What you miss is NOT that the calls against Rutgers were so bad in the first half.. it was that the same calls COULD have been made against Maryland and were NOT. I am just happy that the better team won in the end.. not thanks to a fairly called game.. You NEVER admit when the refs affect the game. I find odd your utter refusal to admit that, sometimes, the officiating gives one team the advantage over the other.
with that said. I agree with you on this matter about today (and I said it at half time when we were down big). Sure there were a few bad calls (the ridiculous charge on paul and the attempted purposeful elbow to miller’s face) but I didn’t see a plethora of bad calls against RU and I am sure Maryland fans could point to a few from their perspective.
the difference in the game was Rutgers. First half literally EVERY player (except Harper on offense) was playing HORRIBLY. Geo was absent. Paul a TO machine. Cliff dropped how many passes/ rebounds?
they completely turned it around in the second half
frankly if you attribute the difference in the halves to officiating then you’re simply not giving the team proper credit for their effort and execution in the 2nd half (and conversely not acknowledging how poorly we played in the first)
I can also say that, imo, at least two bad calls were understandable in that the refs simply did not see the whole thing or that it probably looked worse from their angle. But that doesn't mean seeing a first-half foul differential of 12-5 and FT differential of 1-15 had any other explanation rather than simply UNFAIR refereeing... intentional or not. NOT, I suspect, because they could have done the same in the second half.
I actually think the refs must have reviewed what they did during halftime in some fashion because they allowed us to get handsy early in the second half... as handsy as Maryland was.. maybe... but they still had the differential of the first half that we could not get back.
BAC wants to say, like a commentator, that it was because we weren't going inside.. but we WERE going inside.. NO CALLS.. that was the issue. We actually scored more in teh pain than they did...
That link above shows both teams scored 16 in the pain in the first half.. and certainly, MD had more break-away points down there than we did. So we took the ball to the paint as often as MD did but did not get the foul calls.
Anyone with eyes in their head could see that... well, anyone who did not feel the need to resort to old knee-jerk explanations to rationalize severe foul call differentials so they could avoid being labeled as someone who blames the refs for anything.
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