MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Gregory Sager]

This ballgame at Kachel is absolutely crazy.

[Gregory Sager]

Orange does it again. Wow.

[Gregory Sager]

UWRF goes down big to Wartburg, 76-43. It was never close.

[AppletonRocks]

Greg, how can Pat Miller get a T at such a critical time?   

[AppletonRocks]

UWRF goes down big to Wartburg, 76-43. It was never close.

Shocker, River Falls shoots about 20% at home.

[uww4ever]

I streamed the game.  The tech was warranted.  The refs absolutely blew some calls on charges.  My opinion is that tech didn't lose the game, but did come at a bad time and free throws were missed and it was a good last shot by Orange to win the game.  Just unfortunate way to lose and a good effort to come back the way they did for UWW......

[fredfalcon]

Evidently, bb game results are not always predictable! Don't know what to blame 22% shooting on other than last night's exhaustive effort in the double o.t. RF played hard, especially in the second half, but shot 22%, and got out re-bounded. Wartburg is a good team, but not any better than several we've played this season.We got out to an 8-0 run to start the second half, but W. was not fazed, did not panic, kept on shooting well. Good luck to them. They are poised to make a deep run.

But we've never had as good a season as this one, and we are all grateful for that and for what this team has accomplished. Next year should be another good one.

[ShineTime]

Wow so it's not only uwsp that seems to be falling off the map it's the wiac all together.  I've always felt the wiac top to bottom was the best conference in the country and perhaps it still is overall but point not being point really hurts.  Whitewater and river falls had very talented athletes and couldn't get it done so coaching could also be questioned. 

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Wow so it's not only uwsp that seems to be falling off the map it's the wiac all together.  I've always felt the wiac top to bottom was the best conference in the country and perhaps it still is overall but point not being point really hurts.  Whitewater and river falls had very talented athletes and couldn't get it done so coaching could also be questioned.

Wait... wait... wait... I'm confused... it's Points' fault?

[Just Bill]

Wow so it's not only uwsp that seems to be falling off the map it's the wiac all together.  I've always felt the wiac top to bottom was the best conference in the country and perhaps it still is overall but point not being point really hurts.  Whitewater and river falls had very talented athletes and couldn't get it done so coaching could also be questioned.

Wait... wait... wait... I'm confused... it's Points' fault?

Careful Alice. That appears to be a deep Rabbit Hole you're headed toward.

[jimhoops1234]

ShineTime:

Did you watch the game? River Falls got shots they normally take and make, they just didn't fall last night.

Like others mentioned, maybe the 2OT game Friday took too much out of them and they didn't have their legs and came up short on some shots.

River Falls finished 25-4. Won Regular season and conference tournament championship. FredFalcon can correct me if wtong, but I believe Friday was first ever NCAA tournament win in program history...I'm guessing coaching played a part in that as well.

As Roy Williams said "I must have the easiest job in America, because everyone else can do it better than me"

[AppletonRocks]

Wow so it's not only uwsp that seems to be falling off the map it's the wiac all together.  I've always felt the wiac top to bottom was the best conference in the country and perhaps it still is overall but point not being point really hurts.  Whitewater and river falls had very talented athletes and couldn't get it done so coaching could also be questioned.

Don't worry, Shinetime. Even if the Point program is killed, the Titans will be around to carry the WIAC flag for the forseeable future. 

[badgerwarhawk]

Pat Miller's technical was for stating "that was a rookie mistake" after the officials had completely screwed up a free throw situation by stopping play on the rebound of the front end of a missed bonus free throw to award a second free throw.  The correction resulted in costing us possession and to their credit Augustana took advantage of the error and hit a three pointer. 

I don't feel that the technical was warranted at all.  You don't compound a mistake that a grade school official would be embarrassed by because the coach on the short end of the stick calls it a "rookie mistake."  The officials knew that they had made a stupid mistake at an absolutely critical moment in the game which significantly impacted one of the two teams.  Unless the offending comment is a barrage of profanity you simply suck it up and move on.  You don't compound it. 

Regardless and despite it we were still in position to win but when you go 8-18 from the free throw line bad things are going to happen.  All we had to do was make three of the ten we didn't.  Free throws have been an issue all year.  We've been at or near the bottom of the league.  Last night it cost us a chance to advance to the Sweet 16. 

Congratulations and good luck to the Vikings.  They represented well.  I know I've never seen a more exciting weekend of basketball in Williams Center.   

[Gregory Sager]

Pat Miller's technical was for stating "that was a rookie mistake" after the officials had completely screwed up a free throw situation by stopping play on the rebound of the front end of a missed bonus free throw to award a second free throw.  The correction resulted in costing us possession and to their credit Augustana took advantage of the error and hit a three pointer. 

Well, I owe Pat Miller an apology, then, because I assumed wrongly that he must've dropped an f-bomb, or something equally unsavory, on the ref as he ran up the side of the floor after Sortillo's trey.

I don't feel that the technical was warranted at all.  You don't compound a mistake that a grade school official would be embarrassed by because the coach on the short end of the stick calls it a "rookie mistake."  The officials knew that they had made a stupid mistake at an absolutely critical moment in the game which significantly impacted one of the two teams.  Unless the offending comment is a barrage of profanity you simply suck it up and move on.  You don't compound it.

It significantly impacted both teams, really, since anything bad that the officials inadvertently do to the Warhawks is also something that they inadvertently do good to Augustana (and vice-versa, of course).

I think that the problem with what Miller did was as much a matter of timing as wording, if not more. While "That was a rookie mistake!" is something that might get you T'ed up by one official and not T'ed up by another -- it was an MIAA crew working the game, so I'm pretty sure that Pat didn't know what he could get away with and what he couldn't in terms of the official's disposition -- I suspect that most refs wouldn't dole out a technical at the end of a close tournament game because of that, especially when there had been a blatant and costly error on the part of the officials. But I've noticed over the years that officials tend to have a "I'll let you yell at me now, but once play resumes you're going to have to put it behind you" attitude. I've seen lots of instances in which a coach has received a technical shortly after play resumed following some sort of incident, similar to what happened last night. Pat should've just let it go rather than getting in one more dig after the game had started back up. It was important at that stage of the game for him to avoid giving an unfamiliar officiating crew any chance to ring him up, and he failed to do that.
 

Regardless and despite it we were still in position to win but when you go 8-18 from the free throw line bad things are going to happen.  All we had to do was make three of the ten we didn't.  Free throws have been an issue all year.  We've been at or near the bottom of the league.  Last night it cost us a chance to advance to the Sweet 16. 

Augie only went 5-10, so bad FT shooting plagued both teams. One of the weirder aspects of last night was how much physical play the officials let go. I referred to the game on CCIW Chat as a "bruise-a-thon", and yet the two teams only shot a combined 28 free throws.

Congratulations and good luck to the Vikings.  They represented well.  I know I've never seen a more exciting weekend of basketball in Williams Center.

Amen to that. Three of the best tourney games in recent memory, and they all took place in one gym over one weekend. All three literally could have gone either way right down to the final second. Last night's game definitely fell into the "both teams deserve to advance, but only one of them can win" category.

[badgerwarhawk]

Greg, when you know you've screwed up, you know you've screwed up and you know that screw up potentially is the difference you suck it up when you run past the coach and his comments are less than profanely abusive.  Though I don't officiate at the college level I've been that official.  Calling a technical for comments that tame not only makes you look bad and even worse it compounds the impact you've already had.  All at the point the game is literally being decided.  If Miller and/or Givoanne (sp?, too lazy to look it up) were going to get a technical for their behavior there was every reason to give it considerably earlier in the contest.  You know what your guy is like and AR's told you about our guy so trust me calling it at that point for those comments was the wrong thing to do.  Regardless we still had our chances.  So it goes, 

When you think about there's very little reason the game couldn't have been St Thomas/Northwestern.  It was that kind of weekend.