonder if UCLA would've gotten that call had they been playing Kansas. Or Duke. Or UNC...
Now Playing: Buffalo Springfield Retrospective
Even we old teasippers could see that the Aggies wuz robbed. That's a great photo, and how the refs could blow that one will be a mystery for the ages.
ReplyDeleteThere are UCLA fans actually saying that the camera angle distorted what really happened, that it only *looks* like there was contact. Just like that shot over the backboard that saved them against Stanford wasn't *really* an illegal over-the-backboard shot. I wonder if anyone thought to dust for fingerprints?
ReplyDeleteSloan may well have missed one or both of his FTs. But at least give him the chance, and we're not carping about it on Monday.
UCLA's a two-person team. The way your sips are playing right now, Bill, UCLA would lose by double-digits.
I fear that Stanford might put an end to the 'sips chances.
ReplyDelete