Hield vs. Niang, The Finale

I'm looking forward to the final game of the night tonight from the Sprint Center. It'll be the last time these two scoring machines square off against one another. It should be a good game.

I'm not sure which way the board is leaning in terms of who you're pulling for, but because Iowa State tends to bring about 15,000 red-and-yellow-clad fans down from up north, and I've grown to find them rather annoying, I'm kind of pulling for OU. Then again, if that happens, we get by Baylor, and OU beats WVU, that means a third game against those guys--which could be the toughest outcome of them all.

I still think I'm leaning OU, though--both Hield and their coach are more likable than the ISU guys. I don't mind Niang, but McKay was downright annoying at KU on Senior Day.

Should be a good battle tonight--especially for a quarterfinal!

As expected, this one is a dogfight so far. Both teams have a lot of energy and both stars--Hield and Niang--are off to good starts (7 and 6 points, respectively). 18-18 at the 7:34 mark...

...early in the 2nd half.

ISU fans are whining and booing just like at Hilton.

GO OU. Then WVU beat OU to give us the easiest opponent of the 3.

Incredible.

A great display by the Big 12.

Two great seniors battling one final time.

Congrats to OU. Hope both teams represent the league with deep tourney runs--just not as deep as ours!

OU vs WVU tomorrow. Should be interesting...

mpeterson44 wrote: Great game and since it was prime time national TV the Big 12 conference got some serious attention. Only thing I thought after the game was the refs seemed to be pro OU in their calls. I know bad calls are made every game but they usually even out in the end. Didn't seem that way to me in this game. Did anyone else sense this?

There was a point in the game where I said to Anna "This game has been rigged in OU's favor." One ref in particular -- the one with the full head of grey hair -- seemed to me to be the culprit. My comment was made after he had made a quick series of calls (two that stood out -- a suspicious foul against Niang that I didn't see on the replay, another a walk by Niang that I did not see it on the replay) in the second half that just seemed dubious to me -- and they were just as ISU was making a push to get back into the game. His calls slowed down their comeback enough that they never could climb out of the hole.

Looking at the record, the foul count was 21 ISU, 13 OU. While shooting a lot of 3s can tend to minimize a team drawing fouls, ISU shot 25 compared to OU's 21. Very little difference there. And when you factor in the plays such as the ISU travels that weren't, and the no calls that should have been fouls on OU or OU travels, things start to get just a little "funny" to me.

So no, you are not alone in your impressions.

I have to admit that I wasn't watching the game super closely--only checking in every once in awhile. So that's a shame to hear about the refs. The calls I saw against both teams looked legit, though there was one late in the game where Spangler got tied up with McKay and threw the ball off of the latter's body (to retain possession). In looking at the replay, Spangler appeared to be mugging McKay in the process, but nothing was called.

My biggest beef with the officiating came in the KU game, where they kept whistling our bigs for fouls on plays where they played absolutely perfect defense--just the way it is coached--by not reaching and instead staying completely vertical on the jump, with arms raised high, as the ball handler went up for a shot near the rim. We got whistled for that 3-4 times (Lucas two times), and it was just nuts. I mean, what are they supposed to do there, given all the other rules? That is the one thing they're supposed to be allowed to do--and there was no contact at all, save for some potential minor, inadvertent touching of the hips as our bigs jumped upward.

They were also calling us for very slight "bumps" out on the perimeter, which both Fran and Brent said should've been no-calls.

In sum, I wasn't impressed with the over-officiating of the KU game, and it sounds like things went that way--and against ISU--in the nightcap. Sorry to hear that.