Paid of refs
- Thread starter vgshwk
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Because loyalty is what carries us through the winters of discontent.
Also, where else could Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Rutgers make the kind of money they do in the Big Ten?
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agree 100%. In the Association you have to foul the sh!t out of someone to get a foul call. I was thinking the same thing. The game just flows so much nicer in the NBA. NCAA is like a street fight. Two completely different worlds. And watching the NBA refs vs NCAA there is a HUGE difference in competency. I know there is more coin in the pros obviously but still the product is so much better.
I'm a big fan of both ,Which one Izzo or Larry Scirotto (who moonlights as the Ft Lauderdale Chief of Police)?
There are no coincidences. I don't think there's a "conspiracy", I think the Big Ten has developed a fantastic business model that makes a ton of money for its members. Like all enterprises some things are just "understood" and passed on from generation to generation.
The example you use entirely proves my point. Dr. Davis' teams were great at jamming it inside and drawing fouls. However, look at the box scores come the Big Ten Blue Bloods, or better yet, the play by play. Settles soph year Sparty played the first almost 18 minutes without being called for a foul. You know that isn't really possible if the officials are in any way honest. There's no good faith explanation for that.
Another game, in Iowa, vs. Purdue. A Purdue player puts his forearm across Kingsbury's throat and pushed CK from under the basket off the apron and against the basket support. Replay showed Ed Hightower was looking directly at this play. Hightower called a T on Kingsbury when, pinned at the basket support, finally pushed the Boiler off him. There's no good faith explanation for that.
The old NBA guys like Bova and, of course, Jim Bain didn't even attempt to be subtle. Big Iowa comeback at Indiana-from hard prison bitch rape by the officials-Iowa closes within 2 with a few minutes remaining. Iowa traps the inbounder, Brian Evans. When Bova got the four count he stopped and held is arm up for four more seconds-I used to tape all the games until a water leak ruined all my VHS cassettes. Only after Evans finally got the ball in the air did Bova dropped the arm. And then...and then... and then Iowa trapped the ball against the sideline the Indiana player moved his foot so that the white shoe was squarely across the sideline and onto the red curtain on the OB side of the sideline. Bova looked down, clearly saw the foot OB and then just looked away.
The ball throwing incident, part 1 and far worse part 2. Especially part 2 could not have any plausible explanation but intentional dishonesty. I could go on but you get the point.
Last night, on the play where the big Tampon pushed Joey T to the ground from behind? The official 5 feet from that play watched it and ignored it, the official came from 30 feet away after it was apparent the short dark-haired prick was not going to call something even that obvious.
If this seems improbable read some cases about long term fraudulent business practices. Far worse has been done, far too many times to count for far less money than maintaining the Big Ten brand.
It’s the inconsistency that ticks me off, and presumably the coaches and players as well. Makes it hard to watch when we can see stuff that gets called in the one half and not the other, and hard for the players to play hard when they don’t know what will and will not be permitted.
Perhaps not intent but you can track who tends to call more fouls when calling specific teams games. I forget who it was that broke it down that was clearly calling more fouls, and more likely to T Fran up. There was another red that Iowa just flat out requested not officiate Iowa games in the future, which you don’t see too often.
As others pointed out, that was at least partly due to Indiana fouling more down the stretch.
i believe it was Indiana, either last year or two years ago, where they went like for 10+ minutes without being called for a foul. That’s almost impossible to do.
You brought up a few plays over many years. Over a what, 20 year career spanning hundreds and hundreds of games Dr Toms teams made more free throws than our opponents attempted. That is a fact. Dr Tom had many good wins against the so called blue bloods of the league. If the refs were consistently against us that would not have happened.
You have misunderstood me. Not every game is unfairly officiated and not every crew is entirely crooked. Just that the officiating is sufficiently manipulable or sufficiently understands the preferred outcomes that the preferred outcomes happen almost every year.
I could cite dozens, possibly hundreds, of examples. I just lead with some of the situations that could not be attributed to a good faith mistake. Yet the Big Ten used those same officials for decades, which is kind of prima facie proof the Big Ten didn't care if the officials were dishonest. They don't care because it's a system that makes literally tons of money for everyone involved.
I could cite dozens, possibly hundreds, of examples. I just lead with some of the situations that could not be attributed to a good faith mistake. Yet the Big Ten used those same officials for decades, which is kind of prima facie proof the Big Ten didn't care if the officials were dishonest. They don't care because it's a system that makes literally tons of money for everyone involved.
I thought we were talking about fouls, not free throws taken? Different stats. At one point there were 8 fouls called on Iowa and 3 on Indiana in the first half, iirc. I don’t see a place where they publish the number of fouls called but I’m sure you’ll look it up like the nice boy you are.
In the first half Indiana was called for 10 fouls and Iowa was called for 11 fouls.
Again...quite the disparity.
Valid point. But you also have the wrong possession call with the ball off the leg of the Indiana player, the failure to call basket interference and the technical on Fran. All happening at home in the Big when the home team usually gets a substantial reffing advantage.
You think free throws are dispositive of the officiating quality? Things like the obvious goal tending is not included in FTs. Uncalled fouls are the easiest way for officials to affect the outcome. Like last night you allow one team to foul the other, make a flurry of catch-up calls right before half and the box score doesn't look so bad.
Iowa rarely gets a home court advantage in their conference home games. We don't open games with 18 foul free minutes. We don't get the benefit of no calls on par with last night. The loose balls, the fouls targeted at Iowa's best player-and some of those were questionable.
Statistics do not always tell the entire story. And the statistics you cited on fouls really proves the OPs point, to wit: where ever is that home court advantage enjoyed by most other Big Ten teams? We usually do not.
Iowa rarely gets a home court advantage in their conference home games. We don't open games with 18 foul free minutes. We don't get the benefit of no calls on par with last night. The loose balls, the fouls targeted at Iowa's best player-and some of those were questionable.
Statistics do not always tell the entire story. And the statistics you cited on fouls really proves the OPs point, to wit: where ever is that home court advantage enjoyed by most other Big Ten teams? We usually do not.
Doesn't Michigan State and their coach fall into this also. Always whining and bitching on ever play? But then he seems to get the calls sooner or later????
Lots of compelling arguments here, so without diminishing anyone's opinion, I'll just throw a couple more into the pot.
As far as the Indiana game goes, Iowa did win and the fouls were even. I watched the second half again last night and the Hawks were pretty physical on a few of their steals but no fouls were called. CMac's steal, as an example - it would have been super easy for the refs to call a foul on him, but instead called one on IU. Joey T made a least one steal at half court where, again, they could have called a foul on him but didn't. If the refs were intent on getting an IU win, why would they swallow their whistles at a time when the Hawks were coming back? Did they forget their objective for the game?
Are they incompetent? Well, they are clearly capable of reffing a game that is incredibly difficult to officiate, but they simply aren't a good as they should be. It doesn't mean they are on the take.
Speaking of being on the take, how is it that they get paid? Do they make extra money under the table, and if so where does it come from? Does it come from the B1G in a paper bag on a park bench somewhere? How is that handled?
So, the B1G has been part of a criminal conspiracy to fix games for 40+ years. I mean, really? Executives come and go - is the directive to fix games part of their onboarding package? Do B1G execs make more money when IU wins vs Iowa?
And finally, 40+ years of criminal fraud and NO ONE has come forward to rat out the B1G? The investigative media hasn't gotten a nibble to dig deep into these claims? No books being written? It's never even been on 60 Minutes.
The primary reason I don't believe in major conspiracy theories is simple logistics. The number of people involved to plan, communicate, execute and cover up these things makes them difficult for me to believe. And, if you say "the B1G benefits" from all this, it's not enough. People don't generally conspire to perform criminal activities for the good of the organization, there has to be personal benefit. Where is it?
It's a lot easier for me to believe that refs simply F up calls.
As far as the Indiana game goes, Iowa did win and the fouls were even. I watched the second half again last night and the Hawks were pretty physical on a few of their steals but no fouls were called. CMac's steal, as an example - it would have been super easy for the refs to call a foul on him, but instead called one on IU. Joey T made a least one steal at half court where, again, they could have called a foul on him but didn't. If the refs were intent on getting an IU win, why would they swallow their whistles at a time when the Hawks were coming back? Did they forget their objective for the game?
Are they incompetent? Well, they are clearly capable of reffing a game that is incredibly difficult to officiate, but they simply aren't a good as they should be. It doesn't mean they are on the take.
Speaking of being on the take, how is it that they get paid? Do they make extra money under the table, and if so where does it come from? Does it come from the B1G in a paper bag on a park bench somewhere? How is that handled?
So, the B1G has been part of a criminal conspiracy to fix games for 40+ years. I mean, really? Executives come and go - is the directive to fix games part of their onboarding package? Do B1G execs make more money when IU wins vs Iowa?
And finally, 40+ years of criminal fraud and NO ONE has come forward to rat out the B1G? The investigative media hasn't gotten a nibble to dig deep into these claims? No books being written? It's never even been on 60 Minutes.
The primary reason I don't believe in major conspiracy theories is simple logistics. The number of people involved to plan, communicate, execute and cover up these things makes them difficult for me to believe. And, if you say "the B1G benefits" from all this, it's not enough. People don't generally conspire to perform criminal activities for the good of the organization, there has to be personal benefit. Where is it?
It's a lot easier for me to believe that refs simply F up calls.
The thing is that refs in the NBA have been prosecuted for manipulating games for personal gains and for the mafia. They skewed the numbers to have successful bets for the mafia and themselves to the tune of billions of dollars. Why wouldn't it happen in the NCAA, it's a smaller stage with less eyes on it than the NBA. This podcast about that is super interesting. https://whistleblowerpod.com/
If the refs in the world cup, the largest sporting event in the world (it really happened, look it up) are dirty any ref can be dirty.
Check out the link I included in that post. It's a great podcast, super interesting and really well done. Here's one more link, but after that you'll have to Google it yourself. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Donaghy
I know about Donaghy, I'm curious as to the other refs that have been prosecuted.
I might be wrong about that. Maybe it was just Donaghy, but according to him multiple refs were in on it, and understood that the higher ups at the NBA were expecting certain outcomes between certain teams. I can see why they wouldn't want any other refs prosecuted, it looks a lot worse than one lone wolf shaving points. Have you listened to the podcast? It's pretty wild.
Yes, but a couple of things about that ...
First, I was responding somewhat to those that think the refs are controlled by the B1G to cheat. Gamblers are a different story.
Second, sure it can happen in the NCAA, but why would gamblers care whether a blue-blood school wins? This was also part of an earlier theory.
I would be surprised if individual referees WEREN'T paid off by an individual gambler or the mob sometimes - and it could even happen a lot. I just don't buy the whole organized conspiracy story.
Do I think the refs were crooked? Of course not. Do I think the officiating was poor and inconsistent? Yes. Stuff that got called in the first half was not in the second, and vice versa. Frustrating as heck to watch, and doubly so for the players and coaches I’d imagine, who are never quite sure sometimes what will and won’t be called.
And don't forget the players themselves...I knew 10-15 athletes at Iowa who bet on their own games, and that was at a time when it was not easy to do so anonymously.
The problem with that stat is every year Iowa has a bunch of games vs no-names that are outmatched and get unfriendly whistle at Carver. The true stat would be Big10 conference games.
LIke Davis, I think Fran's teams have had a whistle advantage. Certainly Marble, Garza, Whitey, Cook have been good at drawing fouls. Also playing a lot of zone and being soft on defense means less fouls, but giving up more points.
So his success guarantees him a different set of rules? Is that in the NCAA's rulebook governing the sport?
Midway through the second half, Iowa had 7 fouls called on them, Indiana 2.
It worked the same way in the Big Ten for Dr Tom. And though you say he played a lot of zone he also pressed way more than teams fo today. Not sure where you’re going with this.
Dr Tom played a matchup zone that wasn’t the same thing as a traditional zone defense, and certainly wasn’t soft.
As has already been noted, taking the refs out of the equation would be the ideal move. However, since AI officials aren't in the near future I'd go with having crews for at least the major conferences be full time paid/graded/monitored like the NBA.
It's easier and that's the attraction for most people.
But how do you explain things like the refs response to the ball in the face, part 2 at Indiana. It could not have been based on a good faith mistake. Refs that do that many times in a season. They keep their jobs. The job retention means the employer accepts the employee's conduct as its own.
If one accepts that the conference does retain officials that have demonstrated a willingness to make calls that to make calls that knowingly cheat then does it not otherwise seem reasonable that the conference management would deviate from other bad acts? Like manipulating the official assignments?
It is not a conspiracy. It is the literal order of things. This system for promoting super teams has been around forever. The people involved are just doing what they think they're supposed to do.
As for Big Ten officials, current or ex blowing the whistle, well, you rarely find the kind of courage that would take. Everyone in sports management always has their eye on their next job. Anyone currently employed in Big Ten bus ops that even suggested officials are strategically assigned would have career death. The retired would probably be disinclined to get arrested or have their careers ruined by scandal.
Finally, even a guy with a hostility to Iowa, which can be predicted and assigned, has limits in all but a tiny number of the truly corrupt officials, Larry Scriotto for example. They aren't gangsters. There have been officials that do everything they can to determine the result. But for the most part I think the biases are as much subconscious as not. The conference officials just need to know the biases.
I'm not going to argue about it - you are possibly right. But, I'm not convinced that "the literal order of things", including criminal fraud, is a part of the landscape until it's proven with a money trail.
"Ball in the face" does not convince me that the B!G is involved in a program to help some teams win.
Also, "whistleblower" seems to be the new cool these days.
But, I shall not debate - again, you may be right and I have NO facts to support my belief. It's just my opinion.
But, I really do disagree with this statement - "It's easier and that's the attraction for most people".
I believe it is the opposite - the deck is stacked against us is a pretty easy explanation. All you have to do is read HR to find that most people quickly take solace in "they are out to get us".
Deplorable you go down some deep rabbit holes my brother. 😎
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