Bad Night in Blacksburg for Men in Stripes
If you’ve dropped by for an excuse as to why Wake Forest lost to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg last night, you’ve come to the wrong place.
The Deacons lost because the Hokies, after falling behind by 11 early in the second half, took the game by the throat and played harder and better than Wake down the stretch. They attacked the basket with abandon, they hit their free throws, they outscrapped the Deacons for rebounds and they shut down Al-Farouq Aminu after Aminu’s amazing 21-point first half outburst. Their crowd was the best I’ve seen this season outside of Cameron, and Coach Seth Greenberg made the right moves down the stretch.
Kudos to Tech. It was an impressive win, one that should all but lock them into a bid for the NCAA Tournament.
And I’ll say once again, the next best thing to winning is to lose with a good excuse. As humans, we always think we’ve been wronged when we lose. Apparently, that’s the way we’re programmed.
Now having stipulated all that, I’ll agree with the general outcry that it was a terribly officiated basketball game. It was so bad it was hard to watch Mike Eades, Bob Donato and Tim Kelly botch one call and one situation after another.
The biggest problem was there wasn’t a lead official—technically known as a referee—among them. Eades was designated as such, but last night’s performance is pretty compelling evidence that he’s not up to the role. I agree with a good friend who said that if there had been a true referee on the court, a guy like a Karl Hess or Les Jones or even a Mike Wood working that game, it wouldn’t have disintegrated the way it did.
I didn’t see a replay of the shot by Malcolm Delaney that put the Hokies ahead in the second half, but I’ve heard from enough people that it was a two-pointer and not a three to believe it must have been. Putting the wrong player on the free throw line in the second half was an embarrassment, especially when he’s allowed to shoot and miss a free throw that is waved off while they get the right guy.
To me the saddest call of all was the double technical, and I’m basing that on having seen a good replay of the incident. Kelly called it originally on J.T. Thompson for shoving Chas McFarland. But after the officials huddled for about five minutes, and watched video of the play, they came back to say they were assessing a double technical on both players.
First off, I’m not even sure Thompson should have gotten a technical. I’ve seen far harder shoves that didn’t result in technicals. But I’m absolutely convinced that no other player in the ACC would have gotten the other technical besides Chas McFarland. He got that one on reputation. You could say he bumped Thompson, but it was little more than a brush, and much, much less than it was made out to be. I’ve seen Hess and Jones officiate enough games to know that they would have gone to both players and told them in no uncertain terms to knock it off. And the players would have, and play would have gone on.
Chas McFarland has a reputation as an agitator, and it’s well deserved. I wrote about it early this season and I read about it recently in ESPN The Magazine. Everyone knows that reputation, including Mike Eades, Bob Donato and Tim Kelly, and last night they allowed that reputation to influence the way a game was called. You can say McFarland brought it up himself, but it’s up to the officials to call the game as it’s played on the floor, period.
A good game was marred by bad officiating. It was hard to watch.
Back to the main page.
By Dan Collins on 02/17/2010 (12:07 pm)
Comments
Historically speaking the greatest improvement in ACC officiating was when Fred Barakat came on the same I think.. I recall the games being officiated more consistently and I recall that setiment commented on many different game commentators from different school networks. I can’t recall the last time a group of ACC officials worked the NCAA finals. But they regularly did in Barakat’s years as supervisor of officials. If you think Wake got hosed at Blacksburg, I saw a Clemson Maryland game on TV recently that was to put it politely, pathetic. You can tell when even in the waning moments of a game the players faces look so confused as to what the call is. Normally by the end of the first half there is a rhythm to what is going to be called and what is going to let slip. This year the “rhythm” is never set it seems.
pensive1 on 02/18/2010 (2:58 pm)
A former Wake baseball coach once told me that “until you play the perfect game….you have no room to complain about the umpires (I’ll do that)....just shut up and play.” Wake wins because of defense and rebounding which is 70% desire, 25% technique and 5% skill. The most telling difference to me was the number of rebounds we picked up in the first half after they hit the floor (that’s called boxing out). In the last 12 minutes nothing hit the floor because VT was too busy putting’em back in the hoop. Maybe everything came a little too easy in the first half but every time we forget who we are we get it handed to us. Looks like the Hokie ballers borrowed the lunch pail from the football team. Not a bad idea for the Deacs.
Lastly, Chas, it might help if everybody on the planet wasn’t able to call your next bone headed foul….you can see them coming a mile away! If you want to stay on the court “shut up and play!”
RB on 02/18/2010 (12:00 pm)
Clougherty was my PE instructor at Wake in 1970 or ‘71, I think.
Steve on 02/18/2010 (10:36 am)
DeacDad,
I didn’t talk with Ish but Lenox did and he told me that Ish took the high road. That’s really the way to do it. He should let Dino go through the proper channels and lodge his complaint to the league office.
Dan on 02/18/2010 (1:42 am)
Gary,
The ACC won’t release it’s evaluations. Too bad really. I’d love to know how Eades, Donato and Kelly graded out Tuesday night.
Dan on 02/18/2010 (1:39 am)
Dave O,
I do remember how Karl Hess treated Darius. I remember Darius’ final play of his college career, when Hess called his fifth foul on him about 30 feet from the basket. But I didn’t know John Clougherty’s connection with Wake. I’ll ask him about it the next time I see him.
Dan on 02/18/2010 (1:36 am)
Respectfully disagree with your faith in Karl Hess. He seemed to carry a vendetta against Darius Songailia similar to that which Chas endures. Not to imply that both (Darius and Chase) were/are blameless.
BTW- did you know Clougherty was a PE instructor at Wake in the early 70’s?before he became a fulltime ref?
Dave O on 02/17/2010 (11:44 pm)
Dan I suppose it would be really easy for us Wake fans to lay the blame on the reffs. While VT shot a ton more freethrows than Wake did, it wasn’t the reason Wake lost. If our guys would have hit some key freethrows down the stretch, played better defense in the second half, and rebounded better I think the Deacs win. CJ and Ari had off nights as well and as much as I don’t like relying on freshmen, we really need those 2 down the stretch if Wake is gonna have a chance to make a run. I do want tos say though that the officiating was not very good fromt the “phantom” 3 pointer to a few other calls make me wonder about the officiating in the ACC. I also really think ACC refs call way too many fouls and not just last night. Come NCAA tourney time the players are gonna have to adjust. Let’s take care of business Sat. against State and not let VT beat us again. Go Deacs!!
Cliff Daniel on 02/17/2010 (7:05 pm)
Absolutely no way VATech would have one this with competent refs. Absolutely no way. Even ignoring the two most atrocious calls (the ones that were almost indisputably incorrect), which could have made it a tie game in themselves (the offsetting T and the “3” pointer), there should be no question that the atrocious reffing destroyed our focus. We are the better team. On a neutral court we would run them into the ground.
Unhappy on 02/17/2010 (5:58 pm)
Dan,
Before I even saw what your blog subject was today I was going to ask you if you thought the officiating last night seemed one-sided. I bleed Old Gold and Black, and I clearly have a Wake bias when it comes to those sorts of things. But I know that you are much more level-headed and even-keeled about such matters, so I was going to come to you for some perspective. But before I could ask you had already seen fit to do what you always do - tell it like it is and tell it well. Bravo for having the courage to write this article, Dan, and bravo for prefacing your remarks by complimenting Virginia Tech on a hard fought victory. They were clearly the much, much hungrier team down the stretch. But having the help of the officials still only netted them a 4-point victory at home. To me that indicates that Wake Forest is the better of these two teams. Thank you again.
Matt on 02/17/2010 (5:48 pm)
Dan: Will the ACC do anything about the officating last night and will we ever know what they did or didn’t do? Is the public ever informed about the quality of the officials?
Gary on 02/17/2010 (5:37 pm)
Excellent comments to an excellent blog by Dan. Our second half defense was bad to put it mildly. I could not tell from TV whether Aminu just disappeared in the second half or whether Tech’s defense was the cause. Hopefully his hand injury was not the problem or one that will affect him for the remainder of the season. A 48-27 disparity in free throws is worthy of discussion since both teams played similar attacking styles. The Delaney phantom 3 pointer reminded me of the game we lost to State in Duncan’s senior season on a blown call. At what point can the officials no longer go back and review that play? And thanks for the earlier very meaningful comment that we would have been shooting for a tie and overtime at the end if the Delaney shot had been called correctly. I don’t want to diminish the excellent game by Tech but those officials deserve a failing grade for a miserable job.
VaBchDeac on 02/17/2010 (4:51 pm)
Dan - I was at the game and did not have the convenience of replays last night. I just this afternoon watched the DVR of the game. I was amazed at how pathetically bad those three officials were. As you pointed out, Eades was way over his head as the lead official. Donato is usually OK, and anyone is going to miss some both ways. But the third of the Three Blind Mice - Tim Kelly - would have been better off to have swallowed his whistle, because whatever he did was wrong. Two good teams competed last night, and the outcome would probably have been the same with competent officiating. VT deserved the win. But, both teams and all fans deserved far better than what the ACC put on the court. If this is the best the ACC can do, the ACC might as well let the players call their own fouls. Swofford should be embarrassed, and Clougherty should be penning e-mail apologies to both schools. Thanks for having the fortitude to write as you did.
Rhenish on 02/17/2010 (4:39 pm)
Dan,
On TV, it appeared that Ish left the court as soon as the final horn sounded. Whether he voiced his opinion or not - to be sure, he must have been very frustrated with the way our big men were manhandled the last 10 minutes. your take?
DeacDad on 02/17/2010 (4:14 pm)
Dan,
Virginia Tech definitely picked up their game on offense in the second half last night (and again the zone defense gave us trouble). I thought the Deacs tried to ratchet up their defensive intensity in response, but it seemed to me that the players grew frustrated and lethargic after receiving a couple of terrible calls.
In this sense, you can’t lay this loss on the refs at all. It is up to the coach and players to battle through the additional challenge. With that in mind, to what extent do you think that a more vehement protest, and even a technical for Coach Gaudio, may have influenced the officials and (at the very least) re-focused the team?
I have always questioned the effectiveness of this approach in light of the fact that a coach is potentially sacrificing two points and possession in order to drive home his point that the refs are doing a bad job. Nevertheless, after watching numerous games coached by Gary Williams, Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams, sometimes it seems like teams and refs respond favorably. Thanks.
DC on 02/17/2010 (3:59 pm)
Abolutely correct on all counts.
I am afraid Dino let all of it distract him a bit in the second half. At least he did not lose his cool.
steve heiner on 02/17/2010 (3:29 pm)
I agree with Dan and Lee in regard to the officiating. However, are defensive lapses and inability to hit the front end of one and ones hurts. Chas also needs to concentrate on helping his team win instead of agitating. I’ve grown tired of his antics, especially when this team is clealy playing so well as a team.
Jim on 02/17/2010 (3:17 pm)
I agree with Dan that Tech beat Wake, not the refs, who were terrible. The zebras wilted under the pressure, but arguably so did the Deacs. They did not match Tech’s intensity in the second half at all. At the end of the game, what the heck was going on with Ish taking every single shot and missing most of them? Was anybody else in a black uniform on the court? It was a good effort by Wake most of the game, but you have to finish.
Some observations:
1) Whether Chas deserved the “T” or not, and I don’t think he did, he did walk up to the guy and talk trash. Just play ball dude and stop all the junk! And learn how to play with 3 or 4 fouls! When you can foul out, you DO foul out, on stupid fouls. Woods needs to learn how to play with fouls too, but for Chas there is no excuse, this is 4 years of the same thing.
2) I don’t know why anybody plays man to man against Wake, every time somebody throws a zone at them the offense stagnates. Do they practice against a zone?
3) Speaking of zones, I have to wonder why Wake didn’t try one themselves in the second half. The Pack Line clearly was not working. It seemed like Tech scored every trip down the court, it was just a question of would it be a 2 or a 3.
Both teams are good and it was a hard fought game. Tech caught fire, Wake had no answer and lost a winnable game. Let’s hope they take it out on the remaining opponents.
Charles on 02/17/2010 (3:03 pm)
Dan, don’t you think that the officiating affected our teams ability to defend and play rebounds? The Hokies were reaching over the back all night and on defense our guys could even hold their arms straight up without getting a foul called. I hate to lay it all on the refs, but I don’t know how we could have won that game. I guess if our outside shooting had been good enough to beat the Hokies and the refs, but that’s not a reasonable expectation.
Unhappy on 02/17/2010 (3:02 pm)
Tremendous. Right on target in every respect (well, maybe too much confidence expressed in Karl Hess).
Thanks.
mebanedeac on 02/17/2010 (2:57 pm)
