The Phracas at the Phog

[uh_no]

Our favorite Duke celebrity blowhard has weighed in on the issue:

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...as-state-brawl

Quick summary: Bilas says "yadda yadda yadda, I'm not moved one way or the other on the suspensions."

A lot more yaddas in there than that of course.

For Kansas and Kansas State, the next step is to make sure the punished players are taken care of and get the help and support they need. De Sousa has been pilloried and will be followed by the menacing photos of him with the stool forever. That will not be easy to deal with. These are young men who made errors in judgment in a heated situation. They were wrong. But they should not be thrown out with yesterday's trash. De Sousa is a young man who made a mistake, not a punching bag for those upset with Kansas or the NCAA.

Hell of a different tone than he took with grayson.

[sagegrouse]

ESPN is like a savvy school bully. Roll something out, and if it strikes a chord, worry it like a puppy with a sock.

Grayson Allen could vanish off the face of the earth for ten years. When he re-appeared, ESPN would do a 30-minute retrospective on his tripping incidents -- "The Legend of Grayson Allen."

[sagegrouse]

Our favorite Duke celebrity blowhard has weighed in on the issue:

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...as-state-brawl

Quick summary: Bilas says "yadda yadda yadda, I'm not moved one way or the other on the suspensions."

A lot more yaddas in there than that of course.

Two things of value:

(A) Bilas provided a detailed analysis of what actually happened. Perhaps it's elsewhere, but I hadn't gleaned it.

(B) Bilas suggests three remedies to prevent this situation -- the two boldface statements are worth considering:

First, when the clock is running out in a blowout, let the clock run out. Don't try for a steal. It is unnecessary. And, while the officials did a great job overall in dealing with the fight and did not make a mistake in this, I would consider calling a foul on the defender going for the steal. The offensive team was clearly trying to run out the clock. If you call the foul, you avoid a potential bad situation and discourage the same thing in the future. Reasonable minds can differ on this thought, but I think it would be a good way for an official to handle a situation. Remember, we saw the same thing in the Kansas-Monmouth game earlier this season.

Second, don't try to defend your basket after the steal when you were running out the clock. It is unnecessary. Did it lead to the fight? No, but if you let it go, there is no fight.

Third, stop the taunting. When you dunk on someone or block a shot, that's great. Celebrate it with your teammates. Just leave your opponent out of it. Taunting an opponent doesn't make the dunk or block more impressive. One thing you can guarantee, we will see taunting technical fouls more often going forward, and perhaps we should.

As to the "blah, blah, blah...," I thought he got paid by the year -- maybe he gets paid by the word. Seriously friends, the first three paras. are just a barrier to getting to the rest of the article.

[Acymetric]

Was there actually a foul when he went for the steal, or is Bilas just saying they should call a foul there regardless?

[sagegrouse]

Was there actually a foul when he went for the steal, or is Bilas just saying they should call a foul there regardless?

No foul. Bilas is suggesting that the refs step in and, as a preventive measure, stop the steal. Of course, then what? There is still time left on the clock but maybe the game would unwind in an orderly fashion.

No worries -- if Bilas suggests it, the NCAA would reflexively say no -- ever since he blew the whistle on the NCAA sale of Johnny Manziel jerseys.

[sagegrouse]

Grayson Allen could vanish off the face of the earth for ten years. When he re-appeared, ESPN would do a 30-minute retrospective on his tripping incidents -- "The Legend of Grayson Allen."

Moreover, if he had disappeared into the Amazon, the lead of the report would be that he had fled "to escape his horrible past."

[Phredd3]

Quick summary: Bilas says "yadda yadda yadda, I'm not moved one way or the other on the suspensions."

A lot more yaddas in there than that of course.

Among the yaddas, was this, "Could the result of the fight have been worse and people, including spectators, injured? Yes, that could have happened. But it didn't happen. The Big 12 had to sanction what happened, not what could have happened."

I think Bilas himself recognizes that this is simply untrue. Given that this was a serious altercation involving serious risk, it merited more than the one-game suspension which Bilas concedes is all that is required by the rules. Anyone even talking about the stool understands this. De Sousa didn't hurt anyone, yet Bilas seems to think a 12-game suspension is fine. The only possible explanation for that is that you understand this fight went further beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior than most. The sanction imposed clearly takes into account "what could have happened" in some way.

I'm not impressed with this "calm voice of reason" take, simply because the reasoning itself isn't very good.

[Tooold]

No foul. Bilas is suggesting that the refs step in and, as a preventive measure, stop the steal. Of course, then what? There is still time left on the clock but maybe the game would unwind in an orderly fashion.

The foul will be called “trying to steal the ball when time is running out” or “the Bilas Rule”.
Or it could be “unnecessary stealing”

[Phredd3]

No foul. Bilas is suggesting that the refs step in and, as a preventive measure, stop the steal.

It's a stupid take, and one that will never happen. How do you even codify that into a rule, let alone enforce it fairly? Players are just going to have to get used to the idea that as long as the time hasn't expired, there's a basketball game going on.

Of course, I wish some entire teams would apply that at the beginning of games, but that's a different topic.

[brlftz]

A foul is a judgment call, I think Bilas is just suggesting that the ref use his judgment to call a "foul" there. Not making up a new rule, just suggesting that the ref use his existing power to make an "oops bad call" to diffuse the situation.

[CDu]

Among the yaddas, was this, "Could the result of the fight have been worse and people, including spectators, injured? Yes, that could have happened. But it didn't happen. The Big 12 had to sanction what happened, not what could have happened."

I think Bilas himself recognizes that this is simply untrue. Given that this was a serious altercation involving serious risk, it merited more than the one-game suspension which Bilas concedes is all that is required by the rules. Anyone even talking about the stool understands this. De Sousa didn't hurt anyone, yet Bilas seems to think a 12-game suspension is fine. The only possible explanation for that is that you understand this fight went further beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior than most. The sanction imposed clearly takes into account "what could have happened" in some way.

I'm not impressed with this "calm voice of reason" take, simply because the reasoning itself isn't very good.

Agreed. If there wasn't some implicit punishment for the added risk of (a) fighting amongst paying customers and (b) brandishing a stool, then the 12-game suspension makes no sense. Previous fights haven't come close to that level of suspension. So, clearly the

It's a stupid take, and one that will never happen. How do you even codify that into a rule, let alone enforce it fairly? Players are just going to have to get used to the idea that as long as the time hasn't expired, there's a basketball game going on.

Of course, I wish some entire teams would apply that at the beginning of games, but that's a different topic.

I also agree here. The issue is, where is the line drawn? Clearly down 30 with under 10 seconds left is a "game over" situation. But what about "down 10 with under 30"? Things get really gray when you try to legislate when a game is "out of reach." The rules of what is and is not a foul shouldn't change based on time and score. Employing a "late game foul" rule is not a viable solution to me.

[CameronBornAndBred]

The first away game they play, the entire student section should hold up cardboard cutouts of stools. It's a shame that De Sousa won't be there, but he'd see them on TV.

[uh_no]

I also agree here. The issue is, where is the line drawn? Clearly down 30 with under 10 seconds left is a "game over" situation. But what about "down 10 with under 30"? Things get really gray when you try to legislate when a game is "out of reach." The rules of what is and is not a foul shouldn't change based on time and score. Employing a "late game foul" rule is not a viable solution to me.

If they wanted something like that, why not just say "the game is over" why make the offensive player go through the formality of dribbling.

[CDu]

If they wanted something like that, why not just say "the game is over" why make the offensive player go through the formality of dribbling.

Exactly. If there is time on the clock, the game should be called by the rules. And the rules should not change based on how much time is on the clock.

Full disclosure: I'm also not a fan of the clock stopping on made baskets in the final minute of regulation, nor am I a fan of officials swallowing the whistle late and supposedly "letting the players decide it", nor am I a fan of limiting official reviews to the last two minutes.

[uh_no]

Exactly. If there is time on the clock, the game should be called by the rules. And the rules should not change based on how much time is on the clock.

Full disclosure: I'm also not a fan of the clock stopping on made baskets in the final minute of regulation, nor am I a fan of officials swallowing the whistle late and supposedly "letting the players decide it", nor am I a fan of limiting official reviews to the last two minutes.

i generally agree. the issue with not stopping the clock is the leading team has incentive to "accidentally" knock the ball away after a made basket or catch the ball coming through the hoop and hold it for just a tiny bit longer before passing it to the official. Then you have a judgement call whether an act was an intentional delay of game, reviews of that, technical fouls...etc. Soccer has BS like that, and we don't need it.

[Acymetric]

i generally agree. the issue with not stopping the clock is the leading team has incentive to "accidentally" knock the ball away after a made basket or catch the ball coming through the hoop and hold it for just a tiny bit longer before passing it to the official. Then you have a judgement call whether an act was an intentional delay of game, reviews of that, technical fouls...etc. Soccer has BS like that, and we don't need it.

I would rather change the rule to stop the clock after every made basket than to keep it running after made baskets under 1 minute (if we're changing it, I would prefer to just keep it as-is since it seems to work fine). It is kind of strange that it doesn't stop, actually, given that the clock stops for basically everything else.

[CDu]

i generally agree. the issue with not stopping the clock is the leading team has incentive to "accidentally" knock the ball away after a made basket or catch the ball coming through the hoop and hold it for just a tiny bit longer before passing it to the official. Then you have a judgement call whether an act was an intentional delay of game, reviews of that, technical fouls...etc. Soccer has BS like that, and we don't need it.

Easy to fix. If the ball gets held/kicked/batted such that the other team can’t get it, blow the whistle to stop the clock. The same as happens during normal play pretty regularly.

I would rather change the rule to stop the clock after every made basket than to keep it running after made baskets under 1 minute (if we're changing it, I would prefer to just keep it as-is since it seems to work fine). It is kind of strange that it doesn't stop, actually, given that the clock stops for basically everything else.

I would be fine with this too. As long as it is consistent throughout.

[azzefkram]

I think part of the problem is that folks are overstating what McCormack did. If you watch closely, I don't think McCormack was actually stomping anyone. He was stepping over/around legs in order to try to get to Love again. He threw punches (hence the suspension), but I think the stomp claims were inaccurate.

As for De Sousa, it all comes down to how much you want to weigh the stool waiving. It sounds like he got 4-5 games for that and 7-8 for the rest. Basically, roughly the same as what Love got, plus the penalty for the stool, and perhaps minus the penalty for coming off the bench. And Love's suspension is longer than any other player has gotten for fighting in recent memory.

I think the only debate is really over how long De Sousa's suspension should have been.

I thought it looked like stomping but if there was no stomping going on then 2 games seems about right. If De Sousa put the stool down on his own, I could get on board with with 12 games. He had to have it taken from him. He got off light.

[Acymetric]

Easy to fix. If the ball gets held/kicked/batted such that the other team can’t get it, blow the whistle to stop the clock. The same as happens during normal play pretty regularly.

I can already hear the endless debates about how the ref should/should not have stopped the clock because whatever the leading team did with the ball was/was not a "delay".

[CDu]

I can already hear the endless debates about how the ref should/should not have stopped the clock because whatever the leading team did with the ball was/was not a "delay".

Further disclosure: I think the officials are too lax letting the scoring team handle the ball after a made basket. If a player from the scoring team grabs the ball and does ANYTHING but let it go under the basket (and that includes throwing the ball to the official AND includes throwing it to a player on the other team) it should be a delay of game warning/violation. If the ball gets accidentally knocked away, that should be an incidental delay (official’s stoppage). Call it consistently throughout and it isn’t hard.

But like I said, I would also be totally fine if the clock stopped every time a score happens.