[WBB fan]

You can play the game as if it were the platonic ideal of how basketball ought to be called based on the rules of the game as they are printed in the rulebook or you can play the game as it is called in real life, where refs are human, calls get missed, and, especially late in a tight game, refs are less likely to call fouls because of a well-described bias towards ostensibly not letting the game be decided by the refs.  Yes, I totally get that a decision not to call a foul is just as much of the refs influencing the game as the refs blowing a whistle, but this is a well-known human bias.

The question is not whether the play was a foul according to the rulebook; I think we all agree it was.  The question is whether that is a foul that refs will typically call, and I don't think so.  Moreover, this was not a tightly called game; the refs were letting fouls go all game long, including some uncalled fouls against Baylor.  There are two things that I think people can legitimately be upset over.  First is if the reffing is consistently benefiting one team or another, and I thought, as a whole, it was pretty fair.  Second is if the reffing is inconsistent and a play that is called one way early in the game is not called later in the game.  Again, by and large, I thought the refs were letting a lot fly all game long.

So, yes, it was a blown call.  But no, it should not have been a surprise that it was a blown call.

BC

On some things, BC, we agree. Yes, the game is far from a platonic ideal. Indeed, my post stated that the game of basketball has a fundamental flaw in that it relies, and probably has to rely, on human subjectivity.

But I do not agree that this was a call that is not made at the end of the game. This was not a single foul by a single player. It was two fouls by two players. One was a hit to the face. Hits to the face get called. [Indeed, in a recent game, an inadvertent hit to the face by Brink resulted in a flagrant foul call against her. Admittedly, it was not at the end of the game, but how can something that is a flagrant foul in the middle of the game not even be a simple foul at the end of the game?]

And it is simply not correct that there are never foul calls in the last seconds of a game. If you are a basketball fan, you have seen the situation of a player with free throws with little or no time left on the clock, sometimes to win the game or put it into overtime. How does that happen if there are no fouls called at the end of the game? How does Chris Hernandez, one of my favorite Stanford athletes of all time, get the chance to make three free throws to send a game into overtime if fouls are not called at the end of the game? I don't remember what that foul looked like, but I have a hard time believing it was more egregious than the two simultaneous fouls on Carrington last night.

And how does LSU get a foul called that sends it to the Final Four? Maybe my memory is off on that one, but I think it was a no ball charge call after a pass. THAT is more egregious than what happened to Carrington last night?

Fouls do get called in the last seconds of the game. If some fouls get called, what happened last night should have qualified.

I get tired of people second guessing the players in a game that requires split second decisions, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. If the zebras had made the call they should have made, which was by no means at the fringes of what constitutes a foul, the talk would have been, "What a gutsy move by Carrington. She absolutely willed Baylor to the Final Four." Instead, now that we get to see that her play did not work, due to a neglect of duty by those who have the responsibility to enforce the rules. we blame her for the result. Comes with the territory, I guess, but the real blame, in my book, goes to those who refused to enforce the rules.

If that is not a foul, what is? The only issue, within the body of how fouls are called, is which UConn player gets the foul when both have earned it.

Well said!!!

[WBB fan]

You can play the game as if it were the platonic ideal of how basketball ought to be called based on the rules of the game as they are printed in the rulebook or you can play the game as it is called in real life, where refs are human, calls get missed, and, especially late in a tight game, refs are less likely to call fouls because of a well-described bias towards ostensibly not letting the game be decided by the refs.  Yes, I totally get that a decision not to call a foul is just as much of the refs influencing the game as the refs blowing a whistle, but this is a well-known human bias.

The question is not whether the play was a foul according to the rulebook; I think we all agree it was.  The question is whether that is a foul that refs will typically call, and I don't think so.  Moreover, this was not a tightly called game; the refs were letting fouls go all game long, including some uncalled fouls against Baylor.  There are two things that I think people can legitimately be upset over.  First is if the reffing is consistently benefiting one team or another, and I thought, as a whole, it was pretty fair.  Second is if the reffing is inconsistent and a play that is called one way early in the game is not called later in the game.  Again, by and large, I thought the refs were letting a lot fly all game long.

So, yes, it was a blown call.  But no, it should not have been a surprise that it was a blown call.

BC

On some things, BC, we agree. Yes, the game is far from a platonic ideal. Indeed, my post stated that the game of basketball has a fundamental flaw in that it relies, and probably has to rely, on human subjectivity.

But I do not agree that this was a call that is not made at the end of the game. This was not a single foul by a single player. It was two fouls by two players. One was a hit to the face. Hits to the face get called. [Indeed, in a recent game, an inadvertent hit to the face by Brink resulted in a flagrant foul call against her. Admittedly, it was not at the end of the game, but how can something that is a flagrant foul in the middle of the game not even be a simple foul at the end of the game?]

And it is simply not correct that there are never foul calls in the last seconds of a game. If you are a basketball fan, you have seen the situation of a player with free throws with little or no time left on the clock, sometimes to win the game or put it into overtime. How does that happen if there are no fouls called at the end of the game? How does Chris Hernandez, one of my favorite Stanford athletes of all time, get the chance to make three free throws to send a game into overtime if fouls are not called at the end of the game? I don't remember what that foul looked like, but I have a hard time believing it was more egregious than the two simultaneous fouls on Carrington last night.

And how does LSU get a foul called that sends it to the Final Four? Maybe my memory is off on that one, but I think it was a no ball charge call after a pass. THAT is more egregious than what happened to Carrington last night?

Fouls do get called in the last seconds of the game. If some fouls get called, what happened last night should have qualified.

I get tired of people second guessing the players in a game that requires split second decisions, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. If the zebras had made the call they should have made, which was by no means at the fringes of what constitutes a foul, the talk would have been, "What a gutsy move by Carrington. She absolutely willed Baylor to the Final Four." Instead, now that we get to see that her play did not work, due to a neglect of duty by those who have the responsibility to enforce the rules. we blame her for the result. Comes with the territory, I guess, but the real blame, in my book, goes to those who refused to enforce the rules.

If that is not a foul, what is? The only issue, within the body of how fouls are called, is which UConn player gets the foul when both have earned it.

Well said!!!