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**The OFFICIAL "Are Referees Cheating?" Thread***

TheDude73

TheDude73

Heisman
Jan 7, 2006
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In light of our 'fabulous' year of officiating in college basketball, I thought it would be interesting to create a living thread that allows fans to compile links, comments, photos, videos, opinions and facts on the current state of referee bias, agendas, gambling and cheating into one nice, tidy place.

The point of this is to amass a collection of current and historical news articles, conspiracy theories, interviews, witness memories, perceived bias (e.g., Shows from Arkansas and hates Kentucky) and videos to show that college referees are indeed about as corrupt as they could ever be. Video examples to support claims would be perfect!

I'll start by linking a study performed by the University of Michigan way back in 1999, which found that 40% of college officials (football and basketball) bet on individual professional or amateur sports, 21.6% bet on the NCAA basketball tournament, and several (12-14) even let the known Vegas point spread affect their officiating. Also in this study, 12 of those polled stated that they know personally of other officials that did not call the game fairly due to gambling reasons.

Since this type of behavior was documented well before internet gambling anonymity was even available, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that given how easy anonymous and online gambling is today, many of the weird calls we see in sports are very likely influenced by refs (or friends / family of refs) who have cash on the games they are calling.

At any rate, feel free to share your findings, comments, experiences and the like right here in this thread.

http://www.umich.edu/~mgoblue/compliance/officials/gambling.pdf
 
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Blue_White_KY

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Refs aren't cheating. They overall just suck. It's a good ol boys system who continue to take care of each other instead of doing the ethical thing which is putting the best out there.
 
TheDude73

TheDude73

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Here's a juicy one from just 2013 - the Pac 12 basketball officiating fiasco where the lead official offered $5000 cash or a trip to Cancun to his officials prior to the Pac-12 tournament if they "rung up" Sean Miller. One referee did just that - with ~4 minutes left against UCLA, the Pac-12 ref Teed up Sean Miller for what appears to be no reason. And after an entire season, it was not only the first technical Miller received, but the first the referee had doled out.

http://uproxx.com/sports/college-basketball-refs-are-cheating-now-like-nba-refs/
 
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TheDude73

TheDude73

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Blue_White_KY said:
Refs aren't cheating. They overall just suck. It's a good ol boys system who continue to take care of each other instead of doing the ethical thing which is putting the best out there.
Click to expand...

Ok, maybe not all refs are cheating. But if some are, then they all are. That's the way I see it.

When you read the first UofM study, you'll see that 12 refs said they knew other refs called a game based on gambling reasons. Yet oddly none of those 12 did the right thing and called out these other referees, even though they knew they were cheating. In light of that alone, regardless as to whether they are all betting, if they know of it, they are part of it.
 
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Supreme Lord Z

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podgejeff_

podgejeff_

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Dec 4, 2005
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TheDude73 said:
This one is an oldie but a goody. Tony Greene, who we all used to hate like no other, has oddly gone pretty quiet in fan disdain since, well, strangely, 2014 (the last posting year on this link). Maybe the heat got too hot and he decided to cool it down?

http://istonygreeneonthetake.blogspot.com/
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Funny thing about Tony Greene is that he must have absolutely hated Gillispie.

Under Cal, if my math is correct (via Jon Scott's official's page), Green has reffed 52 of our games since Cal has got here. We've won 43 and lost 9. We also have had clearly superior talent in that time so it's not surprising that we'd win more. But that's around a 83% win rate (which is along our historical rate). In that time he didn't call any non-double technicals on UK.

While Gillispie was here Green officiated more losses than wins at KY. 9 losses, 7 wins, only a 44% win rate. 4 techs on Gillispie in two years and 16 games.
 
K

KittyKat1978

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Aug 21, 2013
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podgejeff_ said:
Funny thing about Tony Greene is that he must have absolutely hated Gillispie.

Under Cal, if my math is correct (via Jon Scott's official's page), Green has reffed 52 of our games since Cal has got here. We've won 43 and lost 9. We also have had clearly superior talent in that time so it's not surprising that we'd win more. But that's around a 83% win rate (which is along our historical rate). In that time he didn't call any non-double technicals on UK.

While Gillispie was here Green officiated more losses than wins at KY. 9 losses, 7 wins, only a 44% win rate. 4 techs on Gillispie in two years and 16 games.
Click to expand...

But...but...refs.....conspiracy......*faint*
 
T

tmuck

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martinsm30 said:
Got any examples of that in a league or tournament game? :popcorn:
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Just wanted to make you aware that he's a UL troll posing as a UK fan. Just read the sarcastic subtle nature of his posts, and it's so obvious.
 
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JPScott

JPScott

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This is as good a place as any to throw in some referee-related information for anyone interested.

First of all, in honor of Pat Adams I recently updated the individual referee stats to not only include Personal Fouls called against UK and their opponent for each game, but I've also included the Free Throw Attempts by UK and their opponents along with the number of players who were disqualified for each team (either by fouling out or by ejection). You can access individual referee pages from the following page:

List of Major Referees with Record in UK games

Secondly, some may have seen that I've started to put together some graphics which show the referees in a different way. It's possible to see a rough timeline of when prolific referees worked UK games and see where UK's win % stands in games they called. There's also other things that could be looked at, such as personal foul differentials etc.

Link to Graphical Representation of Current and Past Referees

I hope to add to this page in the coming weeks. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Finally, anytime the issue of referees comes up, I like to present my proposal for improving the communication between referees and the general public, which I think would go a long way towards improving the quality of the calls being made. This proposal is shown below:

 
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Nubb16

Heisman
Jun 30, 2005
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Someone please post the pic of the dude laying on his back out of bounds with the ball and the ref looking at him 5 feet away
 
K

kentuckyrld

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Mar 30, 2007
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I think a significant number of the referees are just no good at their job. Those I pity. Unfortunately, I fear that there are a lot of officials who are betting on the games they are calling and, worse, I am also afraid that a large number of officials are being paid off by Vegas and others. If you think the officials don't cheat then you are simply being stupid.
 
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.S&C.

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What about the Winslow Duke ******** in the wisconsin game. The ball was out on Winslow, the refs even went to the monitor, and still gave the ball to duke.

This is constant, and why I've given up on even giving Duke credit for their hardware. They are aided, and at least 3 of their championships are unearned.

heres an article where the ncaa admits it was a blown call and turned the tide to Duke.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/mens-basketball/article17853371.html
 
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WILD20CATS

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Feb 5, 2007
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JPScott said:
This is as good a place as any to throw in some referee-related information for anyone interested.

First of all, in honor of Pat Adams I recently updated the individual referee stats to not only include Personal Fouls called against UK and their opponent for each game, but I've also included the Free Throw Attempts by UK and their opponents along with the number of players who were disqualified for each team (either by fouling out or by ejection). You can access individual referee pages from the following page:

List of Major Referees with Record in UK games

Secondly, some may have seen that I've started to put together some graphics which show the referees in a different way. It's possible to see a rough timeline of when prolific referees worked UK games and see where UK's win % stands in games they called. There's also other things that could be looked at, such as personal foul differentials etc.

Link to Graphical Representation of Current and Past Referees

I hope to add to this page in the coming weeks. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Finally, anytime the issue of referees comes up, I like to present my proposal for improving the communication between referees and the general public, which I think would go a long way towards improving the quality of the calls being made. This proposal is shown below:

Click to expand...
It would be nice to see how each of those games finished against the spread.
 
M

musrat59

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I have been following the college game for more than fifty years and the officiating over the last 10 years has been really bad.
 
S

School boy

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Oct 29, 2007
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I want us to get the calls. I'm loving these refs now. I'm thinking they are going to favor us.
 
Wildcat Sheli

Wildcat Sheli

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Games where the ref was our opponent's 6th Man and it definitely cost us:

Sirmons for Kansas: gives Briscoe a Technical for fending off a player who wouldn't let him go. Kansas nets 1 basket. Probably mattered at the end of regulation. (+ remember the "fouling disparity" of that game? Pat Adams was also a ref for that one). (We went on to lose our next game; personal opinion is we don't lose that one if we win vs Kansas).

Adams for A&M.

Remember how we dominated Duke? Yet the scoreboard showed us "only" winning by 11? Sirmons & Ayers called that one.

Thanks JPScott, for your stats!!! I encourage other posters to look up the pages mentioned above for Sirmons, Adams, John Higgins, Whitehead, Ayers and Verne Harris.

It's still hard to think about the 2015 Wisconsin game. Something was WAY OFF with that one. I think Cal boiled over at Sirmons over it and the Kansas game when we played at South Carolina. Hope this year's NCAA Tournament is called fairly!
 
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JPScott

JPScott

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WILD20CATS said:
It would be nice to see how each of those games finished against the spread.
Click to expand...

I'm not a gambler and don't track the point spread. And not sure where I could find historical data for what point spreads were (which itself a problem since the point spread can move).

But if someone were able to provide me with point spread information going back say a couple of years (hopefully more), then I'd be happy to incorporate that information into the page as well. It would be interesting to look at, although I don't know that it would show anything meaningful with regard to referee bias.
 
S

Spanish Radio

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KittyKat1978 said:
Of Course......unless they're ruling in our favor! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
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Could you give us some refereeing examples similar to those cited in this thread that have gone Kentucky's way? I think we are all very interested in you backing up your statement.
 
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